I was curious to see the label "fad diet" in the lede and question its applicability and definition. I found the most recent discussion about the term in the talk page archives here. It seems a bit too much to define the idea of Paleo diet as a fad. The link to the article fad diet says "A fad diet is a diet for which promises of weight loss are made that are not backed by good science, and which is characterized by unusual food choices." Most references i've ever seen to paleo diet are not mainly in regard to weight loss but rather sense of well being. Anyway, i wished to bring this up again so it's an active discussion on the talk page. As i read the archived discussion, i didn't read a consensus about the term "fad diet" being the definitional noun in the first sentence of this article. I found many people advocating otherwise, in fact. SageRad (talk) 18:19, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's well-sourced in the body (to a piece by H Hall). And it is a diet with "unusual food choices" which seems to fit the bill. Have you got sources that dispute the "fad diet" categorization? Alexbrn (talk) 18:41, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have no specific source at hand. I've been curious about this diet, and quite undecided about my own opinion on it. I will be taking a lot more time to read sources, and to gather information for my own use. However, the word "fad" does color the opening sentence heavily with a pejorative tone, and it's also not actually in the source cited you cite there, the piece in the New York Times by Hall, which you are saying is the source for the use of the term "fad diet". The term is not used in that article at all. It's quite a wonderful article and i'm glad to have read it. It makes wonderful points about the presence of starches in pre-agricultural human diets, and about the use of fire to cook starches making them more bioavailable, but it doesn't call the paleo diet a fad diet, and doing so might be synthesis if that's the only source. I am sure that there are sources that call the diet a "fad diet" as well as sources that state explicitly that it's not a "fad diet" but as editors we're tasked with writing an article that is as NPOV as possible and that might mean leaving out a pejorative term as the defining noun for the topic of the article and including criticism later in the text. SageRad (talk) 18:52, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The link you say is to Hall's piece is in fact to one by "Karl Zimmer"?? If there are reliable sources that 'state explicitly that it's not a "fad diet"' then produce them. Why are you "sure" about this before even looking? Sounds like editing with a strong POV! That is best avoided. (BTW, also be aware that in the literature there is an overlap between the question of GMOs and the paleo diet, which this article needs expanding with.) Alexbrn (talk) 18:58, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop the personal attacks here (by which i mean you saying i'm "editing with a strong POV" just because i'm reviving this question and asking it here). This is not a friendly tone for a good dialogue and it's not assuming good faith. Taking a break from this. Not interested in a contentious dialogue like this. I've had enough of that. And for goodness sake, this is not about GMOs. This is a completely different topic. Please sir, i've had enough of this. Can't i please edit peacefully and expect good dialogue anywhere? SageRad (talk) 19:07, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You said "I am sure". Alexbrn (talk) 19:10, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Figure of speech, how humans talk. SageRad (talk) 19:12, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

But yes, indeed, i meant the piece by Zimmer, not Hall. That's the one that sourced the lede sentence that called paleo diet a fad diet. SageRad (talk) 22:36, 25 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So what i'm gathering is that the use of "fad diet" is source to Hall here. I think that's a POV source and not enough for an NPOV article to call the diet a "fad diet" in the opening sentence. SageRad (talk) 19:12, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to have a better source, but given the nature of diets I think it's fine.

What does "a POV source" mean? --Ronz (talk) 19:38, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Skeptic source is POV in that it has a strong slant upon the topic which is different from general mainstream slant, in that it's within the Skeptic subculture which has a particular bent toward what they call "debunking" things, which often goes far beyond actual skepticism into a particular ideological realm. It's a subculture as documented here and here. It's a subculture that fetishizes debunking and uses a caricature of scientific knowing. It's a subculture that creates media on many things outside itself, and yet is not necessarily an authoritative source on those other things.

There is a source that explicitly says that the concept of paleo diet is not a fad here although it's also a POV source in that it is from a pro-paleo-diet stance. Then there is a source in a more mainstream mode here that asks the question "is it a fad?" and contains lines like Not all medical scientists agree with some of the diet's claims. but does not conclude that it's a fad diet, but rather that it can be helpful: This is, I'm sure, a good thing, eliminating foods that are low in nutrients and high in calories. It's also a diet that involves no weighing or calorie counting – another plus. SageRad (talk) 16:31, 25 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

different from general mainstream slant ← I don't believe so. Produce sources on this diet to back-up that Point of View, please. And best to avoid The Daily Telegraph. Much as I admire [Xanthe Clay's] cookery writing this is not a good RS, and it doesn't even say this diet is not a fad diet. Better to rely on medical writers like Hall, or the NHS. Alexbrn (talk) 16:55, 25 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Skeptic (TM) sources are from a very specific point of view. They are happy to so-called "debunk" a lot of things without the care and integrity needed to actually do a real unbiased secondary source type of assessment. They do not have a balanced or mainstream or anything approaching neutral point of view. That's pretty obvious. You may not believe do, but i do believe so. And yes, the Telegraph article does ask the question and then does conclude that it's not a fad diet. You don't need to see a sentence explicitly saying "It is not a fad diet" in the article to read this in the article. It clearly ends with the answer to the title's question being "not really, there's some benefit and some basis to it". And there was also the source that did explicitly say it's not a fad diet, which is equally as POV as the Skeptic source is POV in the other direction. SageRad (talk) 17:01, 25 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted to point out that the NHS did refer to it as a "fad diet" back in 2008 here. The debate here seems to be grounded on a particular definition of fad diet, i.e. a Dr. Oz-type "miracle" diet. The term "fad diet" doesn't necessarily mean that the diet has no benefits whatsoever; rather, it means the diet's primary claims are unscientific, unrepresentative, or outright false, and that it has high profile marketing and widespread rapid uptake. So the paleo diet may not quite be a "fad diet" as such, but the diet is a fad. Perhaps a rephrasing in the lede would be appropriate. Amateria1121 (talk) 22:03, 25 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Some points on the term "fad diet" being the definitional noun in the first sentence of this article for the paleo diet concept:

• "Fad" means that it's a passing phenomenon, which would be a prediction, as the concept is still a cultural force going strong.
• "Fad diet" has the ring of a packaged diet, at least to me, a branded thing that is offered by a single source generally, not a cultural phenomenon like the paleo diet appears to be to me.
• The hyperlink fad diet leads to a technical definition A fad diet is a diet for which promises of weight loss are made that are not backed by good science, and which is characterized by unusual food choices. Whether or not this is an accurate and good working definition for the term, it's also very much debatable whether this fits the paleo diet at least in the main stream of what it means to most people who understand it and/or practice it and/or pay attention to it. I sussed this out by reading some forums recently .
• The term is also a loaded pejorative, with the apparent intent of discrediting the subject of the article which seems undue to me on the whole. It would be a good fit for a criticism section and the Hall piece would fit well there, but i don't find it reasonable or justifiable to make this the definitional noun for the article's subject. SageRad (talk) 22:36, 25 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

On the cultural place of Skeptic magazine as a source and skepticism of this subcultural sort in general (questioned in comments above regarding the reliability or POV nature of the Hall piece in Skeptic), there are indeed many sources that speak of this phenomenon as a subcultural happening. I just found a lot of these writings by googling about it. Daniel Drasin writes on it, this paper speaks about CSICOP and Skeptical Inquirer and "the Skeptics" as a group with a particular POV and agenda and other various sociological observations. And here is a list of various writings about what they call pseudoskepticism. I had come to these same conclusions and even began to use the term "pseudoskepticism" on my own in the last months while observing this social movement or social phenomenon in various media campaigns designed to discredit certain people or concepts, generally in line with an industrial modernity point of view, and to the detriment and insult of people and ideas to which they are hostile. SageRad (talk) 22:36, 25 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused; the British Dietetic Association calls it a fad diet, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics lists it under "fad diets", opinion pieces in very high quality journals like JAMA explicitly calls it a fad diet, and all recent MEDRS compliant sources says there is no significant evidence that it actually works. What exactly is the problem with calling it a fad diet, again? Yobol (talk) 23:08, 25 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's a term that is often used in a pejorative sense, an implication that SageRad doesn't like. It tends to associate the paleo diet with other, more obviously unscientific diets like the South Beach Diet. Although both are highly unscientific, I would argue that the paleo diet does not seem as...tacky. Or maybe that's just because its proponents do a better job selling it. Personally I would leave the phrase "fad diet" in the lede though, but I understand why an alternative phrase might be considered.

However, drifting into circular debates about POV sources is entirely unproductive. Skepticism, pseudo or otherwise, works both ways - there's always money to be made exploiting people's skepticism, be it of the conventional wisdom or of the alternative interpretations. Amateria1121 (talk) 00:51, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'd actually say the Paleo™ diet was less scientific that South Beach - but yes, they're both fad diets as RS tells us. I think per WP:PSCI we need to be up-front with readers about its iffy nature. Alexbrn (talk) 07:01, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The article's topic is "Paleolithic diet", not Paleo™ diet. Please note that this is not a single-source diet or a diet named after a person or based on a single person's work. It's more of an approach to eating, a concept that lives in the culture and has a community that practices it. There is scientific rationale for reasoning about why it would result in various effects. It's got many flavors and variations. Therefore it's inappropriate to refer to it with a trademark symbol unless you're specifying a particular branded incarnation that's been commercialized. SageRad (talk) 11:17, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say that discussing POV of sources can be fruitful and is not circular. It is often necessary to discuss the nature of sources including whether they have a strong POV. The question was asked about the Skeptic source and i answered it. My concerns are not about money to be made, but ideological POV pushing and bias in sources. SageRad (talk) 11:17, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I see that as cherrypicking. The JAMA mention is a letter with passing reference to Paleo diet. When i go on PubMed and search for review articles referring to "Paleo diet", the first result returned (i.e. not cherrypicking) is a very recent review article that refers to the Paleolithic diet as a valid and scientifically reasonable approach to eating, and that it shows promise of working but needs further study. When i search on Google Scholar, i find several primary studies that report benefits to the diet. For these reasons, it doesn't seem that the term "fad diet" is an appropriate descriptor for the primary noun in the article's first sentence. SageRad (talk) 11:17, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's a fad diet alright, and multiple strong sources back that up (where none say otherwise that we know of). "a very recent review article that refers to the Paleolithic diet as a valid and scientifically reasonable approach to eating" ← link? Alexbrn (talk) 11:21, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The link is in my comment. Pure assertion is not very strong argumentation. You can't wish something into being true. There are multiple sources that call it a fad diet, but there are multiple sources that say it's not, and that treat it as a valid approach to eating. Therefore, there exists a range of points of view on this question, and calling it a "fad diet" in the first sentence is not NPOV content in the article according to the range of sources available and does not represent the general sense of sources accurately. SageRad (talk) 11:39, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That would be the article which concludes "The Paleolithic diet might be an acceptable antidote to the unhealthy Western diet, but only unequivocal results from randomized controlled trials or meta-analyses will support this hypothesis" and which doesn't consider the "fad" categorization at all. Alexbrn (talk) 11:49, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, that's the one... the non-consideration of "fad diet" is not a mark against the removal of the "fad diet" pejorative from the first sentence, you know. The review takes the paleolithic diet seriously and asserts that there is good reason to believe that it has the specific benefits for which they were evaluating, and it needs further study. That in itself is evidence that the reviewers do not see it as a "fad diet". You do not need every source to say explicitly that "the paleo diet is not a fad" to endorse that it's not a fad in the sense that you're pushing for the article to say. And the review in question is looking at the paleo diet in terms of a very specific benefit and that is why they say further study is needed to show benefit unequivocally. I feel this dialogue here being difficult and not unbiased. I feel a pushing. i would like to assume good faith but I don't feel an unbiased look at the range of literature being done by most participants here. I don't feel a genuine consideration of the question happening. I feel we'll end up going in circles with frayed ends unresolved based on what's happened already. SageRad (talk) 12:29, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We get this kind of POV-push all the time, of the form "since {$fringe-topic} is taken seriously, it has some validity". See, e.g. the archives of the Homeopathy page: homeopathy is seriously studied a lot: it does not stop it being fringe nonsense. It is pure original research to say that because the reviewers do not mention "fad diets" you can intuit their view on this. One might as well say that it's so obvious it doesn't need mentioning. In any case if we follow good sources and WP:STICKTOSOURCE it's all quite clear. I suggest we are done here. Alexbrn (talk) 12:43, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is not homeopathy, so that's irrelevant. You calling something "fringe" does not "fringe" make it. The word of someone just because they call themselves a "skeptic" does not become gospel. It's no substitute for the words of actual experts. I cited the most recent review article that i could find mentioning the article's topic, from PubMed, here, above, in case you missed it. I do support sticking to sources, and the result of doing so calls into question the first sentence of this article. There are some sources that call it a "fad diet" but there are a great many other sources that do not, and therefore it seems the label as the primary label for this concept is not accurate in an NPOV sense. SageRad (talk) 17:30, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest we're not done here as long as there is a serious issue that violates NPOV in the article. I suggest you don't dismiss my concerns in the way you're doing or attempt to characterize them as POV pushing. I'm working against the POV i see pushed already into the article and doing so with good and reasonable dialogue. You can choose to participate in good dialogue or not, but if you do not them you don't get to determine what's in the article. SageRad (talk) 15:03, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you make sense. The consensus here is clear. To widen it, I suggest adding to the already-open noticeboard thread at WP:FT/N#Paleolithic diet. Alexbrn (talk) 15:41, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding of NPOV and FRINGE in all this, especially starting with [1], and any edits made based upon these misunderstandings would rather blatantly violate WP:ARBPS. --Ronz (talk) 16:31, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think i have a "fundamental misunderstanding" of these things in the least. I think i see things differently from you which does not inherently mean i'm wrong. Your declaring that you think i have a fundamental misunderstanding of basic policies when i actually do understand them is sort of insulting and condescending and makes dialogue on this kind of difficult. Why not talk about the actual issue, the question of whether "fad diet" is warranted as the primary noun in the first sentence of this article when there is a diverse range of opinions on this question in the reliable sources on the subject of this article? I think that's sort of what NPOV asks us to do as editors. I don't see real engagement on the issue at hand here, very much. I see a few sources that call it a fad diet, but they look cherrypicked, and i see some blowback on my calling Skeptic magazine a point of view source and not neutral enough to justify basing the entire orientation of this article on it and a couple of cherrypicked sources. Some people think it's a fad diet but a great many other people do not, and you can't declare that out of reality. SageRad (talk) 17:25, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You cannot declare consensus when there are valid and well-explained issues on the table and i have explained myself well enough. You'd need to actually hear and address my concerns in order to work on establishing consensus. SageRad (talk) 17:25, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Your concerns have been noted and given the consideration they deserve. Only in death does duty end (talk) 19:34, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. SageRad (talk) 08:44, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, really. -Roxy the dog™ woof 09:33, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I submit that an impartial observer who reads this dialog would find it sorely lacking integrity. This article is badly biased and it's doing a disservice to the reader. The other editors here seem to be bent on an agenda to retain the phrase "fad diet" as the key noun in the first sentence despite it not reflecting a fair survey of reliable sources, in other words to violate the policies of Wikipedia to maintain an ideological position in regard to the subject of the article. I google "Paleolithic diet" and i find the first result after this article itself is the Mayo Clinic page here.... it does not call the diet a "fad diet" and it says there is moderate evidence that it has benefits. And many other sources are similar, respectable sources. And yet this article is in a lockdown by a group of editors who have made an ideological call to arms and pushed a specific point of view into it, against the general lay of the reliable sources. It's not right, and it does not serve the encyclopedia. And when i do edit here, people post chilling, gaslighting and bullying messagesh on my talk page designed to intimidate me away from editing this article and anything else they deem "fringe" (a label used in a McCarthyism way in this context). It's an agenda pushing that is not healthy for editors or the encyclopedia. It is not good for the world because readers learn about the world through Wikipedia and they are getting a slanted reflection of reality imposed by a small group of editors with a particular POV to push. SageRad (talk) 09:46, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

…a slanted reflection of reality imposed by a small group of editors with a particular POV to push. SageRad, did it ever occur to you that others might consider that a pretty accurate description of yourself? How about, for this article, we just focus on the content? Maybe there's a sinister agenda, maybe not, but if there are any problems, then there are well-worn paths to resolution. Taking yourself to article after article and complaining that a different crew of editors at each one are pushing some dubious line just looks like paranoia at work. Discuss any problems first, insist on reliable sources, seek more eyes via an RfC, and take conduct issues to ANI. Work with the system; it's designed to help us all. --Pete (talk) 11:36, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

People have made it impossible to focus on the content because there is an absence of genuine good faith dialogue here. There is obstructionism. I've discussed problems and insisted on reliable sources. That's been obstructed in many subtle ways in the dialogue above. SageRad (talk) 15:52, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Posting about non-content issues here solves nothing. To repeat: if anybody has other issues, they should take them elsewhere. Alexbrn (talk) 15:58, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well then, i should perhaps declare that i've presented a good case that "fad diet" is not justified as the primary noun of the first sentence and therefore ought to be changed to something like "an approach to eating". People have not engaged the dialogue with me in good faith to show me why i am wrong with reasonably good dialogue, so i think this edit is justified. Consensus is determined by good dialogue where people hear each other and address each others' concerns. To the extent that this has been done here, it seems that the article content is currently skewed toward one point of view very strongly, from the opening sentence. SageRad (talk) 16:18, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Your case is weak and has failed. To recap: you said you were "sure" there was RS saying this diet was not a fad diet. No such source has been produced. Your fallback argument is that some sources don't explicitly say it's a fad diet. This is unconvincing, as not all sources consider this categorization. But we do have multiple, strong sources which do consider it, and they say it's a fad diet. So we do too, for neutrality. It is now probably time for this particular WP:STICK to be dropped. Alexbrn (talk) 16:26, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No such source has been produced. Yes it was. You must have missed it. This is unconvincing ... it's quite convincing to me though not as you phrase it in a strawman way to make it appear to be a ridiculous argument. This is not a dead horse. This is a situation where a horse is alive and yet several people are saying it's dead but those people have a strong interest in saying it's dead because their interest depends on people believing it's dead. That's not a drop the stick situation. It's a situation where there's a group with a mode of twisting dialogue and not being here in good faith for the article without bias. SageRad (talk) 16:30, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What you have just described Sage is a consensus, with one outlier. Can you guess who it is? -Roxy the dog™ woof 17:48, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think what i've stated is that the dialogue is not a healthy and collegiate one, but rather an obstructionist one. That cannot result in a consensus. It can result in an apparent consensus on a cursory shallow reading which is actually a forcing in a semi-covert way. SageRad (talk) 17:52, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And to re-repeat, to widen the consensus there is an already-open thread at WP:FT/N - a page with over 200 active watchers. The repeated implication that other editors are somehow at fault is becoming disruptive. Alexbrn (talk) 17:57, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So there's a discussion with three or four hostile comments on the Fringe Theory noticeboard? I don't see how that is relevant. If anything it shows a hostile canvassing that has resulted in the present state of this article. I have valid concerns that i have explained very clearly in this talk page section, which i do not think have been heard and responded to adequately and in good faith by other editors. SageRad (talk) 18:04, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well in that case, with such alleged wrongdoing, your recourse would be WP:AIN. Please don't continue off-topic discussion here. Alexbrn (talk) 18:10, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So, to return to the actual discussion on content, as i have written above, the words "fad diet" are seen by readers and have an effect in how some people learn about this subject. As i've outlined above, the term contains many implications, in the word "fad" and the phrase "fad diet" and in the definition linked at fad diet if a reader follows the link. While there are some sources that call this approach to eating a "fad diet" there are also many sources that call Obama a "horrible president" and yet the article on Obama would surely not begin with "Obama is a horrible president of the United States of America." While "fad diet" may be a "term of the art" (i would like to investigate this further myself) and different from the word "horrible" in some ways, it also carries this negative judgement in the first sentence of this article which i do not think is justified by an honest and wide survey of the reliable sources on this topic. The lede should define the subject in an NPOV way and leave various points of view, including criticism, to be developed further and clearly demarcated as criticism by some, which is what it is. We want to reflect reality here, as best we can by reflecting reliable sources on this topic. I see this not being done properly here. That's my issue. These points have not been really addressed here. Maybe there's something i'm missing and i'm open to hearing valid points presented in a collegiate way. There's a lot to discuss here if we can actually focus on the content with good faith and good dialogue. So far not so good. SageRad (talk) 18:36, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, "fad diet" might be seen as a little negative. The paleo diet is a diet, no question, so it must be "fad" you see as a problem. However, "fad" is an excellent way of describing the thing. It, as even its proponents would acknowledge, is a little out of the ordinary, and it is a popular phenomenon with no (as yet) enduring effect. If it remains popular after a few years - as other fads such as crowdsourcing, smartphones, Twitter and Wikipedia itself have outgrown the tag - then we might reasonably consider removing the word, as it would be untrue, and we could point to many current sources using other words to describe the paleo diet.

But if we attempt to look into the future or to guide the mind of the reader along a certain path before it is well-trodden, then we are not doing our job of providing honest and accurate information. At the moment, I am persuaded by the words we use to describe a fad:

The specific nature of the behavior associated with a fad can be of any type including language usage, apparel, financial investment and even food. Apart from general novelty, fads may be driven by mass media programming, emotional excitement, peer pressure, or the desire to "be hip". Fads may also be set by popular celebrities.

Spot on there. To change from a fad to a trend, there must be some "relatively permanent change". I would not characterise the paleo diet as having reached that stage, and there are any number of excellent sources for that view.

Of course, we can find other sources insisting that paleo is an enduring part of the human condition, but I am reluctant to take that view, due to the amount of scientific scorn being poured on that notion. --Pete (talk) 19:18, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is pretty much the point I was trying to make, only done much more eloquently. "The paleo diet may not quite be a "fad diet" as such (given the negative connotations of the term) but the diet is a fad." So, for lack of a better option, I think the lede should retain "fad diet". I think the article does a good enough job of stating that the diet's premise and rationale is entirely unscientific, but that it is not necessarily detrimental to its adherents.

SageRad seems to be hung up on the lede without delving into the content. Perhaps, instead of focusing on endlessly debating the inclusion of one term in the lede, it would be better to a) see if the article does a good job of representing the diet's features and criticisms, and then b) reassess whether the term "fad diet" should be retained in the lede as a reflection of the article's content, or whether it should be replaced with a more appropriate term.Amateria1121 (talk) 20:09, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the dialogue. As for "fad" -- how do you know something is a fad when it's not over yet? You're saying "we'll call it a fad but if it doesn't end in a few years then we'll consider removing the label" but that doesn't make sense to me. You can see a fad in the rear view mirror but not in present. What if i called CRISPR a fad because as a technology it might not be used much in 10 years? Well, it might, but it might not... so let's call it a fad just to be safe. We'd end up calling everything a fad. The Pet rock was a real fad and that article doesn't even call it a fad in the first sentence.

As for the word "diet", it's a "diet" in that it's an approach to eating, a specification of some guidelines for what to eat, but it is not a diet in the sense of "lose weight fast, regain your beach body! only $19.95 plus shipping and handling!" -- in other words, it is not the South Beach Diet or anything like that. It's not the product or domain of a single book or single person. It's a concept that has been developed by many people in community. There are many books and many other sources in its development. The word "diet" has the connotation of the purpose being to lose weight by restricting calories, in popular usage, though technically it means "what an organism eats". That's why "an approach to eating" might be a better phrase. SageRad (talk) 11:05, 28 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a useful history of the idea of the Paleolithic diet. The early impetus was a 1985 paper by Boyd Eaton in NEJM and it seems to involve thousands of people. This link is by Loren Cordain, one of the main authors of books on the subject, so it may be considered a POV source, but it's a good source of the history nonetheless. SageRad (talk) 11:40, 28 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It goes back further than that, as our article already covers. Alexbrn (talk) 11:42, 28 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, i was about to add that Cordain mentions Weston Price’s Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects, first published in 1939. SageRad (talk) 11:43, 28 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A lede section should convey a neutral point of view. It should not color the reader's first introduction to the article's subject in a way that rules out any legitimate point of view, and in this case there are indeed legitimate points of view that do not categorize the Paleolithic diet as a "fad diet" but rather portray it as a legitimate approach to nutrition that has some apparent benefits. SageRad (talk) 00:07, 29 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We could actually call it a "dietary pattern" as do Katz and Mellor in their 2014 review article. This is a gem of phrasing, because it includes the technical term "diet" but it avoids the lay interpretation of "diet" as being a "lose weight fast!" thing. It also helps to include both the historic meaning of the term "Paleolithic diet" as the actual ancient dietary patterns of our ancestors, as well as being a very accurate description of what this noun actually is. That some people call it a "fad diet" can be included in the lede, as well as that some consider it effective and valid. SageRad (talk) 00:38, 29 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Reliable secondary sources describe it as a fad diet. Its a fad diet. So far your arguments have basically come down to 'Its not a fad' 'its not a diet'. Which is not how sources describe it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 01:10, 29 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note that an IP user (who was not me) removed the word "fad" and it was reverted. I continue to not agree that that use of "fad diet" as the primary noun for this definition is "reliably sourced" as that means according to WP:NPOV that the great bulk of reliable sources on this topic use this label and definition for the diet, which they do not. But alas, it persists against complete consensus. SageRad (talk) 18:27, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See the edsum. Oh, wait, you already did. In that case see WP:IDHT -Roxy the dog™ woof 19:29, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What is "edsum"? Oh, it means edit summary. The edit summary says "Reliably sourced." Why your tone and why your indirect way of writing to me? My response: the use of the term "fad diet" as the most primary noun in the whole article to define the subject is not adequately sourced. There is strong disagreement among editors on this. Several sources do call it a fad diet, but many sources do not call it that and write of it as a genuine diet with merit, and some sources actively dispute the "fad diet" label used by other sources... so the use of the term is in contention by reliable sources. There is not a general unanimity on the use of this term in reliable sources, so it is not reliably sourced for the main lede sentence to call it a fad diet. Citing IDHT ("I don't hear that") strikes me as a personal attack, as you're accusing me of intentionally not hearing things. Can't we get beyond this level of contention and stick to content? SageRad (talk) 10:37, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To try and defuse the current argument, I have changed the start of the lead to be strictly facual and not to use emotive terms like 'fad diet'. Doe anyone prefer this? Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:55, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I definitely prefer a neutral first sentence. Above there is a long dialog on this topic, as well. I advocate for the use of the least common denominator for the initial definition of the subject of the article -- the basic core definition -- and then presentation of criticism. To define the subject of an article using a term that is not shared by all of the major points of view about the subject would be non-neutral. SageRad (talk) 16:01, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

'Fad diet' is not an emotive term except for proponents of fad diets. Its how sources describe it, and its been hashed out many times (see above). Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:04, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The description 'fad diet' is emotive and not encyclopedic. I am not proposing removing it completely from the article just from the lead. Some sources may use this term but not all do.

It may have been discussed before but ther is clearly not general agreement on this term Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:15, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

a fad diet is any of these heavily marketed diets that call on people to make big changes to their diets instead of eating sensibly and getting enough exercise. Public health authorities in the developed world have advised what "eating sensibly and getting enough exercise" means. It is not complicated. The people who react "emotionally" are advocates of these various diets. We don't kowtow to advocates in WP. Jytdog (talk) 16:22, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The sources don't appear to support either portion of the change that I can see. --Ronz (talk) 16:24, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, "fad diet" is a derogatory term. Perhaps that is what Martin means by "emotional". I agree with that, as it's a loaded term that derides the concept of the article in the very first sentence, in its very definition. The concept of the "Paleolithic diet" has been marketed and has been promoted by some people, but it is larger than that subset. It's a cultural thing, a concept that had an earlier beginning, and has developed through time and has many different subsections with similar but differing approaches to eating. We need to define the concept according to a least common denominator, and then explain the realm of the concept in its different aspects. Just because one person has sold books that look like a fad diet using the term does not mean the whole concept is a "fad diet". SageRad (talk) 16:34, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

... and, we've got the immediate revert here with the edit reason "Its a fad diet by any impartial reliable source on it" -- which is verifiably not true. How is this good editing? How is this cooperative editing? We have in the article itself a review-level paper by David L. Katz and Stephanie Meller who have written that the paleo diet presents a "scientific case" in part because of its anthropological basis, and that what scientific evidence exist on it is generally supportive. This is in Annual Review of Public Health, a journal in a relevant field. SageRad (talk) 16:45, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ronz, there is no material in my version that was not already in the article, presumably sourced.

The problem here is very similar to that at veganism where a group of editors insist on using language that is not immediately comprehensible to the reader. You should not need a wikilink to understand exactly what a 'fad diet' is. The correct and encyclopedic way is to use ordinary language in the lead to give clear factual information on the subject. The lead is not the place for us to make points about how good or how bad something is. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:48, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

" The lead is not the place for us to make points about how good or how bad something is." Nonsense. This appears to ask us to not only ignore sourcing, but policies like V and NPOV. --Ronz (talk) 16:54, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

WP:Lead says [my bold]' A good lead section cultivates the reader's interest in reading more of the article,...the lead should be written in a clear, accessible style with a neutral point of view'. It also says, 'The reason for a topic's noteworthiness should be established, or at least introduced, in the lead (but not by using subjective "peacock terms" such as "acclaimed" or "award-winning" or "hit". We are not doing that here but we are doing the reverse (perhaps we should call that a peahen term) which is just as bad. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:09, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Correct. The lede should summarize and introduce the article, not in a manner that violates NPOV. --Ronz (talk) 17:32, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV says that WP is science-based and that we follow mainstream sources. Mainstream advice about what to eat on a regular basis comes from health authorities in the developed world. The fact that some people are Believers in this fringe-y diet doesn't change the fact that it is not in line with any mainstream health authority's advice. Lots of people want doctors to give them or their kids antibiotics when they have a cold. That doesn't mean we give credence to that in WP. If you want to argue it is not a fad diet, show that some major public health authority supports this way of eating and that is more authoritative than the sources we have now that says Paleo is a fad diet. If cannot do that, please stop objecting. Please base your comments on Talk on sources and the relevant policies, which is what CONSENSUS in Wikipedia are based on. Jytdog (talk) 16:49, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have no opinion on whether the diet is a 'fad diet' or not. The problem is with the unencyclopedic language, which requires the reader to understand the relatively uncommon term 'fad diet'. What exactly does that mean? How derogatory is it? Does it imply that it is completely ineffectual for its proposed purpose? I can guess the answer to these questions or I can follow a wikilink to try to find out but none of these things should be necessary for a statement in the lead. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:02, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

that is why there is a wikilink - in case anyone is unfamiliar with it. Jytdog (talk) 17:17, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We shouldn't attempt to determine neutrality by ignoring sources and other Wikipedia articles. --Ronz (talk) 17:32, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, we should not "attempt to determine neutrality by ignoring sources" and that is exactly why the lede should not call it a "fad diet" in the first sentence. SageRad (talk) 17:40, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV says that Wikipedia follows sources, period. Reliable sources, represented fairly and accurately, and given due weight according to actual weight in the world, and that is what i am saying we need to do here. Science is a source of a great amount of reliable sourcing, and in science there is reliable sourcing of adequate weight to not call this a fad diet -- as i have explicitly cited in this section here, and which some people seem to not care to see or hear. There is some failure to engage.

I agree that if most or all reliable sources called it a "fad diet" then the first sentence of the article ought to follow this. But this is not the case. Some sources call it a fad diet, and some do not. And i mean reliable sources. There is a cherrypicked collection of sources in the article (due to a phase of POV pushing -- go back and look in the edit history) that call it a "fad diet" but this does not reflect the actual reliable sourcing in the world by proportion. And, the article itself contains a secondary peer-reviewed scientific paper (here) that does not call it a "fad diet" and offers a level of support and credence to the diet that the lede saying "fad diet" would not reflect, by common understanding of the phrase "fad diet" or by the Wikilinked specific definition. There are many reliable sources that do not call this a "fad diet" and this is being ignored in choosing one POV among many valid points of view to define the diet in the lede sentence. SageRad (talk) 17:36, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please review the WP:WEIGHT and WP:PSCI portions of NPOV. Jytdog (talk) 17:42, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I know about those, and i disagree with you, very strongly, on the interpretation of things. You must accept that people can disagree with you from a place of knowledge and understanding, and that doesn't make them automatically wrong or stupid. Those are the very points that i have been making, using reliable sources, and pointing out here, so please do not lecture me about policies and guidelines here unless you actually get specific and tell me exactly what you are referring to. Otherwise it sounds condescending and uncivil to me. It is rather uncivil to cite policies, essays, and guidelines without pointing out the specific meaning of doing so. It implies that you think the recipient is not aware of them. You know me, Jytdog, and you know that i know about the policies and guidelines. SageRad (talk) 17:45, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Then please follow them. Paleo is far from the mainstream diet advice offered by public health authorities like the USDA Center for Nutrition Policy & Promotion and the NHS in the UK. As I said, if you can find a public health authority of equal or greater authority to that, which recommends the Paleo diet, please present the source(s). Diet books and articles in magazines flogging Paleo or other fad diets are nothing next to that. Jytdog (talk) 17:47, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am following them. You continue to fail to hear. I am leaving this for the time being because there is a far too strong obstinacy at work and an WP:OWNERSHIP problem at this article. It's a shame. I have no strong interest in the Paleo diet but i do have a strong interest in the integrity of Wikipedia. SageRad (talk) 17:57, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Seems that "integrity" is at odds with our content and behavoral policies. Too bad, because you actually made some interesting comments, but they're overwhelmed with the constant inability to FOC and worse. --Ronz (talk) 18:13, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

SageRad again please cite the major public health authorities that advise people to eat Paleo. If there are none, please acknowledge that so that we all know that we are all starting from the same point - namely mainstream authoritative advice about healthy eating, per WP:WEIGHT and WP:PSCI and NPOV generally. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 18:15, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of whether major public health authorities that advise people to eat Paleo or not we should not use unencyclopedic language like 'fad diet',which requires wilkilink just so that people know what it means, in the lead. Better to just state the facts, for example why not say, 'no major public health authorities that advise people to eat this diet', if that is what we mean? Martin Hogbin (talk) 23:48, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say the wikilink is needed so that everybody knows what it means - i said it was there if people don't know what it means. please don't misrepresent me. thanks. Jytdog (talk) 16:13, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

One source is given to justify the usage of 'fad diet' in the lead and that source does not use the term 'fad diet'. The cited sources is a light hearted article by the BDA called, "Top 5 Worst Celebrity Diets to Avoid in 2015"; not exactly a peer reviewed paper. It does inded have the word 'fad' in it, in its witty opening, 'Jurassic fad!', hardly a scientific classification or a serious piece of terminology. The same article says of the 'Clay cleanse diet', 'Clay away from this diet!', and of the 'urine diet','Literally, don't take the proverbial!'. This is more a case of witty repartee than scientific discourse. It would seem that the term 'fad diet' is just an unsourced figment of WP editors' imagination. Martin Hogbin (talk) 00:10, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please WP:FOC. --Ronz (talk) 00:25, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is content! Content with no WP:RS. Martin Hogbin (talk) 00:30, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If the BDA isn't good enough, I'm not sure what is. The "History and terminology" has more. More in the previous discussions. Are they all being overlooked? --Ronz (talk) 00:37, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly the BDA does not ever use the term 'fad diet'; that term does not appear anywhere in the source. Secondly as I have clearly shown above, the cited source is not a serious, academic, or scholarly work by the BDA but a light hearted and humorous piece that uses unencyclopedic language throughout.

Please find a source that says that 'the Paleolithic diet is a fad diet' or remove the unencyclopedic and unsupported editorial opinion in the lead. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:31, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed the citation one of the others mentioned in the previous discussions that is currently in the "History and terminology" section (mentioned above) that uses "fad diet" in both the title and description. --Ronz (talk) 16:09, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

well done, ronz. Jytdog (talk) 16:15, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Martin, to answer your question, the lede sentence was previously only sourced to the one NY Times article by Carl Zimmer. It doesn't even need to be sourced, as the lede is supposed to summarize the article, and the article would contain the sources.

But then, in the previous discussion on this topic, i was told that the Harriet Hall source is the supporting RS for this claim. That is found here. Hall is a contributor to Gorski's Science-Based Medicine and is generally in that "Skeptic Movement" wheelhouse. I find that to be not a reliable source to support the definition of this article's subject as a "fad diet" in the lede sentence. It's a smaller point of view on this diet, not the entire mainstream point of view. That's my issue here. There are some other sources that call it a "fad diet" but those in the article are seriously cherry-picked and it's not the general view as far as i have seen. For instance, one source that called it so is the British Dietetic Association, but there are many other references to the diet in similar sources that do not call it a "fad diet" but treat it with other nuance. So it's cherry-picking. I hope that is helpful. I realize that you are in fact focusing on content and i appreciate it.

When i do read that Harriet Hall source in Skeptic, i find this is the only mention of the word "fad":

Fad diets and "miracle" diet supplements promise to help us lose weight effortlessly. Different diet gurus offer a bewildering array of diets that promise to keep us healthy and make us live longer: vegan, Paleo, Mediterranean, low fat, low carb, raw food, gluten-free ... the list goes on. Obviously they can't all be right. Food myths abound, often supported by the strongest of convictions and emotions. What are we to believe?

That does not even call the Paleo diet a "fad diet" directly (though it does imply it) but it also does cast the meaning of "fad diet" to mean that it's about a "promise to help us lose weight effortlessly" which is most emphatically not the only and not the main purpose of the diet, and for many people it's not even a purpose at all. What i have seen is people using the paleo diet concept as a guide to change eating patterns somewhat (not drastically) for better health overall, not generally for losing weight. Of course being of a fit weight is part of general health, but it's nothing like the "South Beach Diet" claims for losing weight as the main purpose, for sure. SageRad (talk) 19:01, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it's not only about shedding pounds, but the paleo diet's proponents make equally specious claims regarding health effects. Amateria1121 (talk) 19:09, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was somewhat puzzled by the link to fad diet. To me it seemed reasonable, until I got there, and discovered that wiki's defn of a fad diet was a diet that makes promises of weight loss without backing by solid science. So I fixed that, a bit [2]. AFAICT weight loss isn't a major claim for the paleo diet. In fact, reading this article I was hard pushed to discover what the claims were for the advantages. There's a brief "Proponents claim that its followers enjoy longer, healthier, and more active lives" but that seems to be about it. Since that's in the lede, I'd expect it to be backed up by a section - perhaps "claimed health effects". We can't be short of sources for what these people claim, can we? William M. Connolley (talk) 12:55, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

But if I google "paleo diet advantages" the top hit is http://eatdrinkpaleo.com.au/paleo-benefits/ which offers (as headings) "You eat unprocessed, real food", "Paleo diet is rich in nutrients" then "Sustained weight loss". The first two aren't really advantages, in a sense, so actually their first real claim is weight loss. In which case, shouldn't our article here say so? Although http://www.paleodietevolved.com/benefits-of-the-paleo-diet.html puts it at #12 William M. Connolley (talk) 15:40, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is a very similar problem to that which we have at veganism. 'Fad diet' is rhetoric; it may be justified and it may be mentioned in some sources but it is not appropriate language for an encyclopedia. As can be seen from the discussion above, it is not even clear what 'fad diet' is intended to meant and it is even less clear what our readers will make of it. If the facts are that the diet is not recommended by or criticised by good quality sources then fine, we should say that here, in plain language that everyone can understand. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:29, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The sources indicate otherwise. I'm glad we've settled that "fad diet" is verified. --Ronz (talk) 17:34, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sources to not write an encycopedia for us; we do that using the appropriate language, not rhetoric. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:56, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was once told by a wise man that you need three things to edit here. Sources, sources and yes, sources. I'm satisfied that the sources are fine for this fad diet. -Roxy the dog™ woof 18:35, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A fad diet isn't necessarily about weight loss. It's a diet that becomes popular over a short period of time that makes promises it can't deliver on - which is usually rapid weight loss. The paleo diet has been around for a while, but it's certainly spiked in popularity in the last few years. Its main touted promise, to essentially cure Diseases of affluence, is patently false. There are reliable sources that support these statements in the article. Plus, its supposed scientific basis is highly questionable; I wouldn't go so far as to say disproven, but it's far from widely accepted.

This is to say nothing of the actual benefits this diet presents. It's not a bad diet at all, really, there's just nothing special about it, and certainly nothing to warrant its surge in popularity. I think that can be attributed to larger societal shifts (among well off people, at least) towards a more farm-to-table mentality - or in this case, hunt and gather-to-table. But as I said, it has many widely touted specific health benefits for which there is little to no evidence. Therefore I would call it a fad diet, just not one that promises you'll drop 75 pounds in 2 weeks. Amateria1121 (talk) 19:14, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Roxy, there is a difference between a tabloid newspaper and an encyclopedia. Newpapers use sensationalist, emotive, rhetoric to language to describe facts. We can derscrobe the same facts, and even use the same sources but we should use different language. Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:25, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Martin as I said to SageRad - if you can bring citations from major public health authorities that advise people to eat Paleo (in other words, that treat Paleo as a mainstream healthy diet) please bring it. Otherwise we rightly treat this as the fringe-y fad thing it is and I will just ignore you per WP:SHUN. Jytdog (talk) 20:42, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There are good sources to not use "fad diet" as the main noun for the lede sentence. There is IDHT going on here to the max degree. See long, long discussion above and see many other discussions at this talk page, and see serious sources that refer to the diet not as a fad diet but an actual approach to eating with merit, including secondary articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals. An editor cannot repeat oneself endlessly, and there is filibustering and obstructionism happening here. It's not resulting in a good article. SageRad (talk) 21:19, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not providing sources when asked for them, is obstructionist. Again SageRad, if you cannot provide sources showing that Paleo is advised by major public health authorities, you have to acknowledge that it is not mainstream dietary guidance and that we have to treat it that way per NPOV. I will not be responding further to you either, until you do that. This is a waste of time we are all not discussing per policies and guidelines. Jytdog (talk) 21:24, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well then, look at the comment below, which i'd posted before you wrote yours. SageRad (talk) 21:56, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That is not a major public health authority. Mainstream advice about diet - about what is best to eat on a regular basis - comes from public health authorities like the USDA Center for Nutrition Policy & Promotion with "choose my plate" and the NHS in the UK with their "eat well plate". the article below is a primary source reporting on a small clinical trial if that is the citation i think you mean. not on point and not even close. Jytdog (talk) 22:10, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The article i cited is a secondary source reporting on other studies about diets, in a peer-reviewed journal on public health.

There is not a requirement that a source must be a government source. "Mainstream" is not defined as government agencies only. SageRad (talk) 22:39, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Katz/Meller -- boom -- there you go, a source. We're at the point where this is a circus. Well past that point. It's shameful. SageRad (talk) 21:20, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for adding the link to the Katz/Meller article. That review does not advise people to eat Paleo in fact it argues against all these fad diets: "The message that there is a clearly established theme of healthful eating, relevant across generations, geography, and health concerns could, theoretically, exert a considerable and advantageous influence on public nutrition. This message, however, is at present a relatively feeble signal lost in a chorus of noise. In pursuit of marketing advantage, notoriety, or some other bias, the defenders of competing diets tend inevitably to emphasize their mutual exclusivities. This pattern conforms well with prevailing media practices and the result is perpetual confusion and doubt." That "pattern of healthful eating" is exactly what public health authorities advise. You should actually read those two sites I linked to. Just plain common sense based on good science and no pseudoscience gimmickry. Jytdog (talk) 23:08, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

First, it does not even use the word "fad" or the term "fad diet" so i don't see how you represent it that way honestly. Secondly, it doesn't argue for any particular diet but it does evaluate the premises of the diets and the evidence for or against them, and says that there's not all that much evidence because of lack of studies by what evidence exists is generally supportive of benefits of the diet. I know David Katz's general message is "just eat healthy" and i support his message very much. See also his recent comments on the U.S. government's recent dietary guidelines -- he is very critical of them. But in general his paper in Annual Review of Public Health says that there is a genuine and valid premise for the paleo diet, and that it's generally a decent diet comparatively, though he recommends simply eating healthy by general standards as the final arbiter. Interesting, though, how he's rather critical of the government dietary recommendations, too. And, the fact remains that reliable sources are not required to be government sources, and there's also the considerations i wrote below about the meaning of NPOV in regard to content here. SageRad (talk) 23:22, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Other sources do, and the point here is that even Katz/Mellen does not say "eat Paleo" but lumps it with the rest of the fad diets that are part of the rather than a never-ending parade of beauty pageant contestants. He is not "very critical" of the dietary guidelines in this source. You continue to read very hard against the mainstream. WP is not counter-cultural. Jytdog (talk) 23:30, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Again, the paper does not even use the word "fad" and you are kind of misrepresenting the spirit of the paper as well. Where i said he was very critical of the recent government dietary guidelines is at this link in Time where he says:

[W]here the Guidelines are good, and there aren’t many places, it’s where they preserved key components of the DGAC report. They respected recommendations about key nutrient thresholds—limiting saturated fat, not limiting total fat, limiting added sugar—and they preserved the idea of healthy dietary patterns, and provided examples. But overall, there is a disgraceful replacement of specific guidance with the vaguest possible language. There is disgraceful backtracking on recommendations to eat less meat and more plants. There is disgraceful shoehorning in of advice to keep consuming “all food groups,” clearly a bow to industry and effective lobbying.

That's pretty down on the government dietary guidelines. SageRad (talk) 23:50, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is a complete waste of time and I am sorry I continued to engage on this theoretical level. . Per my note below please propose some concrete change to the content, with sourcing. Jytdog (talk) 23:55, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You do not need only a single source that says that the paleo diet is a fad diet to define it as such. You need to show that the general mainstream definition of the paleo diet is that it's a "fad diet" in the sense that is meant here. There are some sources, many even, that do write of the diet as if it's a fad, but there are more sources that write of it as a diet with merit and a basis in reality. Therefore, the general definition of this diet as a "fad diet" would be unencyclopedic. The nature of NPOV is to represent the field of valid viewpoints that hold weight on the subject. If there are multiple valid viewpoints, then the definition of the subject of an article falls back to the lowest common denominator, and then the differing viewpoints are explained. To favor one viewpoint over another valid viewpoint is bias, and is editorializing in the article -- exactly what NPOV is against. SageRad (talk) 22:56, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No. you continue to argue for giving WEIGHT based on your own preferences. Again when public health authorities come out in favor of any of these fad diets (paleo, atkins, what have you) you will have a leg to stand on. As of 2016 they are just part of the noise in the marketplace - if you want to stand over there with the snake oil salesman offering pseudo-science based gimmickry and fads, knock yourself out. But WP will not go there. And I am not pursuing this discussion further. Jytdog (talk) 23:18, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, i am arguing to follow sources and policies and guidelines, and to not push POV into the article. Simple as that. SageRad (talk) 23:46, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, your comment above is very uncivil. SageRad (talk) 23:46, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As I said I am not pursuing this further. I suggest that you propose some concrete change to the content here on the talk page. We can only work DR process with concrete proposals for changes. Jytdog (talk) 23:53, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The clear concrete proposal was to not call it a "fad diet" in the lede sentence. SageRad (talk) 01:39, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Which has, of course, been dealt with. -Roxy the dog™ woof 01:49, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You have not gained consemsus for that change, SageRad so please pursue some form of dispute resolution if you feel strongly. Please see WP:DR Jytdog (talk) 01:50, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I realize that there is not consensus for this content, but neither is there consensus for "fad diet" to be the lede sentence, and generally there has not been since it's been being discussed from a while back in the archives of this article's talk page. SageRad (talk) 02:11, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You want to change existing content and there is no consensus for the change. Please initiate some DR process. Jytdog (talk) 02:19, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at the extended edit history for this article, you will see that there has never been a consensus for the content. SageRad (talk) 02:23, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We are where we are now. You want to change it. You have no consensus for that. Please initiate some DR process. No one is going to do that for you. Jytdog (talk) 02:29, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The status quo is not relevant when it comes to finding consensus on content. WP:BRD is an essay and refers only to the status quo ante, but this does not mean that the status quo has an upper hand in any way in discussions about what is right for an article. There is no consensus on what is right, here, and you cannot shut down the dialog by asserting that the status quo is what it is and ordering someone to seek dispute resolution. DR may be useful but it's not required on demand from another editor. SageRad (talk) 02:40, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You've been around here longer than i, Jytdog. Can you tell me where in policy and guidelines this is stated as the way things work? I'm continuing to discuss as a means to build consensus. I'm not asking anyone to "hold my hand". I'm rather asking people to act with integrity and follow policies and sources. I'm finding surprisingly little actual engagement regarding policy like WP:NPOV as regards applying the reliable sources to discuss the content of the article. I've outlined a serious and well-defined argument here about why the lede should not use "fad diet" for the primary definition of this subject, because it is does not reflect the point of view of many of the mainstream sources on this subject. That is a legitimate thing to discuss here. It's completely legitimate to call this a diet and then say that there are many critics who call it a fad diet. On the other hand, to define it as a fad diet while there are many legitimate sources that do not call it that is not neutral. There's a real distinction here. Wikipedia should not engage in biased presentation of subjects. SageRad (talk) 02:54, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop yammering about your integrity. Everybody cares about integrity. You honestly think your version has more integrity and in my view your version completely ignores the actual mainstream views on diet as expressed by the bulk of reliable sources, and tries to elevate a minority view to the center by cherrypicking a few good sources and ignoring the rest (and helps unscrupulous pushers of pseudoscience snake oil make yet more money off gullible people). Whatever. Look, you have made this talk page into a huge sprawl, pushing and pushing for a change that is not getting consensus. I am out of patience and am done with this level of DR. One by one the others here will run out of patience and will just stop talking to you as well, per WP:SHUN.. If you want to keep trying to do something that is failing and will leave you talking to yourself and isolated, knock yourself out. A sensible and experienced Wikipedian walks away at this point, or initiates the next step of DR. That is how things work here. And now I am really not responding further here. Jytdog (talk) 03:47, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is always better to discuss things and try to find points of agreement. A consistent problem in this respect is the increasing use of rhetoric (please do read the link) rather than plain language facts. It is hard to reach agreement regarding 'fad diet' simply because it has no well-defined meaning. If we say 'not recommended by X' or 'has been shown to be deficient in Y' or even 'promoted by people with no dietic knowledge' then we can logically argue about whether that fact is supported by a reliable source. Rhetoric like 'fad diet', 'commodity status', 'climate change denial', or 'wage slave' is designed not to propagate or explain facts but to change opinion. Such terms of often intentionally ambiguous so that, according to one definition or understanding, they are easily defensible but have another meaning that is obviously pejorative.

'Wage slave' is an excellent example of what I mean. At one extreme it is a perfectly logical form of words; most people need to get a job in order to live (at least to the standard that they would like) so they are, in effect 'slaves' to their employment. In the other hand the words have an obvious and extremely negative and emotive connection to slavery; something that is generally regarded as indefensible. It is an entirely unsuitable term for use in an encyclopedia not just because it is rhetoric but because it is ambiguous; the reader has no way of knowing which particular meaning it is intended to have, thus it conveys almost no information at all.

The term 'fad diet' is very similar. It can be argued that it is just a diet observed by relatively few people (Are veganisn or vegetarianism fad diets?) or one that has been in fashion for a short time; relatively innocuous meanings. On the other hand people may take it to mean that it is positively dangerous or proposed with fraudulent intent or just to make a quick profit. Does a fad diet have to be connected with weight loss? I defy anyone who wants to argue this point to tell me in a few words a generally accepted meaning of fad diet and everything that the term implies.

The answer to these disputes is very simple. Use plain language to say exactly what you meant to say. Use words that have a clear meaning without the need to look them up or to follow an explanitory link. Now it is easier to resolve disputes. We only have to decide whether the sources support the facts that we are saying.

Of course, finding sources that use rhetoric is easy, they will be sources that for various reasons are trying to persuade or influence people but that does not mean that we can use their language in WP. In my experience those who fight to keep rhetoric in articles are those do who want to use WP as a means of persuading people of something or other. That is not the purpose of an encyclopedia. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:32, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to repost this since it seems to have been ignored.

A fad diet isn't necessarily about weight loss. It's a diet that becomes popular over a short period of time that makes promises it can't deliver on - which is usually rapid weight loss. The paleo diet has been around for a while, but it's certainly spiked in popularity in the last few years. Its main touted promise, to essentially cure Diseases of affluence, is patently false. There are reliable sources that support these statements in the article. Plus, its supposed scientific basis is highly questionable; I wouldn't go so far as to say disproven, but it's far from widely accepted.

This is to say nothing of the actual benefits this diet presents. It's not a bad diet at all, really, there's just nothing special about it, and certainly nothing to warrant its surge in popularity. I think that can be attributed to larger societal shifts (among well off people, at least) towards a more farm-to-table mentality - or in this case, hunt and gather-to-table. But as I said, it has many widely touted specific health benefits for which there is little to no evidence. Therefore I would call it a fad diet, just not one that promises you'll drop 75 pounds in 2 weeks. Amateria1121 (talk) 17:30, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Fad diet" is clearly heard as a pejorative by most people, and this term is not shared by the bulk of reliable sources on the diet, so it's a partial point of view on the diet -- the point of view of some (and not the great lion's share, either, only some) -- so therefore, it's not reasonable to define the diet as a "fad diet" in the lede. We follow sources, and in the lede, we define the subject by the least common denominator possible and do not use loaded terms that are used by only some of the sources on the subject as the definition. That seems like Wikipedia neutrality 101 to me. For you to reason out why you think the diet is a "fad diet" would be WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. That's the heart of my issue here and why i called this section "The nature of the question". SageRad (talk) 00:42, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Fad diet" is clearly heard as a pejorative by most people because it is rhetoric. It is intentionally ambiguous. That is the whole idea of rhetoric, it is not intended to inform but to persuade. Our job in WP is not to persuade but to inform.

We do not 'follow the sources' in WP. We write encyclopedic English that is supported by reliable sources. To give a simple example, a tabloid newspaper might report an event perfectly accurately and we could use it as a source, but we would not use their language to describe the event in WP, because they are writing a tabloid newspaper and we are writing an encyclopedia. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:23, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We have again editing to call the subject a "fad diet" in the first sentence of the lede despite there not being consensus for this, and this being contentious. So... are we going to be able to discuss this reasonably and with integrity, or are we going to have another long round of edit warring and POV pushing back and forth? That is the question. SageRad (talk) 14:13, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I hate to break this to you, but it is a fad diet, and the first source (the one whose wording I edited a while ago, mentioned in the section directly above this) clearly states so. This may be contentious to some people, but it's not contentious enough to justify leaving out the label "fad diet". MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:38, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum Before this gets used as an argument, I just want to point out that whether or not this is a fad diet is not a medical issue. It doesn't require a WP:MEDRS source to establish it. Even if it did, the source in the section above meets MEDRS standards and calls it a "fad diet", even if it's no longer the one used to justify the lead sentence. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:45, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, it's obviously a fad diet. Enough with Sage's disruptive pov-pushing. Alexbrn (talk) 14:49, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Enough with your uncivil personal attack. Comment on content. I am not disruptive and i am not POV pushing. You are simply cluettering up this space and making it toxic. That is not good Wikipedia editing culture. SageRad (talk) 14:54, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oh come on, grow a pair. This is Wikipedia, debate can be robust. If you are advocating the diet then do so, if you're not then make it clear. You must have realised by now that Wikipedia has a massive and long-term problem with proponents of every kind of bullshit coming here to hawk their wares, and it's important to raise yourself above the fray by being honest about your personal views yet open to the possibility that they could be wrong. That's not a very big ask, and it makes for a much less fractious debate. If others think you're playing poker, they will treat you as if you have something to hide, but if you lay your cards on the table I think you'll find that we're all eager to compromise and collaborate. Because that is why we are here, isn't it? Me, I am skeptical of the claims of the paleo diet for the reasons stated in the article - there is, in essence, no such thing as a single paleolithic human diet, and sciencey-sounding fad diets are ten a penny. It's way too soon to tell what, if anything, in the paleo diet is evidentially supportable, yet proponents claim it will help you live, just like cave men, to the ripe old age of thirty. Oh, sorry, they forget to mention the low life expectancy of paleolithic humans. Odd, that :-) Guy (Help!) 00:49, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Understand it's not a MEDRS claim. But the issue is the failure to apply WP:NPOV in terms of representing the sources proportionately and honestly in accord with the full universe of sources on a subject. There are sources that consider it a fad diet, but there are many good reliable sources that consider the diet not a fad diet, and therefore it is not right for the article to define it as such. You don't write an article that represents only one valid view of a topic when there are multiple valid views of very similar weight. That's as obvious as daylight in regard to NPOV. The article needs to define it as the bulk of reliable sources define it, and it's simply not the case that all or most reliable sources define it as such. You can cherry-pick sources to make it look like that, but it's not the actual case. So, we have here a failure to understand and apply NPOV correctly, and a resulting edit war at this point, as a revert has been reverted while dialogue is in progress. SageRad (talk) 14:54, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Consider how you'd like it if you're editing on climate change, and someone writes "I hate to break it to you, but climate change is a hoax." Seriously, we are not the experts here. The sources are the experts. We take the sources and use them, survey them, and get the sense of what the sources say. You can cherry-pick and pretend that all sources say this is a fad diet, but that is contradicted by the many sources that say it's a valid diet with merit. You can't write an article that is a clear POV attack piece with good conscience and expect all other editors to ignore it. SageRad (talk) 14:57, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

When a source is silent on the question of whether the paleo diet is a fad diet, it is WP:OR on your part to say this means it isn't a fad diet. Many sources simply don't consider the question. Those that do state the point that it is a fad diet. It's a canonical example of one. As has been said, it's the bleedin' obvious. Alexbrn (talk) 15:02, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

SageRad, please read WP:REHASH and reflect on it. That's all I will say here. Jytdog (talk) 15:03, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, i can see these points but not fully agree that it represents a genuine good faith editing to the sources. Also i would cite the parallel to the "parity doctrine" that most sources won't say it's not a fad diet because they don't write to counter every critique, same argument that others make about parity in another sense. And lastly, rehash? no... if you stop rehashing then i'll stop repeating the same reasonable arguments in response. Anyway, good day to y'all. I'm not edit warring or going at length on and on... just registering this solid dissent from what's happened here by a group with a very similar point of view causing this article to reflect that point of view, which is not the mission of Wikipedia. SageRad (talk) 15:08, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, it's well past time to drop it. Alexbrn (talk) 15:09, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Did you pause and reflect at all? Jytdog (talk) 15:10, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've been reflecting on this article for over a month now. I find your tone condescending. As for dropping the stick, others need to do that or respond with better arguments than brute force and repetition. SageRad (talk) 15:18, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@SageRad: If you look up the common definition of a fad diet, you will see that it is held pretty much universally to be "a diet that promises dramatic weight loss." There are usually a number of other indicators, though they're inevitably presented as being optional, as a list of common characteristics of a fad diet. Not that this matters, because the paleo diet meets most of those characteristics, as well. So the question is, do I need to google a hundred web sites claiming that the paleo diet will cause dramatic weight loss, or can we all agree that we've seen such claims enough already?

Now this is extremely different from someone saying that climate change is a hoax. I can prove that climate change is not a hoax (not deductively, but rather by any reasonable inductive standard). No-one can prove that the paleo diet is not a fad diet. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:25, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

...a group with a very similar point of view... A group into which you immediately toss the guy whose edit history on this topic has been the exact opposite of that point of view. Seriously. You found a specific legitimate grievance with the skeptical side, I came to your defense, acknowledged that you had a legitimate grievance, worked to correct it, and the moment I dissent from your view, I'm just another faceless inquisitor, trying to burn you at the stake. This is why fringe pushers don't get taken seriously: you're all POV, and any substance is there by sheer coincidence. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:30, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry you made assumptions here. As for the slinging, no thanks. Please be more civil. I'll return when I can write at length and have more time. Until then please reconsider your charged words. SageRad (talk) 20:20, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It does not belong in the first sentence because there is no explanation. It can be explained later in the lede. QuackGuru (talk) 18:47, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The lede discussed fad one rather than twice. There is no reason to mention it twice. QuackGuru (talk) 20:36, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's no reason not to, either. Get rid of the last sentence, move the sources to the first. Oh, and don't put pop-medical books up as WP:MEDRS sources. They'll only be reverted again. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:43, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Allow me to explain my reasoning. There are many sources that describe the Paleolithic diet. Most of them describe it for what it is, an approach to eating that emphasizes foods that would have been found in pre-agricultural human diets. Some of them describe it as a fad diet. Some of them say that it's not a fad diet. These are not fringe positions, but mainstream points of view about eating practices based on the Paleo diet premise. There are scientific papers that support some beneficial effects claimed by the diet being real. Therefore, to define it as a "fad diet" is to privilege one point of view over others in the lede sentence. That would not be neutral as per WP:NPOV. If we define it with the minimum common qualities, and then describe these points of view, then we can write a neutral article. SageRad (talk) 00:44, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We had a visitor from Turkey during the little flurry over the lead, who added this EL. This is what fad diets are all about - hokey websites spewing pseudoscience. The internet is full of this garbage. Our article is not going to become another Fan Site. It just isn't. Jytdog (talk) 15:20, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not clear. Are you saying that this article is not going to become another fan site for the Science-Based Medicine website? If so, i agree. Are you saying this article is not going to become a fan site for the Paleo diet? If so, i agree. It's not a fan site, it's an encyclopedia. We need to write neutral articles, and we need to assess the universe of reliable sources without bias. We need to represent the subject without bias. SageRad (talk) 16:45, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree wholeheartedly. So when numerous reliable media sources refer to it as a fad diet, we might find that irritating, but we must represent it in the article, especially when we can see for ourselves that it meets the criteria. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:56, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, you seem to be completely missing my point. I am not supporting the paleo diet in any way, I am objecting to the unencyclopedic wording 'fad diet'. If the diet has no benefits then we say. 'it has no benefits', if it is likely to cause malnutricion then we say 'is likely to cause malnutrition', if it promotes some other problem then we say 'promotes some other problem'. I have to ask you again, what exactly does 'fad diet' tell our readers.

Please, just imagine that you know nothing about diets and you read the WP article. You see 'fad diet', what specific information about the diet, except that WP editors do not like it, does it give you. It is not our job to split diets into fad diets good diets, we just give people information about the diets. I do not want to hide or whitewash anything, I just want WP to be an encyclopedia not an advice centre. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:52, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"can see for ourselves that it meets the criteria" is WP:OR. And sure, you can find four sources that call it a fad diet. I can also find sources that say otherwise and i can link them in the same way... and there are also other sources that say things in the middle or orthogonal to it, etc... there are many sources and we need to look at them without having a deathwish for the subject of the article to begin with. Anyway, i'm also not a Paleo advocate, nor do i follow the diet (although i do think about it) ... I mainly want articles on Wikipedia to be well written and not subject to extreme POV bias. If a Paleo diet, poorly planned or badly followed, can cause health risks, and this is said by sources, then so be it, then say it. If there are benefits, then say it. Say what the sources say, that's all i'm saying here. And the reaction is really revealing. There's a strong wind blowing here. It's like trying to build a house with a continuous strong wind blowing. You just can' really do it. So.... i'm not interested in subjecting myself to continuous contentious dialogue, either. So this article is WP:OWNed. SageRad (talk) 19:08, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"can see for ourselves that it meets the criteria" is WP:OR. By that logic, going out and finding sources is OR, as well, and we must instead wait for reliable sources to present themselves. Hell, for that matter, summarizing the contents of those sources is WP:SYNTH, so we should just quote them directly. But then that would be WP:COPYVIO, so I guess we should just make Wikipedia a collection of links.

WP's policy against original research only applies to article contents. It's not OR for you to personally read the sources and think about things in order to form an opinion. Why do I need to explain this to you? Why isn't this blatantly obvious? These are not rhetorical questions, I really would like an answer. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:43, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing unencyclopaedic about the term fad diet. Look, we even have an encyclopaedia article on the concept. Wikipedia's mission is to inform. We inform people about the beliefs of paleo diet proponents, we also inform them that it's a fad diet based on obvious fallacious reasoning. No problem. Oh, and your sources that claim it's not a fad diet? You undermine yourself rather with these.

1. http://paleoleap.com/is-paleo-a-fad-diet/ - site devoted to promoting paleo diet, and not an RS.
2. http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2013/04/08/the-paleo-diet-debunked/ - bullshit "level up your life" blog
3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/healthyeating/10555433/Paleo-diet-is-eating-like-a-caveman-healthy-or-a-fad.html - not in the article at all, only the comments.
4. http://www.webmd.com/diet/a-z/paleo-diet - does not contain the word fad even once.
5. http://paleozonenutrition.com/2015/02/18/10-reasons-why-the-paleo-diet-works-why-it-is-not-a-fad-and-is-here-to-stay-part-1/ - site promtoing paleo diet.

So I have to wonder: did you actually check any of the sources or evaluate their reliability at all? Guy (Help!) 00:00, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

1. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/16/paleo-isnt-a-fad-diet-its-an-ideology According to RS it is not a fad. QuackGuru (talk) 01:06, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• An opinion article published in the guardian is FAR from a reliable source. Please stop your disruptive editing behaviour. Mrfrobinson (talk) 05:35, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And in any case, an ideology is pretty much what a fad diet is! Guy (Help!) 20:26, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

All these comments are gamy. I countered a linked list rhetoric device with a linked list rhetoric device just to show it can be done. Many sources that say it's a fad are also B-grade and POV-laden sources. There isn't a genuine and unbiased attempt at discerning the reality here. There's rhetoric and POV pushing. Like i said, you can't build a good house when there's a constant high wind blowing. There's not an atmosphere here in which a real dialogue can be had to determine the best way to write this article. There's a constant wind blowing. Have fun writing thousands of words. I'll be around when an actual conversation with integrity can be had. Until then, this article is WP:OWNed and locked into an extreme POV take on the article's subject. SageRad (talk) 10:04, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've got an idea. Why don't we write an article about a subject, and emphasize only those sources that are negative toward the subject? Why don't we select the 10 or so sources that are overtly hostile to the subject, and emphasize those over the other 90 sources that are available? Does that sound like a good way to write an encyclopedia entry with the goal of a neutral point of view? If that doesn't sound right to you then maybe you'll understand the issue that i have with this article and its current state of lock-down. If you can't understand this, then i wonder what you're doing here. SageRad (talk) 10:31, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The term 'fad diet' is unencyclopedic because it a vague pejorative term. It is not factual, it is not even opinion, it is pure name-calling.

For example let us look on the fad diet article to see what it means. The first sentence of the lead says, 'A fad diet ... is a diet that makes promises of weight loss or other health advantages such as longer life without backing by solid science, and in many cases are characterized by highly restrictive or unusual food choices'.

There we have several points:

1. A fad diet promises weight loss.
2. A fad diet promises a longer life.
3. A fad diet promises some other health advantage.
4. A fad diet has no backing by solid science for any of its promised advantage.
5. A fad diet is characterised by an unusual food choice.
6. A fad diet is characterised by a highly restrictive food choice.

A reader seeing the term 'fad diet' and following the link to the article has no way of knowing which of these points is intended to apply the PD. Luckily, there is a very simple way to solve this problem, we tell our readers exactly what the facts, as supported by reliable sources, are.

For example we might say, 'The PD claims to give its followers a longer life (1) but there is no scientific evidence for this claim (2)' (where 1 and 2 are refs to reliable sources). Now we are giving encyclopedic facts rather that trying to set up the 'Wikipedia diet assessment service', basically saying X is a good diet Y is a bad diet.

This approach also has the advantage of making discussion here easier and more civil. All we need to discuss is whether reliable sources do show that the PD claims to provide longer life and whether this claim is supported by scientific evidence. Those are simple factual claims which are relatively simple to resolve.

If on the other hand, we choose to say 'fad diet' we are pushing ourselves into endless and pointless arguments about exactly what 'fad diet' means and how accurately and completely that term applies to the PD. Reliable sources cannot easily resolve this problem because that would entail doing our own OR to see what proportion of soirces use the term compared with those that do not.

I am sure that you all think I am supporting SageRad here. The reality is that I do not know whether I am or not and, because the whole complex argument it centred round a piece of vague pejorative rhetoric, there is no way of telling. Once we get down to discussing facts rather than trying to give health advice to our readers the whole dispute will become much clearer to everyone. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:53, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I do agree with talking about specifics and facts. One fact is that there are a number of scientific studies that lend support to some health benefits of following a Paleolithic diet, so it would not be true that there is no scientific support for it. In an above section, i listed around 7 or 8 papers in response to a question from Jytdog, that supported the premise of the diet or specific hypotheses about health effects.

A second important point that people are not admitting if they're primed to paint this subject in a negative light, is that this is not only a branded diet like the "South Beach Diet" where there is a single origin. Sure, there is this guy Loren Cordain who has written books and trademarked the name "Paleo diet" but he is not the only source of knowledge about this diet and he is not the only person that defines it. There is a real community of people who discuss this concept and this is also part of what constitutes this diet. Therefore, it's not so easy to nail down the "Paleo diet" in a single form as specified by a single book or article. It's got many variations. One problem with this article as it stands is that it uses an extreme form of the diet's proscriptions in many instances, and therefore it's doing strawman argumentation: portraying it in an extreme way and then "refuting" that extreme portrayal. SageRad (talk) 11:48, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The article is more of an attack page than an encyclopdia article. Unfortunately many editors now seem to completely misunderstand the purpose of an encyclopedia. We are not here to give dietary advice, help people live longer and happier lives, promote any form of politics, prevent polution or climate change, protect animals or people from abuse or indeed to right and great wrongs, however right we may feel we are. We individually may hope that, presented with the facts, people will make the choices that we personally think are the right ones, but we cannot express or promote those thoughte here.

There is considerable agreement that humans are not evolutionarily adapted to the modern western diet. We need to distinguish between this, quite reasonable assertion, and any over-specific, unsupported dietary advice and unproven health claims. To do this we need to drop the rhetoric and talk about the science in a sensible manner. Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:12, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please read WP:TPG. This is not the place for posting long-winded, bullshit spiels about what you think is wrong with wikipedia's process or editors. Nor is this the place to whine about your inability to convince others to turn this page into a glowing review of the subject. If you keep this up, I think admin intervention might be needed. When you're done reading the last link, please read WP:STICK. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:28, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. Inappropriate. SageRad (talk) 16:20, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Actually Mjolnir this is the place to discuss editing of this article on wikipedia. It is not the place to make personal attacks like you have just done. If you think admin intervention is need by all means arrange it. You might be surprised by the result. Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:20, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)Martin, you (and proponents of other fad diets) are missing the absolutely key point that mainstream science makes on these matters -- it is not all about diet - it is about lifestyle. All of these fad diets have the "get rich quick" mentality that if people just fiddle with their food choices, they will be magically healthier or less fat. How does mainstream advice for people in the developed world go? "eat less, move more, eat lots of fruits and vegetables...go easy on junk foods.". Please mind what it starts with - "eat less, move more". To the extent that the paleo diet coincides in part with the food choices aspect of mainstream advice, well that is great. It doesn't mean that the whole effort isn't misguided or just another somewhat goofy food cult in a long, long line of them. And to the extent that they make all kinds of strong claims about "foods to avoid" and their own kooky, pseudoscientific reasons to do so, they miss the boat completely and they just add to the noise in the room. Mainstream advice, based on our best science, about being healthier is really simple - "eat less, move more, eat lots of fruits and vegetables...go easy on junk foods." Jytdog (talk) 15:51, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Jytdog it is not up to us to assess diets on behalf of our readers and then classify then fad or not fad for their benefit.

If the diet makes incorrect recommendations about foods to avoid why not simply say that in plain English. Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:20, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just to repeat, the arguments against the "fad diet" label appear to be based upon original research to promote a pov not in any of the sources, while asking us to ignore the pov actually in reliable sources. --Ronz (talk) 18:01, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Patently untrue. SageRad (talk) 18:14, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Such comments don't help the case, or you. --Ronz (talk) 18:25, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I beg to differ. Anyway, the arguments against the "fad diet" label as the main descriptor for this subject are simply adherence to NPOV. The argument in favor of using "fad diet" as the main noun for this subject appear to be to promote a POV in some but not most of the sources. Note that the argument here is not whether "fad diet" is used in the article at all, but whether it's used as the main noun in the first sentence. SageRad (talk) 19:17, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We are currently using nydailynews in the lede. http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/3-diets-paleo-gluten-free-weight-watchers-article-1.2346244

Then we can also use the guardian in the lede. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/16/paleo-isnt-a-fad-diet-its-an-ideology QuackGuru (talk) 18:35, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If only we were writing a Newspaper. Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:22, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There have been almost 8,000 words written about this issue in the past couple of days. So far, the only thing resolved is that the words "fad diet" needed to be linked to the WP article. Seriously, it's time to drop the stick and back away slowly from the horse. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:53, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please feel free to drop the stick and back away slowly from the horse if you wish. I prefer civil discussion. Martin Hogbin (talk) 23:13, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think you must be reading a different talk page. This page (Talk:Paleolithic diet) is the one to read. -Roxy the dog™ woof 12:07, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Martin, are you saying the term "fad diet" should appear nowhere in the article? Alexbrn (talk) 12:30, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, I would not put it as strongly as that but I do not think it is our job to classify diets into fad and non-fad diets, even if some sources (that are not encyclopedias) do so. Have a look at SageRad's suggestion. I was happy with that even though it did mention 'fad diet'.

If you want to discuss why I think 'fad diet', as it is in the lead now, is not encyclopedic read my comments under the heading, which I have just added, 'Why 'fad diet' is unencyclopedic'. No one has yet addressed any of the points that I made there. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:39, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think the problem is that whenever the claim it should be excluded is rebutted, a tiny handful of editors simply put their fingers in their ears, chant "LAA LAA LAA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" and then make the same statement again as if it had not been rebutted. Meanwhile, there are lots of reliable sources calling it a fad diet and pretty much the only RS that explicitly denies it, instead characterises it as basically a cult. Which, in case it was not obvious, is a subset. Guy (Help!) 12:50, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To repeat my previous comment, "the arguments against the "fad diet" label appear to be based upon original research to promote a pov not in any of the sources, while asking us to ignore the pov actually in reliable sources. --Ronz (talk) 18:01, 7 February 2016 (UTC)"

If you're not going to even propose new sources, or demonstrate that the current sources are somehow are being used in a way that violates NOT or NPOV, let's not waste any further time. --Ronz (talk) 17:07, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:Ronz there is original research in the lede. See Talk:Paleolithic_diet#Original_research_in_the_lede. The word fad should not be repeated twice in the lede. These are obvious problems. QuackGuru (talk) 18:01, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

People are requiring there to be multiple sources that say "No, the Paleo diet is not a fad" in order for it to not be reported as a fad diet here? Well there are such sources but they tend to be from Paleo related websites, many of them. However, wouldn't it be true by expectation that plenty of sources speak about the Paleo diet as a valid thing and some speak about them as a fad diet, and a few refute the "some" that speak about it as a fad diet? Some sources that are within a Paleo umbrella say "No, it's not a fad" [3] [4] Other more mainstream sources simply describe it not as a "fad diet" but as a "diet" [5] [6] .... and that is the basis for saying that "fad diet" is not the correct primary noun for this diet. I see a slanted presentation of it being made by some editors here, preferencing sources that are negative to the diet in a systematic way. SageRad (talk) 17:27, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is there something new here that hasn't been discussed before? If so, I'm having a hard time seeing it.

"Some sources that are within a Paleo umbrella..." Having to rely upon non-encyclopedic viewpoints rather demonstrates that it would be a NOT and NPOV violation to remove the info.

"Other more mainstream sources simply describe it". So we change the pov of this article because of what some sources don't say?! That's a NPOV violation as well. --Ronz (talk) 17:44, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there is something new that you have not addressed. Please respond to the points that I have made above under the heading "Why 'fad diet' is unencyclopedic". Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:48, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We use our human sense as editors, and we realize that there are not going to be the same number and type of sources directly confronting the claims that it's a fad diet as there are going to be calling it a fad diet, and we recognize that a source discussing the diet in terms that make quite apparent that it considers the diet to be a valid and worthwhile diet for consideration is saying that it's not a "fad diet" in the sense that other sources are calling it. In other words, if there are three sources saying "The moon is made of blue cheese" and yet there's no equivalent source saying "No, the moon is not made of blue cheese" and yet there are many sources saying "The moon is made out of minerals" then we are not obliged to say in Wikipedia that "The moon is made of blue cheese" even though there are three sources that say so. You must be familiar with this principle, right? We would report that the moon is made of mineral material, and not that it's made of blue cheese. We might report that "Some sources say it's made of blue cheese" but we wouldn't begin the article Moon by saying "The moon is a celestial body made of blue cheese that orbits the Earth" simply because three sources say it's made of blue cheese and no sources explicitly say "No, the moon is not made of blue cheese" -- that's the principle of a sensible editor. SageRad (talk) 17:51, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore, in this case, as Martin Hogbin has been pointing out, "fad diet" is a rather unencyclopedic term, more a rhetorical term, and a term of judgment, of opinion, of reckoning. It's completely fine that a number of people think the Paleo diet is a "fad diet" (and they do) but this is not the opinion of all or most people. It's the opinion of some people, and some sources, but it's not the definition of the subject of this article. It does not belong as the main noun for the definition. Paleo diet is an approach to eating. Some people think it's a "fad diet" and some think it's a valid and reasonable approach to eating. There are several people here trying to push that into being the primary definition of this, and that feels a whole lot like POV pushing. SageRad (talk) 17:55, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@QuackGuru: While I find your arguments difficult to parse and sometimes frustrating (I get the impression that English is not your native tongue. I was honestly asking before, not rhetorically asking), your edits to the article tend to be constructive. I just want to be clear on that. I've been patrolling changes to the page, and the strong majority of your edits are good ones in my view. That's not to say you have made no bad edits, but I want to give credit where credit is due. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:13, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do you support the removal of the inaccurate information from the lede? QuackGuru (talk) 20:36, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That depends on what you mean by "inaccurate information". I support the removal of inaccurate information as a matter of course, but (despite my commendation above) I suspect we may disagree on what is inaccurate. To be clear, I support the lead the way it is now, unless you can convince me that something in it is inaccurate. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:40, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Rather than mention "fad" in the first sentence it can be moved to another sentence where it makes sense. It can be included in the following sentence. "It has been described as an "ideology" and its core assumptions as "only superficially plausible".[6]" It is awkward in the first sentence. QuackGuru (talk) 20:43, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Rather then move it why not replace it with words that explain specifically what is wrong with the PD. Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:46, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Different things around "Fad diet" are important to different people - you and QG clearly have distinct issues. Let's continue working on framing the RFC question(s). Jytdog (talk) 20:51, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If we spoke in proper language it would be much easier to see what is important. Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:57, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• The term is derogatory.
• The term is inaccurate.

The main arguments for it are:

• The term is used in reliable sources, subject to the condition below.
• The term is accurate.

The dispute this far is summarized by the following points of fact, bearing in mind that an understanding of Wikipedia policy and guidelines are important to interpreting these facts.

• The term has not been shown to be derogatory. It has been claimed to be, but no reliable sources indicating this have been presented (to my knowledge).
• The term is, in fact, used in reliable sources.
• The accuracy of the term has not been disputed except by fiat, or by sources which instead describe it as a cult, or by non reliable sources.

This leads to the following inescapable conclusions:

• The term is accurate.
• The term is not derogatory.
• The term "cult" is well understood to be considered derogatory and seems to be universally agreed upon by all participants not to apply to this diet.

Absent the presentation of further reliable sources showing that the term is inaccurate, it should remain. The presentation of further reliable sources showing that the term is derogatory should be sufficient to change the wording such that the reliable sources which use the term are summarized as using it, as opposed to the current condition of the article, in which it is directly stated as a fact.

tl;dr If you can prove the term is derogatory, I myself (I cannot speak for anyone else) will support re-wording such that use of the term is attributed to the sources which use it, not to WP. Otherwise, get over it. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:25, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I made a specific proposal to move the word "fad" from the first sentence to another sentence. QuackGuru (talk) 21:28, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No. WP:LEAD is quite clear that the source should be defined first and foremost. As things stand, it is a fad diet, per my outline of the argument above. That means it is important to include the term in the first sentence, unless evidence of it's inaccuracy is presented. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:37, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop continuing the endless argument. Let's please focus on framing and launching the RfC so we can resolve this. Jytdog (talk) 21:43, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I see you've hatted and archived all talk page discussion possible on the topic, with surly and inaccurate edit reasons and summaries... is this how you focus on framing and launching an RfC, Jytdog? At this point, the talk page is broken and we're in no shape for an RfC as people cannot easily refer back to previous discussion, which is what i normally do when i'm called to an RfC, to get my bearings. Were you not liking what people might see if they did find this page to have a mile of discussion on "fad diet"? SageRad (talk) 21:51, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@SageRad: Jytdog was right to chastise me. We need to stop arguing this and either focus on getting together an RfC, or else drop it entirely and leave the phrase in. Seriously, the RfC is your best chance to win this. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:02, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but i don't think that archiving and hatting the bulk of previous talk page content is the way to do this. I think that is really counter to doing that in a good way. When i come to an RfC randomly called by Legobot, i typically go back and read previous talk page dialogue. When someone comes here, if we have an RfC, they will find a lot of hats with labels like "endless repetition" and such prejudiced labels. SageRad (talk) 22:07, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think the basic question is whether we call the diet a "fad diet" in Wikivoice or in an attributed way. As simple as that.

Does the article begin with:

The Paleolithic diet is a fad diet that emphasizes foods eaten by pre-agricultural humans...

or

The Paleolithic diet is an approach to eating that emphasizes foods eaten by pre-agricultural humans... Many mainstream sources call it a fad diet.

I'm not ok with the first because it violates WP:NPOV and is inaccurate to the full range of sources, but i'm fine with the second because it's accurate.

As simple as that: Is the main definitional noun for this article "fad diet" or not? SageRad (talk) 11:01, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously, even faith healing and Bill Cosby get more respect in their first sentence than this diet which has some reasonable support in reliable sources, as well as some strong critics. Why don't we begin the article by saying, "The Paleolithic diet is a load of hooey believed in by unicorn riders who are afraid of dihydrogen monoxide and mumble about foods eaten by Neanderthals..."? SageRad (talk) 11:11, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, I thinkt he following is more accurate:

The paleolithic diet (also called the paleo diet, caveman diet or stone-age diet) is a fad diet^{[1][2][3]: 9} based mainly on foods which advocates think were available to paleolithic humans.

The reason is obvious: there is no such thing as a "paleolithic diet", no evidence that diets eaten by paleolithic humans were uniquely appropriate in the course of human evolution, and no evidence that a paleolithic diet is even possible now since pretty much nothing we eat is in the same form as in paleolithic times, due to agriculture. Guy (Help!) 11:25, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well i guess since Guy knows the answers, we're done here and can go home. All those sources, no need to read them. What i actually mean to say is that there is a typical range of Paloelithic diets that can be somewhat surmised by evidence, and what we have called the "Paleolithic diet" here is a modern approach to eating based on many ideas about how diet has changed from pre-agricultural times to now. Those are two separate entities -- the range of diets of earlier humans as best we can glean from limited evidence, and the modern phenom of the Paleo diet. Many aspects of what Guy mentioned are indeed written about by modern people in the umbrella of the Paleo diet concept -- differences in food composition, differences in various diets of different peoples in earlier times and at present in hunter/gatherer societies, etc.... there is a lot of nuance within the discourse. It's not the "Flintstones diet" that's being caricatured throughout the current version of the article.

But in the end, i think the basic question is: Should Wikipedia define the Paleolithic diet as "a fad diet" or should it say that many commenters call it a fad diet? I advocate for neutral point of view meaning the second option. We should say that many have called it a fad diet. That's true, verifiably. But we should not define it as such in Wikivoice as that is a reckoning and many sources also disagree with that reckoning, so there are multiple points of view on it. SageRad (talk) 11:36, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

But in the end, i think the basic question is: Should Wikipedia define the Paleolithic diet as "a fad diet" or should it say that many commenters call it a fad diet? As I've pointed out before, there are two aspects to this:

1. Many reliable sources refer to it as a "fad diet".
2. It unarguably fits the generally accepted (and much of the more nuanced, individual) definitions of "fad diet".

So there's really no room for debate. The only legitimate concern brought up is the issue of the term not carrying an NPOV, but while that may be a legitimate question, so far no-one's provided any answer other than "It's a neutral enough term," or "It's not neutral because I say it's not." Of the two, only the first one carries any weight whatsoever. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:50, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There really is room for debate, and there is debate. There is NOT a monolith of most sources calling it a fad diet and therefore it's wrong and not neutral for Wikipedia to define it as such in Wikivoice. Period.

The RfC if we must do one should ask simply whether the article calls it a fad diet in Wikivoice or attributes the term. Simple and done.

If those here would agree to simply attribute the term then we could be done with no RfC. But people are pushing for Wikivoice to take sides among several valid points of view here and that's created this issue.

I don't think some editors understand what NPOV requires of us, for very good reason. We are not the arbiters of Truth. SageRad (talk) 16:01, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Many mainstream sources call it a fad diet." is original research. None of the sources state it is "mainstream sources". QuackGuru (talk) 02:32, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I dislike the term "mainstream" that is overused by some. There is an essay' WP:MAINSTREAM which is not Wikipedia policy and which is completely incorrect and misleading by my standards. The policy demands reliable sources, not mainstream sources. So, in response to your comment i would say that "Many commenters call it a 'fad diet'." would work. SageRad (talk) 10:50, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Your proposal does not summarise any specific source. I think this could work. It matches the source per WP:V policy. QuackGuru (talk) 17:30, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just yeses or nos, please. What would you think of replacing "fad diet" with "popular diet"? Jytdog (talk) 18:11, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:19, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:Martin Hogbin, do you think using the term "popular diet" is better than the current wording? QuackGuru (talk) 19:29, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, it means almost nothing. Despite the opinion of some I am neither for nor against the PD. I am for plain language that conveys some significant meaning to our readers. Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:09, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:Martin Hogbin, do you prefer "fad diet" or "popular diet"? QuackGuru (talk) 20:12, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Good quesiton: Maritn Hogbin is reliably wrong per policy, so the opposite of his view should be a useful guide. Guy (Help!) 00:39, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please keep your rude remaks to yourself. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:08, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Good compromise. QuackGuru (talk) 18:21, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Nice idea/gesture and sounds a little better in the flow but still means the same thing, and many sources actually do call it a "fad diet" so i see no reason to change to another term. I have no issue with the term "fad diet" but i strongly feel that it should simply not be in Wikivoice as it's not a definitive point of view. Sorry, that was more than "yes" or "no". SageRad (talk) 21:31, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• No. All fad diets are popular, what you're doing by dropping the f-word is simply bowdlerising. Guy (Help!) 23:51, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Last last attempt at solution for "fad diet" thing

How about "Many critics call it a fad diet"? In other words, a simple attribution so it's not in Wikivoice? SageRad (talk) 21:31, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Who says they are critics? --Ronz (talk) 22:14, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't bait, it goes no where. Jytdog (talk) 22:21, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm certainly not baiting. I hope SageRad isn't.

Labeling sources as "critics" is a rather blatant pov violation, unless there are far better sources that verifies the label. --Ronz (talk) 23:27, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am not baiting. I'm offering a reasonable solution. If "critics" doesn't work then "sources" or "commenters" or "mainstream sources" or something. As long as it's attributed to sources, and not in Wikivoice. SageRad (talk) 23:36, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Question - just out of curiosity. For those opposing popular diet/fad diet, are you aware of what the opposites are - what the buckets are, into which the world of diet advice is divided? I am wondering if part of this problem is lack of context.... anyway, please do answer, simply, if you would. Jytdog (talk) 21:44, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'll just tell you - there is mainstream diet advice (see Healthy eating), and there is stuff your doctor/dietician tells you to eat (or not eat) because there is something medically wrong with you like Phenylketonuria - this is called medical nutrition therapy. And then you have all these popular diets that are sold in self-help sections blah blah blah and which Katz so aptly refers to as "the never-ending parade of beauty pageant contestants". People giving mainstream advice write over and over things like "The message that there is a clearly established theme of healthful eating, relevant across generations, geography, and health concerns could, theoretically, exert a considerable and advantageous influence on public nutrition. This message, however, is at present a relatively feeble signal lost in a chorus of noise." Popular diets are that "chorus of noise".

That is the world of diets. Paleo is not mainstream science-based advice about a healthy diet, it is not medical nutrition therapy -- it is a popular diet, which class of diets are often called "fad diets". Do you all really not understand that? (that is a real question, not a rhetorical one) Jytdog (talk) 22:25, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware that the Paleo diet advice is not aligned with mainstream advice like the food pyramid and USDA recommendations, but also aware that there are many other sources of diet advice, and some like Katz are critical of that mainstream advice as well (see his recent comment on that in Time magazine). I also know that the Paleo diet, though, is not thought by everyone who uses it, to be a "diet" in the sense of "follow this diet fully" but more a heuristic for thinking about food, with some recommendations, and a looseness as well (see the 80/20 guideline for instance). Veganism is another diet approach that can be healthy and good or can be harmful if poorly followed, and can have some useful elements even for the non-vegan. Veganism and vegetarianism are both endorsed as healthy by the ADA as well, despite not being "mainstream".

So my points are that (1) mainstream doesn't mean correct and doesn't mean unison, and (2) alternative approaches like the Paleo diet can have some good things to offer while some of it may not be useful. SageRad (talk) 23:36, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You are not operating with WP:NPOV in mind. NPOV says that we acknowledge what is mainstream and what is not. Paleo is not a mainstream advice about eating. It is very very clearly a popular diet with respect to three kinds of diet advice that exist. I do understand that you believe it is important or something, but you have never said it was mainstream. Thanks for answering. I am going back to not responding to you, since you are not working according to the basic content policies here. Jytdog (talk) 23:41, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... so you end your comment by saying you are going to not respond to me, with a claim that i am "not working according to the basic content policies here". Well, i assert that i very much am working according to the basic policies here. In fact, i'm working very strictly to them.

What WP:NPOV says about "mainstream" is:

While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity. There are many such beliefs in the world, some popular and some little-known: claims that the Earth is flat, that the Knights Templar possessed the Holy Grail, that the Apollo moon landings were a hoax, and similar ones. Conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, speculative history, or plausible but currently unaccepted theories should not be legitimized through comparison to accepted academic scholarship.

The Paleo diet may not be the recommendation of the USDA, but on the other hand, it is supported by at least some mainstream scientific sources. It's nothing like the examples given in NPOV in this regard. I would say that the Paleo diet is in fact regarded as valid by many mainstream sources. In fact, the other day while out food shopping (and buying generally "Paleo" items) and leafed through book called Obsessed about food by a mainstream TV news anchor, and i found the Paleo diet spoken of in that book in fairly good terms. Anyway, Annual Review of Public Health seems a mainstream scientific journal, as well.

I am most certainly working with the policies of Wikipedia in mind very clearly, and i invite you to continue this dialogue. If you don't, that is your choice alone. SageRad (talk) 23:51, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, i'm not opposing the term "fad diet" being in the article -- i think it should be in the article, but it must be attributed because it's not an across-the-board judgment among mainstream sources. SageRad (talk) 00:04, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Martin Hogbin and QuackGuru would you please respond on this context thing? Thank you. Jytdog (talk) 23:46, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The part "critics" is not supported by the sources. QuackGuru (talk) 23:45, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for replying QG -- I shouldn't have asked you, as you expressed openness to keeping the lead as it is, but replacing "fad diet" with "popular diet". Sorry. Jytdog (talk) 23:47, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure why you are asking. Jytdog, you can go ahead and replace it with "popular diet". The talk page is a waste of time. QuackGuru (talk) 23:49, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In what sense is the talk page a waste of time? SageRad (talk) 00:33, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The question was simple and some editors are not focused on the question. Too much time is being wasted. QuackGuru (talk) 01:00, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We have time to discuss things. SageRad (talk) 10:25, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• No. Critical analysis does not make one "a critic". It is a fad diet, according to sources, determined apologists don't make that any less true. Guy (Help!) 23:53, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

oh poop. Well there goes that. Guy I do ask you to reconsider. "Popular diet", "diet cult", "fad diet" are all the same thing, and the literature treats them all the same way. What we need to make clear is that this is not mainstream advice about diet and "popular diet" does that.... no? btw "popular diet" is Marion Nestle's preferred term.... Jytdog (talk) 23:56, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here is what Dr Nestle says about the Paleo diet -- neither the term "fad diet" nor "popular diet". She doesn't recommend it highly but she says it can be useful and healthy in some ways, but you'd miss variety that she likes. SageRad (talk) 00:02, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For those following, to the question "is it healthy?" she said No. and the title is "Paleo sigh". (And this is great, and becomes a new source for the article) She doesn't characterize it at all, except to call it a "restrictive diet". (which is one of the hallmarks of popular/fad diets) When she does characterize diets like these, she calls them "popular diets" as she does in "What to Eat" On her blog says exactly what Katz says here: "Of course Americans need more information about eating well. ...In my daily teaching and contact with the public, I hear endless confusion about what to eat. People are bombarded with conflicting advice, much of it from sources with a vested interest in selling particular foods, supplements or diet plans.... No wonder people have a hard time knowing what or whom to believe. This is too bad, really. The basic principles of healthy eating could not be easier to understand: eat plenty of vegetables and fruits, balance calorie intake with expenditure, and don’t eat too much junk food." Paleo is clearly part of the "bombarding... with a vested interest in selling... diet plans." Jytdog (talk) 00:22, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, didn't want to take up column inches with this, but since it's been misrepresented, i must report that if you really read it without an attempt to bias the outcome, you see she wrote:

The Wall Street Journal, hoping to generate some controversy, got me involved in a point/counterpoint about the Paleo Diet: “Is a Paleo diet healthy?” It can be, but this is a point/counterpoint. Hence, I took the position "NO: You Lose Too Much Pleasure for Dubious Benefits."

And then you see she wrote:

Any restrictive diet helps to reduce calorie intake, so it isn’t surprising that there are studies linking paleo to weight loss, lower blood sugar and a reduced risk of cancers for which obesity is a risk factor. Eating less works every time. So does eating a largely plant-based diet. Research suggests that we can reduce risks for today’s diseases of affluence by eating more foods from plant sources and balancing calorie intake with expenditure. To the extent the paleo diet achieves these goals, it is a reasonable choice.

In the end, she says that the diet can be healthy, but that it's too restrictive of foods that she likes for her taste, and that it's not the only way to eat a healthy diet. Sure, it's a great source. I love Dr Nestle's work. Please don't misrepresent this source if you do add it to the article. SageRad (talk) 00:31, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, it was in the article and it was misrepresented in terms of a "verdict" by Nestle, so i changed it to follow the source. This is the wind blowing, the portrayal of all things in the worst possible lawyerly way against the Paleo diet. It's not pretty. SageRad (talk) 10:57, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, you try to make "no" mean "yes". She took the position that it is not healthy. We must reflect that. I reverted your POV edit. Alexbrn (talk) 11:33, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• No. -Roxy the dog™ woof 11:13, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• No what? Unhelpful kind of comment there Roxy. SageRad (talk) 11:30, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I also am interested to hear what Alexbrn, Ronz, MjolnirPants, and Martin Hogbin still have to say on this too.... Jytdog (talk) 23:57, 9 February 2016 (UTC) (corrected, he already said no Jytdog (talk) 02:22, 10 February 2016 (UTC))[reply]

Looking forward to hearing from you all. above we have "yes" QG and me, and "no" from Martin, SageRad and Guy. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 00:31, 10 February 2016 (UTC) (corrected in my last dif, redacting here Jytdog (talk) 02:23, 10 February 2016 (UTC))[reply]

hmm ok it looks like we will have no consensus to solve this, this way. Am giving up this effort. Jytdog (talk) 02:22, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hatting active and very recent dialog] at whim is not acceptable, Jytdog, nor is deleting another user's comment. Dialogue that is active and recent must be allowed to stand, for the record, and to be obvious for all to see. There is much in that dialogue. SageRad (talk) 10:24, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to the section title, please add my "No" in regard to substituting the word fad, per mainstream sources. In regard to hatting, well done to Jytdog for a valiant attempt to refocus discussion. Please note that hatting doesn't make the (TLDR rehashed endless discussion by pov editors) text less available to interested editors. -Roxy the dog™ woof 11:09, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Popular diet and fad diet are synonymous: either would do. And yes, it should be in Wikipedia's voice (We should also however quote the "jurassic fad" moniker from the BDA, at least). Alexbrn (talk) 12:09, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, I do not think they are. A popular diet is defined by popularity, a fad diet is defined by being based on some arbitrary factor not anchored in sound science. The Five-Two diet may be popular but not a fad (it grew out of actual research), whereas things like the cabbage soup diet are simply fads. I think it was naughty of Jytdog to move fad diet to popular diet without prior discussion in order to support this claim. Guy (Help!) 12:33, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say 5:2 was a "fad diet" too ("Cabbage soup, blood group, the 5:2 diet and other fad diets are often far-fetched"[16]). But it could also be termed "popular". I suppose the trouble with "popular" might be that it connotes "much liked" to the naive reader without also connoting the "amateur/unscientific" aspect the word also should carry in this context. Alexbrn (talk) 12:44, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

'Popular' is even worse than fad. It has no real meaning in this context. Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:51, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Did I miss an analysis of sources that demonstrate "popular diet" is being used by more and better sources than "fad diet"? --Ronz (talk) 16:16, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry I didn't respond sooner, this page is a swamp of text. In response to the suggestion we substitute "popular" for "fad", I say no. "Fad diet" carries more meaning (not necessarily negative meaning), and I believe "popular" may be misleading. I'm quite certain that the south beach diet, the mediterranean diet, the raw foods diet, jenny craig and the atkins diet are all much more popular than this one. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:37, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is obviously no consensus to make the change. Jytdog 21:53, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's easy. Attribute "fad diet" and it's done. Why the resistance to attribute the claim? SageRad (talk) 22:07, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The edit note here is inaccurate. There is no consensus to include "fad diet" with attribution. Do not write inaccurate things in WP. Jytdog (talk) 22:10, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's ridiculous to call this "last attempt" and close it after only two days and only ping your likeminded friends. Add my YES. --.js^{WP: [democracy needed]} 21:31, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Stop manipulating my comments, Jytdog. --.js^{WP: [democracy needed]} 05:28, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why don't we give it a shot and see if there's consensus with attribution? I've stated that I'm ok with it. Who is not ok with it? Maybe MH because he sees it as rhetoric? Maybe if it's attributed then that concern is alleviated because it's then not Wikivoice stating it. SageRad (talk) 22:20, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

By the way why do you insist on hatting things at your whim and knowing there is opposition to it by others? And active conversations, no less. Would be a lot easier and congenial if you wouldn't hat whatever you feel like hatting. SageRad (talk) 22:22, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

SageRad has stated innumerable times that he would accept "fad diet" with attribution. Here are several of them: here; here; here; and here. There are many, many, many more. Martin Hogbin and Quackguru agree. Everyone else has said "no", repeatedly and have also repeatedly stated their reasons for that. See the several hatted sections above. There is absolutely not consensus for this. The question is mind-blowing in its absolute refusal to even hear that others have said "no" repeatedly. Jytdog (talk) 23:35, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, it's not "everyone else" who has said "no" repeatedly, but rather several who want to state in Wikivoice that the diet is a "fad diet" and who even insist on this being in the very first sentence of the article as the definitional noun, as in "The Paleolithic diet is a fad diet that..."

Let's be clear. I think we would have consensus to quote the term "fad diet" or say that many sources call it a fad diet. We do not have consensus to declare in Wikivoice that it's a fad diet, or to define it as such in the first sentence. That is not a consensus view among reliable sources, so Wikivoice cannot state that definitively. That would violate WP:NPOV. But there is a corps here who insist that Wikivoice must declare that this diet is a "fad diet" or no deal. That is the essence of the logjam. SageRad (talk) 10:05, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer context. See Talk:Paleolithic_diet#Alternative_proposal. QuackGuru (talk) 01:13, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]