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Page views for the last 12 months

Stashing this here. Has some new details about Clegg and corroborates some of the details of the Austin Chronicle article. http://www.playboy.com/articles/ecstasy-was-legal-in-1984-and-it-was-glorious

Has blurb on current usage. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/36503623/danger-from-ecstasy-greater-than-ever-say-drug-experts Sizeofint (talk) 18:59, 8 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Additional source for history/spiritual uses to add if I can track down the original Guardian article. http://csp.org/practices/entheogens/docs/saunders-ecstasy_rel.html Sizeofint (talk) 20:29, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Roger-Sánchez, Concepción; García-Pardo, María P.; Rodríguez-Arias, Marta; Miñarro, Jose; Aguilar, María A. (April 2016). "Neurochemical substrates of the rewarding effects of MDMA". Behavioural Pharmacology. 27: 116–132. doi:10.1097/FBP.0000000000000210. Sizeofint (talk) 08:35, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

French, Larry G. (June 1995). "The Sassafras Tree and Designer Drugs: From Herbal Tea to Ecstasy". Journal of Chemical Education. 72 (6): 484. doi:10.1021/ed072p484. Sizeofint (talk) 02:48, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Pasting here until the section can be expanded appropriately. Keep in mind that medical information needs to have WP:MEDRS content. Sizeofint (talk) 18:57, 8 November 2016 (UTC) ==Harm Reduction== Harm reduction, as stated by [[Harm Reduction International]], refers to policies, programmes and practices that aim to reduce the harms associated with the use of psychoactive drugs in people unable or unwilling to stop. <ref> What is harm reduction? https://www.hri.global/what-is-harm-reduction </ref> ===Supplementation=== ===Organizations===[reply]

Not accurate. Never was. The DEA scheduled it as a Schedule I substance without any basis in fact much like CPSC ruled on Buckeyballs (Which we now know was so deficient that the Judge had to "toss" most of Zen's arguments in their filing because they were only applicable (and hinted that most of them were) if the CPSC were...you know, competent, and did their jobs right...) It's classification by the DEA has flip-flopped twice and once of those was in defiance of court order. (See: https://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/DPA-MAPS_DEA_Science_Final.pdf) The "limited" trials were for patients and situations like PTSD where it could help patients to restructure their brains. In fact, in recent times there have been decisions to move the scheduling to III on things and they have now started the process on a Phase 3 clinical trial for PSTD wherein it actually has really high rates of success in major improvement for the patients, compared to the other regimens. The descriptions for this need to be changed, guys. False but "accurate" is only for the mainstream media. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.123.168.226 (talk • contribs)

MDMA currently has no accepted medical indications. We can't say otherwise until after the phase three trials finish. Sizeofint (talk) 10:29, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Re: what Sizeofint said. Also, the phase 3 clinical trial doesn't start until sometime in 2017. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 00:43, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What should we put as the class of this drug?

I propose psychoactive drug. User:Sizeofint proposes Empathogen-entactogen. Others thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:25, 17 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why? "Psychoactive drug" isn't a drug class. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 05:49, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This book lists it as a "hallucinogen"[1] would be happy with that aswell. The DEA does not recognize "entactogen" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:27, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Causing hallucinations isn't really a primary effect of MDMA though. Even in this article we describe the hallucinatory effects as "mild". The primary effects of MDMA are on mood - not the modification of external stimuli. In that respect, it is more similar to an anti-depressant than a hallucinogen. Even "stimulant" would be a more accurate classification, though that also doesn't completely capture it. I'll look at a few reviews and see how they are classifying MDMA. Sizeofint (talk) 07:42, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Even the authors of that book admit the term "hallucinogen" is misleading on page 289. Sizeofint (talk) 07:49, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In the mid-1980s, based on the structure–activity relationships of MDMA-like molecules, Nichols (1986) proposed that the psychosocial effects of MDMA represented a novel pharmacological class, which he named “entactogens” to capture its apparently unique sensory and emotional effects. Data from rodent drug-discrimination paradigms (reviewed in Glennon, 1999; Nichols and Oberlender, 1989) suggested that MDMA was clearly distinguishable from hallucinogens, but shared many pharmacological, discriminative, and behavioral effects with prototypic amphetamine-like stimulants. Finally, in the 1990s, researchers began to conduct controlled studies to measure the psychosocial effects of MDMA in humans and to compare these to the effects of other stimulants.^[1]

MDMA has a stimulant, hallucinogenic effect, and is also known to enhance mental factors such as energy, empathy and euphoria (12).^[2]

Moreover, people can experience entactogenic effects and feel extremely connected with others and some even have mild hallucinations^[3]

MDMA has been called an entactogen, meaning literally “to produce touching within”, referring to its tendency to enhance inner awareness and distinguishing it from classic psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin^[4]

Because of this serotonergic component, MDMA exhibits some mental effects that differ qualitatively from other amphetamine-type stimulants (Schmid et al., 2014 and Schmid et al., 2015) and for this reason MDMA has been classified as an “entactogen”.^[5]

Whereas phenethylamines without ring substitution usually behave as stimulants, ring substitution (as in MDMA) leads to a modification in the pharmacological properties. Ingestion of MDMA causes euphoria, increased sensory awareness and mild central stimulation. It is less hallucinogenic than its lower homologue, methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA). The terms empathogenic and entactogenic have been coined to describe the socialising effects of MDMA.^[6]

A couple of books: Thought to be relatively save, in the mid-1970s it was proposed as an adjuvant to psychotherapy by Leo Zeff and other experimental psychiatrists who touted its ability to increase patient self-esteem, empathy and nondefensiveness and to facilitate therapeutic communication; thus its original classification as and "empathogen", though the term "entactogen" is now preferred.[2] Although entactogens and stimulants display similar stereoselectivity, when tested within their respective classes, the R isomers of MDA, MDMA, and MBDB substitute for MDMA and (+)-MBDB but not for (+)-amphetamine. [3]

Bolding mine. This is what I found on the first page of pubmed index reviews (at least from the ones I can access). The book results are admittedly more biased because I searched 'MDMA entactogen'. Most of the articles here emphasize how MDMA is different from typical stimulants and hallucinogens. Sizeofint (talk) 08:42, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This says the term "entactogens" is not recognized by the DEA.[4] "Some authors proposed that MDMA represented a novel class of drugs, the entactogens that were not hallucinogenic. However, the DEA did not accept this new classification" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:13, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This book calls it a "stimulant" and a "hallucinogen"[5] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:22, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This paper calls it a stimulant and talks about how Nichols proposed the novel class "entactogens". I am not seeing that this is an officially accepted drug class. [6] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:25, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The DEA is a view - a potentially heavy weight one to be sure - but not the arbiter of what is and is not accepted classification for drugs. If the consensus in the scientific literature is that this is a valid classification - and that I think is what my initial survey of the latest reviews in PubMed suggest - then that is what we should go with regardless of the DEA's stance. To my knowledge, no scientist has the power to say, "this is now officially a drug class" so in that sense all drug classes are 'proposed'. It simply becomes accepted over time that this is indeed a valid drug classification. We can see this over at opioid. There isn't a single definition of opioid, only a set of 'proposed' definitions which are used until some more refined usage takes precedence. Notably, none of the reviews I read here disputed this classification. If they did dispute anything, it was the simple classification of MDMA with other hallucinogens and stimulants. Also, not all the sources I quote above use this 'proposed' modifier. Sizeofint (talk) 00:22, 19 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Additional sources:

Not MEDRS but shows traction of the term - MDMA is the prototypical empathogen and entactogen drug^[7]

Government agency - Drug Class: Mild CNS stimulant, empathogen, entactogen, mild hallucinogen and psychedelic, appetite suppressant.^[8]

Members of the entactogen class of psychostimulants (drugs that produce an “open mind state” including feelings of interpersonal closeness, intimacy and empathy) have been less frequently studied in self-administration models. The prototypical entactogen 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA; “Ecstasy”) supports self-administration but not with the same consistency nor with the same efficacy as structurally related drugs amphetamine or methamphetamine.^[9]

• FWIW: the |class= parameter takes & shows any text (unformatted). So one could use a list of classnames, or add a description/reference. I only hope it won't be too expanded, in an infobox. -DePiep (talk) 11:50, 19 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How about "stimulant (entactogen)"? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:46, 19 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Doc James and Sizeofint: Based upon the unique psychoactive effects of MDMA relative to other substituted amphetamines that lack a methylenedioxy ring, I think "Empathogen–entactogen" would be the most appropriate drug class for this compound. I've seen MDMA (as well as other methylenedioxy- derivatives of amphetamine) classified differently than amphetamine and methamphetamine in almost every paper that I've read on the class of substituted amphetamines. In most cases, MDMA and related derivatives were referred to entactogens and/or empathogens, which is in agreement with the references which Sizeofint provided. I imagine that the DEA doesn't "recognize" these two terms as drug classes because MDMA is the parent compound for all compounds in this class, none of them are licit substances, and none of them have any current medical uses. In any event, the DEA isn't an organization that is involved in the classification of drugs or other biologically active substances.

The two most common classification systems for drugs are the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System (which assigns ATC codes) and Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine. MDMA has not been assigned a drug class in either of these systems. In some cases, these classification systems assign compounds to drug classes with rather technical names; for example, amphetamine's ATC code (N06BA01) assigns amphetamine to the class of "centrally acting sympathomimetics" (note: this class is a subcategory of psychoanaleptics and "psychostimulants, agents used for ADHD, and nootropics"), which essentially means "drugs which activate the sympathetic nervous system by stimulating the central nervous system". In lieu of this technical classification, I used "CNS stimulant" in amphetamine's drugbox, since it's almost the same classification.

I don't believe that listing "hallucinogen" alone is an accurate classification for MDMA or any other substituted amphetamine for that matter. "CNS stimulant" describes some of MDMA's drug effects, but does not encompass the pro-social, empathy-promoting (i.e., empathogenic) effects for which it is often used recreationally.

I think an adequate compromise would be to list "Empathogen–entactogen", "CNS stimulant", and possibly "Euphoriant" and/or "mild hallucinogen" as drug classes in the drugbox class parameter. Listing the first 2, and possibly one or both of the other classes as well, should adequately cover its classification. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 18:57, 19 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe leave it blank than if it is not categorized by either ATC code or SNM Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:00, 19 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• I saw the note at WT:PHARM, and it's an interesting question. In a sense, it's really just "miscellaneous". I'd say the most precise description would be "euphoriant, empathogen–entactogen". I edit conflicted with Seppi333, and this suggestion is similar to his. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:06, 19 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

These proposals seem reasonable to me. Simply saying MDMA is a stimulant or hallucinogen is, I think, misleading. That MDMA isn't present in a formal classification system is likely just due to its lack of medical indications. I don't think not having an ATC code is a persuasive reason to ignore how reliable medical/scientific sources are classifying it. Sizeofint (talk) 02:54, 20 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Section references

Petergstrom, is there a newer source for the claim of non-addictiveness? 1999 is rather old. Sizeofint (talk) 03:05, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agree

• Pentney, Alana (Sept 2001). "An Exploration of the History and Controversies Surrounding MDMA and MDA". Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. 33 (3): 213–221. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Jansen, K. L. (7 January 1999). "Ecstasy (MDMA) dependence". Drug and Alcohol Dependence. 53 (2): 121–124. ISSN 0376-8716.

This source says "may not induce classical manifestations of physical dependence"[7]

Which is not the same to as saying no risk of addiction. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:57, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ref says "MDMA users may encounter problems similar to those experienced by amphetamine and cocaine users, including addiction. MDMA damages brain serotonin neurons. Serotonin is thought to play a role in regulating mood, memory, sleep, and appetite. Research indicates heavy MDMA may cause persistent memory problems in humans; however, a 2011 study has reported limited cognitive decline in users of MDMA.1"[8]

NIH says "Research results vary on whether MDMA is addictive. Experiments have shown that animals will self-administer MDMA—an important indicator of a drug’s abuse potential—although to a lesser degree than some other drugs such as cocaine."[9] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:04, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"With no reports of subjects who take large amounts of MDMA for long periods of time (Peroutka l 990a), indi­ cating that the drug is not addictive, " "It has been shown that MDMA is not addictive in humans (Beck & Rosenbaum 1 994; Peroutka 1 990a; Riedlinger 1 985),"

Petergstrom (talk) 08:35, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

All those sources are old and the never sources say something different. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:13, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would disagree, saying that the sources are totally fine despite being over a decade old, but it smells to me like the consensus is on the other side so I guess thats that #RipmemesPetergstrom (talk) 09:19, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think both statements should be cited, with the context. The NIH statement is more recent, but it refers to animals and that animals self-administer MDMA does not by default entail that humans will as well (also noted WP:MEDANIMAL). The older statements refer to humans but are, well, older, and may have been superseded by later research. On their own, none out-WP:WEIGHT-s the other. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:43, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We have lots of other good sources that also comment on the addiction of MDMA include "There are no specific pharmacologic treatments for MDMA addiction" 2015 Nelson Textbook of Peds Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:04, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We have a 2010 review that says "MDMA also modulates the activity of the dynorphinergic and enkephalinergic systems in several brain structures related to addiction, as it has been shown for other psychostimulants." Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:16, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This 2013 review is even clearer "Users often consider ecstasy to lack the potential for dependence or addiction, but this is not the case." Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:26, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

per [10]it is a review and quite clear agree w/ Doc James--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:44, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have access to that, but to me it smells primary. So right now we have two old sources saying it is not addictive and one new animal source and a new primary source that says it is. And we have this: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)60464-4/abstract source from the lancet that suggests its psychological dependence potential(addictive potential) is lower than cannabis.....Looks pretty clear cut, we can't say wether to not it is addictive. Better to keep it at None to moderate Petergstrom (talk) 10:36, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ah seriously? It is avaliable openly from PMC[11] and pubmed calls it a review article. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:53, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Petergstrom — making up facts is not a good way to go. You have access and it is marked as a review.... Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 11:58, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Woah carl thats hostile. I googled the title and the sites i visited recquired purchase. I read the article on pubmed and it mentions dependence but i cant find it explicitly stating addiction. I still think we should list as none to moderatePetergstrom (talk) 13:03, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Primary sources and dated sources are unacceptable. We stick to recent reviews. QuackGuru (talk) 17:45, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• User:Petergstrom Pubmed abstracts include a classification. Click on this link for the 2013 review discussed above: PMID 24648791. Scroll down to where it says "Publication types". click the double downward arrowheads to the right, to reveal what is in the field. You will see it says "review" there. The abstract at pubmed also clearly displays links to the free version of the article, which anyone can reach by clicking the hyperlink where it says in bold and brown font "Free PMC Article", which is here.

You have now had these extremely basic things about working with medical references explained to you

If you ever write things like this again (and I am recording the diffs): diff where you wrote: I don't have access to that, but to me it smells primary.. diff I googled the title and the sites i visited recquired purchase you will not be editing about health much longer in WP. Jytdog (talk) 04:26, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

User:Jytdog, woah, that that edit did not intent to discredit the source... I clicked on something and it asked for money, so I said I had no access. Someone could have just said, no you have access, its a review...and someone did, and I accepted it.Petergstrom (talk) 04:44, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No. The diffs say what they say I don't have access to that, but to me it smells primary. when the pubmed abstract is free and obviously classifies the ref as a review. You demonstrated pure incompetence or tendetiousness and in the context of an edit war, and none of that is acceptable. I will not continue this discussion. I have warned you to behave and edit better and that is done. Jytdog (talk) 04:50, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Dated sources?

The discussion is still underway. I don't see consensus for this. Is there a good reason to use dated sources? QuackGuru (talk) 22:39, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Petergstrom, there have been loads of reviews published the last five years. I would think there should be some that include this content if it is still the scientific consensus. If they don't then it is highly possible new research has altered the consensus. We want this article to reflect current scientific opinion which might be different from the scientific opinion from eight or sixteen years ago. Sizeofint (talk) 01:56, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't own the book, but someone pointed out the source referenced WP:MEDANIMAL, and the quotation for the book does not mention addiction at all. I think both statements should be cited as someone mentioned above.Petergstrom (talk) 01:50, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Which statement? Sizeofint (talk) 01:58, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Updated the addiction liability with a newer source. Sizeofint (talk) 02:25, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how changing

Impairments in multiple aspects of cognition, including memory, visual processing, and sleep have been noted in humans;<ref name=Current2013 /><ref name=Pharm2014 /><ref name="Abstinent MDMA fMRI review" /> the magnitude of these impairments is correlated with lifetime MDMA usage.<ref name=Current2013 /><ref name=Pharm2014 /><ref name="Abstinent MDMA fMRI review" /> Memory is impacted by ecstasy use, which is associated with impairments in several forms of memory.<ref name=Current2013 /><ref name=Pharm2014 />

to the following is an improvement.

However these findings have been inconsistent have have been of small significance,^[1][2][3] creating controversy surrounding the causal role of MDMA in long term cognitive impairment.^[4]

Assuming the text adequately summarizes the sources, the old version has references five to eight years more recent than this new text. Sizeofint (talk) 02:53, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The article is slowing moving forward without the dated sources. Every 5 years we can do this again. QuackGuru (talk) 02:59, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The addiction liability of MDMA is based upon this ref^[5] and the ratings of similar dopamine releasing agents on Wikipedia. I don't see a compelling reason to change this. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 03:03, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If the newer source is as good quality we should prefer it. The desired effects of MDMA are mainly serotonergic so I would expect the usage patterns to be somewhat different from other dopamine releasing agents. Different usage patterns could affect the addiction liability. Consequently, I don't think we can necessarily expect MDMA to have the same liability. Sizeofint (talk) 03:18, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with leaving it at moderate though since that seems an acceptable reading of the source. Sizeofint (talk) 03:21, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Petergstrom, why are you using older sources to overwrite content from newer sources? If the newer sources mention the evidence is low quality, why don't you just cite them? Also, you're over WP:3RR. Sizeofint (talk) 03:30, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If i am over 3RR, so are you. Fine I will cite newer sources.Petergstrom (talk) 03:33, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My count is I reverted twice, Quack another two times, and Seppi once. But in any case, thanks. Sizeofint (talk) 03:36, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ill watchlist this article--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:00, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's not enough to cite newer sources. We can expunge the older sources now rather than later. Is there a reason to use dated sources? QuackGuru (talk) 12:30, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If there is a newer source cited with them I think the old sources are harmless to keep. They'll eventually disappear by attrition. Actively hunting them down is more effort than it is worth I think. Sizeofint (talk) 12:36, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In my drafts if a newer source is just two years and cites the same or similar claim I use the newer source. If the claim is similar with the newer source I make a slight tweak to the text. I always keep things fresh. Its that simple. QuackGuru (talk) 12:43, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This 2011 review supports the NIH source and discusses research in human subjects:

All three drugs [methamphetamine, d-amphetamine, and MDMA] have addictive potential and can lead to varying degrees of drug dependence...approximately 15% of routine MDMA users recently fit the diagnostic criteria for MDMA dependence...Comparable results have been reported following MDMA abuse in the United Kingdom (McCambridge et al., 2005). Furthermore, MDMA and D-AMPH were reported to have similar reinforcing effects in people during a controlled laboratory study (Tancer and Johanson, 2003). Thus, there is some epidemiological evidence to support the addictive potential of MDMA as described in animal studies, although to a much lesser extent than that of either METH or D-AMPH.^[6]

—PermStrump(talk) 00:32, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Dependence and addiction are used together in this study...it doesnt seem very good.Petergstrom (talk) 00:54, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It seems more useful for quantifying the dependence liability than addiction liability. Haven't finished reading it yet though. Sizeofint (talk) 01:06, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The current classification of MDMA puts it on par with amphetamine and (and phenethylamine when it's coadministered with a MAO-B inhibitor) in terms of its addiction and dependence liability, while being less addictive and less prone to induce psychological dependence than methamphetamine or cocaine. This is in part based upon usage demographics (i.e., usage patterns and the doses administered), in part based upon clinical evidence, and in part based upon the molecular neuropharmacology of each drug. I'm not aware of any substituted amphetamines that have been shown/documented to induce physical dependence. Cocaine, which is a nonselective MA reuptake inhibitor, doesn't do this, so I wouldn't expect a nonselective MA releasing agent to cause this either. It is worth pointing out that amphetamine, MDMA, and methamphetamine directly affect glutamate neurotransmission in some cell types in the brain via internalization of neuronal and/or astroglial EAATs in addition to monoamine neurotransmission via several mechanisms that affect VMAT2/DAT/NET/SERT. Alterations in synaptic glutamate concentrations in the NAcc, which is one region where these drugs affect EAATs, directly affects the development and maintenance of an addiction as a result of changes in postsynaptic glutamate receptor signaling (case in point: altered NMDA receptor signaling in the NAcc is strongly implicated in the development of addiction to ketamine and phenylcyclidine). Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 21:15, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So, in a nutshell, I don't see a point in trying to look for refs to change this. These "liability" parameters are really just rather subjective ratings of how likely a drug is to induce addiction or dependence relative to other drugs which have addiction/dependence liability ratings on Wikipedia. Individual liability ratings IMO are fairly meaningless without context (i.e., comparison to other drugs which induce addiction or dependence). Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 21:19, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, phenethylamine with an MAO is not anything that is researched. I have only hear anecdotes related to it so I don't know why you mentioned it. Secondly, "The current classification of MDMA puts it on par with amphetamine". Source? We have found sources that say a variety of things, some say addictive(no magnitude), and others say not addictive. Currently, there is no quantitive data on addictiveness, the 15% is meaningless (of what population? Context of use?). The only real good way to measure addictiveness is with progressive ratio self administration break point in the same lab setting, which hasn't been done with MDMA to my knowledge, I have only found studies comparing cocaine, nicotine, cathinone, morphine and methamphetamine. Given the inconsistency, I think that low would be the best classification for addiction liability on this page, a sort of compromise/average given the sources we have. It's really the best we can do, or we can remove the statistic from the chart overall....because its kinda of hard to quantify and kinda dumb.Petergstrom (talk) 00:31, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, phenethylamine with an MAO is not anything that is researched. You're correct.

I have only hear anecdotes related to it so I don't know why you mentioned it. - re: "...in part based upon the molecular neuropharmacology of each drug"

Secondly, "The current classification of MDMA puts it on par with amphetamine". Source? - amphetamine. I was referring to the current classification on Wikipedia.

I agree that studies with each drug which utilize a standardized reinforcement schedule which is appropriate for studying self administration would be the ideal sources to use set these parameters and cite them. I'm not aware of any body of research like that though.

I don't see any reasonable justification to set the addiction liability of MDMA lower than all other dopamine releasing agents based upon the current evidence. The only ref that we have which compares it to other drugs states that its liability is "relatively small", and "moderate" is "relatively small" compared to "high", which drugs like cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin are rated. Seeing as how those are the three most widely used recreational "hard drugs" globally, I have no clue what else the term "relatively" in the phrase "relatively small" would be referring to in that reference. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 01:02, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well you cant base addiction liability on pharmacology on structure. Firstly, it is well known that the speed DA activity heavily influences the euphoria experienced, and therefore the addictive potential. Secondly, given that MDMA is largely a serotonergic drug, this should prevent addiction, as 5-HT acting drugs have a tendency to create a satiation of desire-kind of like having too much of a food you like. That is why although mildly euphoric, drugs like LSD and psilocybin are not addictive. So, no. You cant say "because MDMA is a phenethylamine, it is moderately addictive". Thats way too far of a jump, not in biology. Maybe in math, maybe in physics(although probably not), but not in biology.Petergstrom (talk) 01:49, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably best to ask me what I have in mind when I said "in part based upon the molecular neuropharmacology of each drug" than to assume you know what I'm referring to. Just like other dopamine releasing agents, and as stated verbatim in the article: MDMA has been shown to induce ΔFosB in the nucleus accumbens.^[7] MDMA and amphetamine induce DA/glutamate release into NAcc D1-type MSNs, which necessarily triggers the exact same signaling cascade into those neurons to induce ΔFosB expression. Those neurons don't even express serotonin receptors, so the notion that it being a serotonin releasing agent somehow changes things is asinine. The fact that MDMA and amphetamine are structural or even functional analogs is also irrelevant - the only relevant neuropharmacological aspect of these drugs in relation to addiction is how they affect neurotransmission at synapses between glutamate/dopamine neurons and D1-type NAcc medium spiny neurons. And, FWIW, the ref above that states that MDMA induces NAcc ΔFosB expression also examined MDMA, cocaine, nicotine, and amphetamine on a progressive ratio reinforcement schedule and measured their break points:[12] [13]. There's a fairly clear consensus on this talk page not to change the addiction liability, so stop edit warring. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 02:13, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What is asinine is think think of addiction solely from a biochemical viewpoint. Yes FOSB expression is related to addiction, but you are forgetting addiction is at its core a behavioral phenomenon. If 2 refs explicitly state MDMA is not addictive in humans, although old, they outweigh a newer ref that suggests it induces FOSB expression in the NAcc. That is ridiculous. Stop reverting to moderate. Best to remove it during this discussion, and I think if we cant come to a conclusion, given how it is impossible to quantify addictiveness potential and the stat is stupid as is, we should remove it.Petergstrom (talk) 03:06, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"DESPITE THE IMPORTANCE OF NUMEROUS PSYCHOSOCIAL FACTORS, AT ITS CORE, DRUG ADDICTION INVOLVES A BIOLOGICAL PROCESS" - very first words of PMID 24459410; no emphasis was added - that all caps is from the source.

This very recent review on the role of ΔFosB in addiction states outright that the degree of ΔFosB induction by a drug is a biomarker that can be used to measure the addictiveness (i.e., addiction liability) of a drug.^[8] I'd suggest that you not offhandedly disregard a field of addiction research which is extremely relevant to this conversation simply because you don't know much about it. The notion that addiction isn't a brain disorder is simply outrageous to me; seriously, what do people who advocate otherwise actually think "thought" and "behavior" comes from if not neurons within the brain? The foot? Vacuum? A magical pink bunny in the sky? Nowhere - that it just simply happens without a mechanism? Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 03:21, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

LMAO. I never said FOSB expression should be discounted entirely, nor did I say addiction wasn't a neurological disorder. I agree FOSB is an important in addiction. However, addiction is diagnosed by behavioral traits, not FOSB expression. The reason that FOSB expression is not used as a diagnosis tool is because there are more components to addiction than FOSB expression(that an measurement). If you want to put FOSB expression in the page, then do so, however dont use that as support for putting "Addiction liability:Moderate" down. That is pure ignorance. Don't discount how complex biology is because you don't have a good understanding. Petergstrom (talk) 03:49, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, if you put a colon before a paragraph the paragraph is indented. Adding a colon for each "level" of the discussion helps to keep the discussion organized. Last I heard, the reason FOSB isn't used as a diagnosis tool is because they'd have to do a biopsy of your brain tissue. This is somewhat difficult to do when the subject wants to remain alive/functional. The current diagnostic criteria are a bit screwed up at the moment if you've seen our DSM-5 article. FOSB is necessary and sufficient for addiction. The relationship between the two is so close that researchers are looking into medication that will treat addiction by reducing FOSB expression. In any case, I think all the current sources support a 'moderate' rating for addiction liability. Sizeofint (talk) 04:05, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Petergstrom, my issue with your 2007 sources is that you were using them to overwrite newer sources. WP:MEDDATE is a rule of thumb, not a hard rule. I don't think your recent edits are improving this article. Sizeofint (talk) 04:10, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The FOSB article would need a secondary source stating that this is equivalent to an indication of moderate addiction liability-an editor cant make that decision. The addiction liability stat needs to go, as the only sources that specifically state addiction liability in humans(which happen to be stated as zero) are too old to be used. Either a newer source specifically stating that the addiction liability in humans in moderate needs to be found, the older sources need to be used, or the stat needs to go.Petergstrom (talk) 04:09, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We use the best available sources for any claim. There are multiple factors that determine quality - age is only one of them. Sizeofint (talk) 04:12, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sizeofint Lots of research has been done in the last 10 years. We need to find those sources to implement them in the article. I am currently compiling some.Petergstrom (talk) 04:13, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Then why don't you wait until you have them before you start removing content? Sizeofint (talk) 04:18, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I was referring to the addictiveness. If there is no viable source for "moderate" rating, then why is it there????. It should be gone until we have a good source for it. An study on FOSB does not allow an editor to conclude "Moderate addiction liability". A study on FOSB, can go in the effects section, not in the side bar under addiction liability. We have older sources explicitly stating no addiction liability in humans, but they are too old, however we have no newer studies explicitly contradicting them. There is of course the study on dependence, but thats not enough. In the dependence section, that should be stated, but not in the side bar under addiction lability. I don't even see where the source on MDMA decision making states it is addictive. I see a mention that decision making may play a role in addiction, and that it(addiction to another drug) was an exclusion criteria for a study. Did I miss something. Furthermore, the quotation from the book only mentions neurotoxicity, did I miss something again? Also the FOSB study used rats...I mean if the studies suggesting addiction(albeit never saying "Moderate") are rat studies, or studies using old criteria and the term dependence, then I really don't think there is enough evidence to put down "Moderate" and "15%"Petergstrom (talk) 05:21, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I see these quotations from the 15% study

These observations further question the relevance of animal experiments that rely on self-administration to gauge the addictive properties of MDMA. As outlined earlier, MDMA is not readily self-administered, indicating that its rewarding properties are modest in comparison to d-AMPH or cocaine.

However, the results of animal behavioural and toxicity studies cannot be readily extrapolated to patients. This is particularly true for MDMA where major pharmacokinetic differences exist between commonly used laboratory animals. Thus, extensive longitudinal research in clinical settings is necessary to dissect confounding environmental factors such as polytoxicomanic drug use and pre-existing mental conditions from amphetamine-induced toxicity in the future. It is safe to predict that the availability of good data and reliable epidemiological evidence will also allow for a more temperate approach to the abuse and therapeutic use of amphetamines in the future.

Studies on ‘MDMA dependence’ in humans are often confounded by mixed sample populations of poly-drug users and typically rely on subjective user reports.

Few direct correlations exist between MDMA abuse and human disease states other than addiction.

All three drugs have addictive potential and can lead to varying degrees of drug dependence.

MDMA is clearly a reinforcer in animal studies, but the mechanism of MDMA-induced drug dependence is still under scrutiny.

You have to read through the information about limitations and pick out the nuggets of information the authors feel have conclusive support. The quote in the book is used to support a statement on neurotoxicity above. I'll see if I have access to the book. If there is no viable source for "moderate" rating, then why is it there???? Well the sources so far support a low or moderate rating. Seppi believes the molecular biology source is more in line with moderate. I don't have a strong feeling on this so I'm inclined to follow his judgement on this. Sizeofint (talk) 05:38, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Petergstrom that quote is talking about neurotoxicity which is not the same thing as cognitive impairment. Sizeofint (talk) 06:00, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So then why is it listed as a source for moderate addiction? Also, the reason Seppi gave for a biological support of moderate is only FOSB expression in rats, and an editor cannot make that jump. The sources we have don't support anything...except the old sources which support none. Petergstrom (talk) 06:07, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The source with that neurotoxicity quote supporting the addiction liability is used in multiple places, one of which is the discussion of neurotoxicity. That is why the quote is there. Why do you think the 2017 source doesn't support at least a low rating? The best approach is to gather good recent sources (or at least sources as good or better than what we already have) to make a case. If sources conflict we may be able to compromise with Low / Moderate or similar. This reference, for example, states MDA and MDMA are less reinforcing than amphetamine...^[9] Sizeofint (talk) 06:24, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I completely support a low rating, but I support even more a none-low rating or removal of the rating in the sidebar, and rather a discussion below in effects. Petergstrom (talk) 06:31, 11 January 2017 (UTC) Im gonna sum up source[reply]

It's laughable that you think my comments on a talk page have to adhere to WP:MEDRS. This source has supported the addiction liability statement ever since I added it over two years ago.^[5] The statement that it makes isn't vague/ambiguous or open to interpretation. The parameter is set to "moderate" because this is the default rating that I've given to any addictive drug unless there's a reason to set it lower or higher based upon the sources that I've used to cite addiction-related content in the article or any relevant clinical evidence that I subsequently become aware of. In other words, if a drug is addictive, it's probably going to be rated moderate. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 09:30, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break

For addictiveness liability

• https://www.drugs.com/illicit/mdma.html drugs.com is not MEDRS

I'm actually not sure whether or not we consider drugs.com MEDRS. I think in general we try to use better sources which are almost always available Sizeofint (talk) 08:41, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• http://www.eurekaselect.com/71315/article/cannabinoids-opioids-and-mdma-neuropsychological-interactions-related-addiction this source which pubmed provide two external links for, both costing 50-60 dollars. It does not state anything other than MDMA being concurrently used with other drugs may affect addiction

Doesn't look like I have access. Sizeofint (talk) 08:46, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3931692/ this source which as stated above uses the DSM 4, conflates addiction and dependence, and never explicitly states that MDMA is addictive, although does infer it.

Despite having a compulsive use factor, ecstasy dependence is not typically as profound as the dependence that can occur in heavy users of alcohol, cocaine, methamphetamine, opioids, and tobacco. Compulsive use corresponds to addiction. I think this supports a low to moderate rating. Sizeofint (talk) 08:56, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/mdma-ecstasymolly which refers to animal self administration WP:MEDANIMAL, and not to addiction

Yes, they just waffle. Not too helpful for our purposes. Sizeofint (talk) 08:57, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4497800/ this which, again, never explicitly states MDMA's addictive potential, although does conflate and indicate dependence
• Seppi claiming that FOSB expression in rats is sufficient to jump to a magnitude of addiction, which firstly relies on WP:MEDANIMAL and is an inference an editor cannot make

  It's probably best to ask me what I have in mind when I said "in part based upon the molecular neuropharmacology of each drug" than to assume you know what I'm referring to. Just like other dopamine releasing agents, and as stated verbatim in the article: MDMA has been shown to induce ΔFosB in the nucleus accumbens.[7] MDMA and amphetamine induce DA/glutamate release into NAcc D1-type MSNs, which necessarily triggers the exact same signaling cascade into those neurons to induce ΔFosB expression. Those neurons don't even express serotonin receptors, so the notion that it being a serotonin releasing agent somehow changes things is asinine. The fact that MDMA and amphetamine are structural or even functional analogs is also irrelevant - the only relevant neuropharmacological aspect of these drugs in relation to addiction is how they affect neurotransmission at synapses between glutamate/dopamine neurons and D1-type NAcc medium spiny neurons. And, FWIW, the ref above that states that MDMA induces NAcc ΔFosB expression also examined MDMA, cocaine, nicotine, and amphetamine on a progressive ratio reinforcement schedule and measured their break points:[12] [13]. There's a fairly clear consensus on this talk page not to change the addiction liability, so stop edit warring

  "DESPITE THE IMPORTANCE OF NUMEROUS PSYCHOSOCIAL FACTORS, AT ITS CORE, DRUG ADDICTION INVOLVES A BIOLOGICAL PROCESS" - very first words of PMID 24459410; no emphasis was added - that all caps is from the source.

This very recent review on the role of ΔFosB in addiction states outright that the degree of ΔFosB induction by a drug is a biomarker that can be used to measure the addictiveness (i.e., addiction liability) of a drug.[8] I'd suggest that you not offhandedly disregard a field of addiction research which is extremely relevant to this conversation simply because you don't know much about it. The notion that addiction isn't a brain disorder is simply outrageous to me; seriously, what do people who advocate otherwise actually think "thought" and "behavior" comes from if not neurons within the brain? The foot? Vacuum? A magical pink bunny in the sky? Nowhere - that it just simply happens without a mechanism? Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 03:21, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Sources indicating no addiction

• Pentney, Alana (Sept 2001). "An Exploration of the History and Controversies Surrounding MDMA and MDA". Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. 33 (3): 213–221. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

• Although old explicitly states ""It has been shown that MDMA is not addictive in humans (Beck & Rosenbaum 1 994; Peroutka 1 990a; Riedlinger 1 985)"

Riedlinger 1985 is some of the very earliest research on MDMA. I've use Beck & Rosenbaum extensively in the history section. It is a fascinating read but I don't know why the author would cite them for medical information. In any case, we have newer and higher quality sources so this doesn't hold much weight. Sizeofint (talk) 09:00, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Jansen, K. L. (7 January 1999). "Ecstasy (MDMA) dependence". Drug and Alcohol Dependence. 53 (2): 121–124. ISSN 0376-8716. describes rare cases of addiction criteria being met with a drug that is generally considered non-addictive, evidence for at least a low rating.

  Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) is generally described as non-addictive. However, this report describes three cases in which criteria for dependence were met.

Yes, we have newer better sources now. Sizeofint (talk) 09:04, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There is a mountain of sources cited for addictiveness, but none of them are substantial...The two(old) sources that we have that actually explicitly mention addictiveness in humans as addictiveness, not dependence, mention none potential. Petergstrom (talk) 08:09, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is a good start. I'm still looking through some Google Books entries. So far the sources state the liability is less than amphetamine and alcohol - substances we currently rank as moderately addictive. Sizeofint (talk) 09:04, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

MDMA's addictive liability appears to be lower than that of other drugs of abuse....^[10] Here the authors are mostly comparing MDMA to cocaine and methamphetamine, drugs we currently say have a high addiction liability. Sizeofint (talk) 09:56, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of evidence for dependence-syndrome-like patterns of use, and thus diagnosability of MDMA use, historically there has been little evidence for it; the drug is typically used weekly or less at a scale inconsistent with traditional notions of drug dependence....^[11] I can't tell if they are conflating dependence with addiction or not. Sizeofint (talk) 10:20, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Any ref that covers diagnosis will have that issue. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 10:25, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The APA really screwed the proverbial pooch on this one. Sizeofint (talk) 10:36, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to present a smaller addiction potential than cocaine or methamphetamine.^[12] Sizeofint (talk) 10:36, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• PMID 23627786 (already cited in the article, from 2013) says (extended quote since it is paywalled): "While MDMA appears to be a promising treatment for at least one psychiatric disorder when combined with psychotherapy, it also possesses moderate abuse potential. Rodents and primates will self-administer MDMA [75-77]. For instance, monkeys will regularly self-administer MDMA, though they will pay a higher cost in lever presses for amphetamine or methamphetamine [78, 79]. The mood elevation produced by MDMA can be experienced as rewarding [see for instance 64, 65, 74, 80]. A national survey found that an estimated 2.5% of youths aged 12-17 and 12.4% of young adults aged 18 to 24 report using ecstasy at least once in their lives [81] and 9.1% reported use upon a second follow-up. Of those, 0.6% of this representative sample of young people, [82] and a higher percentage of polydrug users [83], report developing ecstasy dependence, though estimates vary between nations and over time, with polydrug users reporting more abuse of ecstasy. Regular and heavy users will take ecstasy once or twice a week or once every two weeks rather than on a daily basis. However, some people report problems arising from their use. Hence, like psychostimulants and unlike classic psychedelics, MDMA is associated with some abuse liability." Jytdog (talk) 10:59, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So has the evidence pointed at any point to a moderate addiction liability? No. The reverts were wrong given no consensus from talk, but from the evidence....that is a totally different story. The evidence presented before now has not said anything about addiction, accept the outdated sources, which say no liability. Sizeofint's sources mention that the addiction potential is less than drugs right now considered to have moderate and high addiction potentials at the moment, making it logically a low addiction potential. Is there a general consensus about that? I believe in Wikipedia's Five Pillars. I try to find the best sources I can (per WP:RS and WP:MEDRS) for articles I work on, I read them, and strive to write WP:NPOV content based on them.

I work a lot here on articles related to health; I work some on religious topics, and on a smattering of other things. I've been around since 2008 and had made about 150,000 edits as of January 2018 (overall contribs)

I had a Twitter impersonator -- this was not my account.

If you would like to email me, you can reach me at jytdogwiki at gmail. Accept no substitutes!

Wikipedia is a laboratory of human behavior:

• User:Antandrus/observations_on_Wikipedia_behavior
• WP:CGTW

Remember to keep first sentences simple. That stemmed from this AN thread, which led to this which led to this, where we got rid of only some of it. For the remainder, there was all of the following crap (there is more than this, actually):

• • Wikipedia_talk:Wikidata/2017_State_of_affairs/Archive_5#Wikipedia_descriptions_vs_Wikidata_descriptions
  • Wikipedia_talk:Wikidata/2017_State_of_affairs/Archive_7#Concerns_raised_around_Wikidata_descriptions_on_English_Wikipedia (awful)
  • Wikipedia_talk:Wikidata/2017_State_of_affairs/Archive_8 (especially awful)
  • Wikipedia talk:Wikidata/2017 State of affairs/Archive 9 (has phab thread where WMF unilaterally pushed Wikidata descriptions to apps displaying Wikipedia)
  • Wikipedia_talk:Wikidata/2017_State_of_affairs/Archive_12
  • Wikipedia_talk:Wikidata/2017_State_of_affairs/Archive_14

This is being sort of resolved with a "short description" template, Template:Short description being manually populated by en-WP editors, per this RfC. How the WMF will use that, is of course another question.

Some outside-of-en-WP stuff

• Wikimedia mailing list archive
• Wikipedia Weekly FB page
• link finder

I drafted an essay about why WP:MEDRS exists that was moved to mainspace in August 2015 and improved some by others. I hope you find it useful; please feel free to improve it! (it is too long!) It is here: WP:Why MEDRS?

I also wrote User:Jytdog/How to try to provide a narrative, very practical map to how this place is set up and how it works.

• On Bullshit is... timely. Some quotes!
  • "One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, or attracted much sustained inquiry. In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves."
  • "Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."
• Data via SwearTrek

New York City. Imagine if there were no locks on any door, and no guards either. Walk right on in; do what you want.

Welcome to Wikipedia, one of the hottest properties on the internet, where we assume good faith, and anyone can edit.

But somehow it works. Kind of.

On the other hand, have you ever stepped in dog shit on the side walk?

Advocacy editing in Wikipedia is dogshit on the sidewalk. People can do that... we are wide open. Aren't we. We really do assume good faith in being so open. That good faith gets abused all the time. But people do walk their dogs and clean up after themselves. Surprisingly often. The good faith is often justified.

My very first edit back in 2008 was the result of such an unpleasant dogshit surprise. I had been reading intently, trying to understand exactly what a "turnkey system" is, when, splat -- Turn-Key is also known as a Real Estate service delivered by Colliers Corporate Solutions that allows companies to focus on their core compentencies while the complex opening of thier "retail" locations is managed by a single point of contact. Visit Colliers to see more details. Yes that is a spam link, and yes those are typos. Wretched. It pulled me totally out of reading and made me wonder "How do I get rid of this so nobody else has to be exposed to this?". So I created an account, and I fixed it.

I haven't found anyplace where this is stated in one place, so wanted to pull together my perspective on this. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is not a newspaper (we are in no hurry, we don't have to report the latest and best). It is not a journal or a book, pulling together all the primary sources into a coherent picture—that is what scientists and other scholars do in review articles in journals and what historians do in their books.

Our mission is to summarize accepted knowledge. Summarize.... accepted knowledge. (See WP:NOTEVERYTHING, which is policy) We are all editors. Our role is to read and understand the reliable secondary and tertiary sources, in which experts have pulled the basic research together into a coherent picture, and summarize and compile what those sources say, in clear English that any reader with a decent education can understand.

This is really fundamental to how this place actually works - we don't have competing "experts" here arguing about their interpretation of primary sources, or arguing over which primary source is most important or relevant. We avoid all that -- and this community of anonymous volunteers can actually function -- because we rely on published secondary sources that gather up and define "accepted knowledge" for us. The epistemology of Wikipedia is that we find accepted knowledge in the places where our knowledge-generating institutions put it. The higher you go up the institutional ladder, the more reliable the source. We want to use the most reliable sources we can, in order to achieve the mission as best we can.

So please always look for secondary sources, and don't reach for primary sources. And for secondary sources, think "New York Times" not "Daily Mail" for general content. Think "literature review in the BMJ or "statement by NICE" for content about health.

So whatever you are writing about, please don't start with primary sources and other self-published sources. Start with independent, secondary sources. If you need to turn to press releases, regulatory filings, or a company or personal website in order to fill in some gaps that are pointed to by the secondary sources (like.. exactly what date something happened, which might only be available in a press release), that's fine. But building whole articles, or whole sections, from an organization's website or press releases, is a recipe for content that will fail to meet WP:NPOV (but will be great PR).

In topics I work in (especially articles related to health) I find that editors who want to cite primary sources and create extensive content based on them fall in one of three buckets.

• Sometimes they are scientists, who treat Wikipedia articles like they themselves are literature reviews and want to synthesize a story from primary sources. But articles here are encyclopedia articles, which is a different genre. Each article is meant to be "a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject" (emphasis added). (see WP:NOT; WP:EXPERT also has some good discussion of this)
• Sometimes they are everyday people, who don't understand that the scientific literature is where science happens - it is where scientists talk to each other. (And the literature in other fields is where scholars in those fields talk to one another) The scientific literature in particular is not intended for the general public, really. The internet has made it more available to the public, as has the open access movement. Both are a mixed blessing. The downside is that everyday people take research papers out of the context of the ongoing and always-developing discussion among scientists, and take individual papers as some kind of gospel truth, when each paper is really just a stepping stone (sometimes a false one) as we (humanity) apply the scientific method to understanding the world around us. Nonscientists don't know that many research articles in biology turn out to be dead ends, or unreplicable, or even withdrawn. (See Announcement: Reducing our irreproducibility from Nature, for example, which came after this and this were published). It is not that a review article somehow reaches backward in time and magically makes a research article more or less reliable; it is that you and i cannot know what research article will turn out to be replicable and/or accepted and built on by the relevant field, and which will not. Reviews tell us that. Here is an example of what we should not be doing. Remember that scientist who published work showing that if you shake cells (really!) you could turn them into stem cells? There was huge media hype around that. And yep, people rushed to add content based on the hyped primary source to WP. (Note the edit date, and the date the paper came out) only to delete it later when the paper was retracted. (We actually have a whole article on that mess Stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency) We should not be jerking the public around like that. There is no reason to do that - we have no deadline here.
• Sometimes editors wanting to use primary sources are agenda-driven — there is something in the real world that is very important to them, and they want that idea expressed in WP and given strong WP:WEIGHT. In the very act of doing that — in selecting a given primary source and giving it a lot of weight (or any weight at all, actually) — they are performing original research. It is sometimes hard to get people to see this.

Who knows why people make edits like this, based on a primary source, hyping the people who did the work, and simply wrong? (The first actual test for humans published three years earlier)

Wikipedia is not about what you think is important, right now, nor even what the media is hyping today. It is about what we know, as expressed in reliable sources. It is so hard for people to differentiate what they see and what they "know" from what humanity — as expressed by experts in a given field — knows.

It is hard for people to think like scholars, with discipline, and actually listen to and be taught by reliable secondary sources instead of being driven by their own passions, or acting like barroom philosophers who shoot from the hip, or letting media hype drive them.

NPOV depends mightily upon editors' grasp of secondary sources. We have to find good ones - recent ones - and absorb them, and see what the mainstream positions are in the field, what are "significant minority opinions", and what views are just plain WP:FRINGE. We have to let the best sources teach us. And yes, it takes commitment - both in time, and to the values of Wikipedia - to really try to find the best secondary sources, access them, absorb them, and learn from them how to distribute WEIGHT in a Wikipedia article. yep.

What makes this even more challenging is that because this is a volunteer project, Wikipedia editors often come here and stay here due to some passion. This passion is a double-edged sword. It drives engagement and the creation of content but too often brings with it advocacy for one position or another. This is a quandary. The discipline of studying secondary sources and editing content based on those sources, in putting egos aside and letting the secondary sources speak, is the key that saves Wikipedia from our personal, limited perspectives.

If you have inserted content into an article based on a primary source and I have deleted it, it is not because I disagree with the content. The content has nothing to do with it. The issue is that we as editors cannot perform the original research to select a given primary source over other primary sources (that say different things) and assign any weight to it at all.

• While WP:OR allows primary sources to be used, it is "only with care, because it is easy to misuse them";
• WP:NPOV says "Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence. However, when reputable sources contradict one another and are relatively equal in prominence, describe both approaches and work for balance. This involves describing the opposing views clearly, drawing on secondary or tertiary sources that describe the disagreement from a disinterested viewpoint."
• WP:VERIFY, in a section called "Original Research", says "Base articles largely on reliable secondary sources. While primary sources are appropriate in some cases, relying on them can be problematic. For more information, see the Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources section of the NOR policy, and the Misuse of primary sources section of the BLP policy."

The call to use secondary sources is deep in the guts of Wikipedia. This is a meta-issue — a question of what it means to be an editor on Wikipedia.

Along with my editing, I work on clearing advocacy out of articles, and at the Conflict of interest Noticeboard ("COIN"), trying to help deal with Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia.

Strictly speaking there is only one force that drives editors to violate the WP:NPOV and WP:NOTADVOCACY policies, and that is advocacy - namely using (really abusing) Wikipedia as a vehicle to promote or denigrate something (a person, a product, a company or institution, an idea...whatever).

It is pretty easy to tell by reading an article with WP's mission in mind (and with with awareness of the policies and guidelines through which the editing community realizes the mission), if an advocate has had a big influence on it. There will be colorful language (puffery or denigrating), and an overall positive or negative tone. One or more aspects may have way too much or too little weight in line with the tone. There will generally be unsourced content, and sources that are present will be poor (press releases, blogs, etc), or even fake. When you look at the editing history of an article like that, you often find that one or more single purpose accounts have been working on it. (Our articles about universities and their faculty are generally terrible and rife with advocacy editing, much of it undisclosed paid editing by university employees but some from students or alumni. We even have an essay just for those folks at WP:BOOSTER.)

The question here is why. Is the person "just" a fan or hater, or are they maybe the subject of the article, or a friend (or enemy), or are they an employee of a relevant company or institution, or of a PR agency? These are appropriate questions when one encounters POV editing. But they need to be real questions. (more on below, in the "How I try to help manage COI in WP subsection below)

But generally we make a distinction within WP, between fans/haters (whom we just call "advocates"), and people with what we define as as a COI. (Please note that I said "generally" because if an editor is a hater of a person, the policy WP:BLPCOI applies (you cannot use WP to carry on a real world dispute with someone in Wikipedia), and the WP:COISELF part of the COI guideline apples to any external personal relationship, including writing about yourself.)

In Wikipedia, you are editing under a COI if you write about yourself, your friends (or enemies) or family, or your employer or school, or your employer's products, or your real-world whatever, or you are a freelancer or work for a PR agency and are working on behalf of a client. All of those kinds of external relationships create a COI in Wikipedia, when a person works on the topics where they have a COI. Can a person with a COI, edit in a neutral way, with great sourcing, etc? Of course they can - many things are possible. However, humans being human, most often editors working under a COI edit as advocates. This is especially true for editors who work for PR agencies or who are freelancers working on articles for clients. We call editors like that, as well as company or university employees who are instructed to "buff up" some article, -- "paid advocates", or "paid editors".

There are editors in Wikipedia who are gravely concerned about the corrupting influence of paid editing in WP. There is reason be concerned - it happens. No one knows how much, as there is no data on this, and no one knows what corrupts Wikipedia more, paid advocacy or unpaid advocacy.

It is really hard for the community to manage people who are just fans or haters - and topics where there are big controversies in the real world tend to end up at WP:Arbcom.

But it is clear, that conflict of interest is an issue for any knowledge-producing and knowledge-presenting organization, and WP is definitely one of them. We have a responsibility to manage the COI of editors who are part of the community.

The big tension in WP

As I said above, COI is created by associations and activities that people have outside of Wikipedia, such that editors have some actual interest - some connection with a person or organization outside of WP - that conflicts with Wikipedia's mission to present reliable, neutral information to the public. Really managing COI, would require the community to delve into those associations and activities.

However, there is a stark tension between that, and a whole nexus of stuff deep in the guts of WP. Namely:

• the other part of the mission of WP, to be "an encyclopedia that anyone can edit"
• the closely associated anonymity (pseudonymity, really) that we permit editors to have (protected by WP:OUTING which is strictly enforced here)
• the focus on behavior, content, and sources (not contributors) (protected by the no personal attacks policy and guided by the talk page guidelines)
• in other words -- the fundamental principle here that it doesn't matter who you are here - what matters is what you do here.

The nexus of all that, is what makes WP the radical experiment that it is - it makes this "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit".

This tension between a strong desire to manage COI editing, and the "content not contributor" nexus, is why the community has failed to reach consensus to make our guidance document on COI into a policy and not just a guideline, as it is now. It is why, even after the Banc de Binary scandal and the Wiki-PR scandal, the community had no less than five proposals to ban paid editing and every one of them failed to reach consensus. (If you want to read the failed proposals, you can find them in the "Further reading" section of the COI editing in WP article. If you do, really try to listen to what both sides are saying. The tension I am describing is very easy to see.)

Additionally, there are RW concerns with making claims about editors' outside associations - and especially taking action based on those claims. In some parts of the world, libel and slander cases are not difficult to bring and responsible parties like members of Arbcom ~could~ be financially responsible for defending themselves in court, and ~could~ be held personally/financially responsible for decisions they make.

As a result of the community's failure to act (at least that is how I explain what follows), the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia and other Wiki-projects, updated the Terms of Use to make it a requirement that paid editors disclose their "employer, client, and affiliation", and that they follow community policies and guidelines (which would mean our COI guideline). This community has struggled with how to implement that.

Arbcom's stance on these issue has generally been rooted in the "content not contributor" nexus; this makes sense as Arbcom should judge things based on the community's core values, and this is very core. However, along with te rest of the community Arbcom has been evolving to also express the value of protecting our content's integrity and the problems caused by unmanaged COI.

In the February 2015 decision, Wifione (about an admin who was found to be socking and long-term POV pushing, and who was ~probably~ editing for pay), the committee stated as a principle:

The Committee has no mandate to sanction editors for paid editing as it is not prohibited by site policies. The arbitration policy prevents the Committee from creating new policy by fiat. The Committee does have, however, a longstanding mandate to deal with activities often associated with paid editing—POV-pushing, misrepresentation of sources, and sometimes sockpuppetry—through the application of existing policy.

In January 2017, in response to a WMF Legal Department statement about paid editing and OUTING posted earlier that month, which suggested a loosening of OUTING protections for paid editors or people who are apparently paid editors, Arbcom posted a statement in which it fiercely upheld the values of privacy and protection from harassment as described in the harassment policy, and opposed any loosening of the OUTING policy.

In the January 2018 decision, Conduct of Mister Wiki editors (about the conduct of an admin who was editing for pay, and disclosed it but was found to have done things to evade review of their paid edits) the committee stated as a principle:

Because Wikipedia is intended to be written from a neutral point of view, it is necessary that conflicts of interest are properly disclosed, and articles or edits by conflicted editors are reasonably available for review by others. Editors are expected to comply with both the purpose and intent of the applicable policies, as well as their literal wording.

So you see, the tension remains between maintaining our comittment to "content not contributor" and managing COI. So what to do? I don't see the community coming to any Big Solutions any time soon. So we just need to work on the ground, editor by editor and edit by edit, as always. See my approach below.

Paid editing in particular

But first, it useful to walk through some of the issues involved in paid editing, that everybody should be clear about:

• Paid editors are still editors; as people with editing privileges, they have the concomitant responsibility to aim for the mission of WP to be resource for learning (not a vehicle for promotion) and must follow all the policies and guidelines. Just following the PAID policy (disclosing, and putting paid edits through prior peer review instead of editing directly) is not enough. A paid editor who only advocates for promotional content about their client or employer (or to remove well-sourced negative content, or to erase history and focus only on what is current, seeking to make the page in WP a proxy for the organization's website), is WP:NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia.
• Paid editors exploit Wikipedia and the volunteer community, and it is worth taking some time to walk through this.

"Exploit" as a verb means, 1) "to utilize, especially for profit; turn to practical account. 2. to use selfishly for one's own ends" (Dictionary.com)

Wikipedia is what it is -- this resource that zillions of people come to read every day -- because of zillions of volunteer hours of work. These hours and hours of work, were donated by people inspired by the values of Wikipedia and its mission. Where Wikipedia has excellent content, it is the product of... well, love. A truly and deeply good thing, created for free, to be used for free.

Because Wikipedia gets all these eyeballs, people mistakenly want to use Wikipedia for promotion. And the whole economy of paid editing, exploits that mistaken desire, and the value created by the volunteer community. This is not a moral judgement (!) - these are simply the facts of the matter. There are three levels of exploitation in all paid editing:

1. promotion of the client here in WP, based on the existing eyeball-drawing value of WP which has been created by the volunteer community
2. personal enrichment of the paid editor
3. the time of the volunteer community, dealing with the paid editor's contributions, and dealing with the paid editor him- or herself, if behavioral issues arise. (this is always going on, but can become really significant, with stuff like Orangemoody and sock farms like Wiki-PR)

People handle that exploitation in various ways, and with various levels of awareness.

• On the paid editing side, some paid editors are oblivious to this foundation of exploitation, and quite arrogantly make demands of the volunteer community or proclaim their "rights" in ways that are.... just hard to read and watch. Some -- a few -- paid editors are actually clueful, and are very non-aggressive and respectful of this underlying foundation. Most of course, fall in the messy middle.
• On the volunteer side, some people hate the fact that people abuse Wikipedia for promotion and that some people are here to make money. Others don't care, at all, and look only at whether an editor (any editor) adds useful content to Wikipedia or not. Most of the editing community is kind of queasy.

• Another way to think about the exploitation issue, is to consider Wikipedia, as a public good, as something like a national forest, or a river.

There are actually ways that everybody is OK with people making money off public goods like national forests or rivers. There are concessions granted for controlled logging, for example, and people have businesses like tube rides or the like on rivers. The public wants that kind of stuff well-regulated so it doesn't destroy the public good or overwhelm it with commercialism, and want licenses granted fairly... but the general principle there is something most people agree to.

But what about dumping industrial waste in a national park, or into a river? Pretty much every person sees that as horrendous. And most (not all) paid editors' editing, is raw promotionalism full of spam; industrial waste.

Turning back to the paid editing thing -- there is actually a kind of regulated process here for that. Paid editors need to disclose, and should not edit directly, but should rather put edits through peer review before they are added to Wikipedia.

But there is a whole "black market" for paid editing, where people create SOCK accounts, not disclosing that they are editing for pay, and directly add content about their clients to Wikipedia.

These people are like waste management companies that sell services cheaply to other companies, and then dump the garbage they collect into national parks or rivers. (Think about it - it takes way more skill and connections, not to mention time and money - to get the New York Times to cooperate in a PR exercise. But anybody with a computer and a bit of know-how can add stuff to Wikipedia; getting PROMO in Wikipedia is cheap. This is what paid editors are selling - cheap PR.)

Or they are like consultants who advise companies how to avoid environmental regulation, so they can keep dumping toxic waste into rivers.

Right? In both cases, people are abusing the public good to make money for themselves, and playing on misguided desires of clients to get what they want, cheaply.

Wikipedia volunteers spend a significant amount of time cleaning up pollution that has been dumped into Wikipedia.

The WMF doesn't like to talk about that, as it highlights a bad thing, but it is some of the most important work the editing community does.

• Even people who edit for pay who follow PAID, depend on the volunteer community to get their edits into Wikipedia, and to maintain them. This is a really important thing for everybody to keep in mind. There is exploitation even here.

• Paid editors should be non-aggressive; please be aware that you are asking other people to donate time so that you, individually, can make money.
• Volunteers should be aware that any paid editor you are working with, is making money based on your time. That is not a reason to abuse paid editors (it is never a good thing to abuse anybody right?). Please keep the content in focus. Sometimes paid editors can bring useful content suggestions, and if they do, this can benefit the project. But be wary of paid editor's proposals and review them with COI in mind - these proposals are ~likely~ to be promotional and are ~likely~ to omit negative things.

And of course please don't let the engagement become a time suck for you. If a paid editor gets too aggressive, please remind them clearly and nicely that they are essentially exploiting the volunteer community and should cool it.

• In my view, it is possible to do paid editing ethically, and to contribute real value to the project without being a detriment. But to pull that off, the paid editor needs to be clueful about Wikipedia and the editing community and really committed to the mission and our values. The paid editor also needs to be very self-aware, needs to operate with extraordinary self-control. This set of qualities is rare. But I have encountered people like this! I am always hopeful that paid editors can learn this stuff. But in my experience, most paid editors' presence in Wikipedia is detrimental (harming our content and draining volunteer time cleaning up after them, and dealing with them) and the reason is that they lack some or all of these things, and are not even much interested in them.

Eliminating COI and managing COI

Everybody in WP wants content that is NPOV and well sourced. Everybody agrees that editors with a COI tend to be biased. Views diverge strongly from that point, about what to do.

There are two main approaches to dealing with COI - eliminating it, and managing it.

With regard to my own external interests, I have disclosed my COI and have said that I will not edit content where I have a COI, and I don't - I don't put myself in a situation where I am in conflict between the mission of WP and my outside interests. I have eliminated the conflict. My sense (and my hope) is that this is what most WP editors do. Each of us has interests in the real world and WP is so big that there is probably no one who edits here, who wouldn't be in conflict on some article.

There are people in the community who have wanted to somehow eliminate conflicted editing by policy or by some other "top down" method. But per the section above, about the tension between privacy and integrity, that is impossible to do in WP. To eliminate COI from the top down, editors would have to disclose their real world identity to someone, and their external interests, and we would need to have some software process that would block editors from editing content where they have a COI. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Other efforts to reduce COI editing (an approach to eliminating it) have been to try to work with sites like Elance to get them to disallow posting freelancing jobs for editing Wikipedia. We have gotten some traction there, but it is spotty.

The other approach is to "manage" COI. This is widely done in the real world, and the two steps for managing COI in the RW are disclosure and peer review. More on this below.

How I try to help manage COI in WP

The approach I have arrived at after a bunch of trial and error, is in a framework of "management", which is something that I think everybody in WP could get behind. The concept of "managing COI" is widely used in academia and elsewhere. In any kind of management situation, you get the best results by educating people about what you want, and giving them the tools to do what you want.

I just want to underline that. Putting a COI notification on an editor's talk page, or tagging an article, is not really educating anyone. Many conflicted editors I work with have no idea about COI but as I talk with them, the lights go on, and they get it. (Many of them - not all). Most everybody comes to WP due to some passion or some conflict. If we want to grow the community (and we do), educating folks is really important. It is labor intensive, but important.

When I encounter edits that make a COI seem likely (it always starts and ends with content -- it is the person's edits that raise a flag of what we call "apparent COI"), I first look to see if the editor has disclosed any COI formally (which is rare) or if they have written something on a talk page or in an edit note, where they disclose some relationship. I also look at their pattern of editing, to see if the pattern tells some clear story (like they are a WP:SPA for X and write promotionally about it, or if their editing is about a random set of people and companies, and generally promotional and badly sourced, which are hallmarks of a freelancer).

Then I approach the editor who made the edits, and explain the importance of preserving the integrity of WP content, and if I have found some disclosure, I explain that they have a COI in WP and what that means. If I have found no disclosure, I ask the editor to disclose any connection they have with the subject of the article (and I note that they don't have to disclose personal information per OUTING, just the relationship). When I ask, the question is authentic. I do not know, and I cannot know, what external relationships an editor might have, unless he or she discloses it. In conversation, I draw out a disclosure. Once that is done, I ask them to follow our "peer review" process. In other words, if they want to create an article, they should submit it through AfC, and if they want to change content to an existing article, they should submit a suggestion on the article Talk page using the {{request edit}} template/tool.

Sometimes people's responses in dialogue make it clear (believably) that they have no COI, but really are just fans (or haters) - that they are editing here as advocates. If that happens, I ask them to read WP:SPA, the WP:ADVOCACY essay (which is really good), and the WP:PROMO policy, and ask them to try to be more neutral. If someone is an expert and doesn't quite get how WP works (and especially if they were adding a bunch of citations to their own work to articles) I point them to WP:EXPERT which is also very helpful. And in all this, I ask them for responses, and to ask me if they have questions. I try to generate an actual dialogue. That is how education happens.

I'll add here that sometimes these discussions go well, and sometimes they go badly. When they go badly, it could be that I was having an off day and was too harsh, or that the editor reacts defensively and can't get past that, or some combination. Humans are messy, and dealing with COI issues in WP is especially messy. But generally discussions go well.

This is a management approach to the issue. Most COI editors are happy to understand the process and say they will comply, and I generally find them complying. (I keep semi-template language here that I use when I approach people. Please feel free to use it - it is just my sandbox so is messy, sorry)

I take the same approach with anybody who has an apparent COI at the beginning of the process, and it flows the same way regardless of the kind of COI they turn out to have, if they have one.

In my experience, contract editors are more difficult. They tend to hide and when approached, tend to lie more. Thinking about where they are coming from, this makes sense, as their income is dependent on their editing here (unlike a company employee who probably has lots of other things they do at the company) and following the COI management process puts their income at risk; the disclosure leads to scrutiny and possibly deletion of their contributions, and the peer review process makes things less efficient and less predictable (both of which, from their perspective, mess up their business model).

Many paid editors come with a sense of entitlement, thinking they have a "right" to edit and feeling unhappy and aggrieved with scrutiny and suspicion. Sometimes, more education - explaining the context more - helps. When I explain what Wikipedia actually is (per WP:NOT), that editing WP is not a right, but a privilege (freely offered to all, but that can be restricted or lost), and the history of paid editing scandals, and really emphasize the importance of not shitting in your own backyard (in the sense that biased content harms the credibility of Wikipedia, and if the public loses trust in WP, the very reason that the paid editor wants to get content into WP will vanish, as fewer and fewer people will consult it), sometimes they "get it", and stop complaining and start complying. Sometimes. When they do, offering them the {{paid}} template is a simple tool to help them disclose per the ToU.

But even so, many paid editors have short term vision and goals, and want to get their edits done and get paid. These are the situations that require a pivot from a management approach to an enforcement approach. For these editors, the COI cannot be managed, but needs to eliminated. We do this by removing editing privileges, completely or in part.

In the Wikipedia that actually exists, the enforcement approach is difficult, due to OUTING and the support for paid editing in some quarters, which makes it unwise to be too aggressive in taking admin actions without a very solid basis (admin actions should of course always have a solid basis, but admin actions around paid editing will likely be scrutinized in light of the controversy and strong feelings) The advantage of having gone through everything I describe above, is that sometimes when a paid editor is finally resistant - sometimes - he or she actually discloses that he or she has edited for pay, without making a full disclosure per the ToU. In those cases, the enforcement of the ToU is simple, and there are growing number of admins who will block for clear violations of the ToU. In cases where they haven't disclosed editing for pay, enforcement requires time and work, gathering diffs and presenting a case.

Either way, in my experience, managing COI editors, contract or otherwise, takes a bunch of work, and the "enforcement approach" is generally only something that is useful to deploy at the end of the process, when the COI cannot be managed, but must be eliminated. Sometimes the work that has already been done makes that easy; other times it requires a bunch more work gathering diffs.

With regard to editors who really appear to have a COI, but deny it when asked (like Wifione) - or who are advocates (aka POV-pushers) - at the end of the day, if they are indeed warping Wikipedia, that is going to be evident in their editing. (Right? If they actually warped WP, it will be there to see, with diffs to be had) You will be able to see them deleting well-sourced content that is opposed to their interests, and adding only content and sources that favor their interests. You can see this in the evidence page of the Wifione case, here. So the case to bring, is an NPOV-violation case. Most of the evidence in the Wifione case was prior to February 2013. The case could have been settled two years before it was, based on that evidence. I don't know why (and I really don't) it wasn't brought sooner. Politics? Someone just didn't think of it? Don't know. But we have the model now. I have tried to bring a case or two like this, and will continue to try. This is the only viable way to deal with concerns about editors like this.

GLAM

This is based on the letter and in some places just the spirit of the WP:COI guideline and WP:PAID policy. The specific section of the COI guideline is here, btw, which I urge folks to review if they haven't, including the link to Meta from there.

• On paid editing generally:
  1. Anybody who is paid to edit, should disclose that at their Userpage (listing employers, clients, and articles worked on) and locally (at the talk page of whatever article they work on for pay, and in any discussion like DYK or featured pictures, with respect to content they generated for pay)
  2. Editing for pay is generally considered as causing two kinds of conflict of interest.

     With regard to content, the paid editor has a client, which has its own interests, and the paid editor generally wants to keep getting paid so is generally going to be loathe to add any negative content about their client. COI on content is always local to an article or topic.

     with regard to policies and guidelines, and especially guidance about COI and paid editing or closely related things like tags and their removal, somebody who edits for pay has a rather obvious COI with regard to their personal finances and what these documents say they can and cannot do in Wikipedia.

  3. Generally, the community manages COI (including that generated by people being paid to edit) by asking people to disclose, and to not edit directly but rather by submitting things for other people to review and implement, where they have a COI, are paid, etc.
• My general perspective is that paid editors who act in good faith have a place in the community. The activity itself isn't intrinsically "evil" nor are people who do it. We can get great content from them, and they can be non-disruptive members of the community -- but it is so important that they be clueful, self-aware, and self-restrained. That is rare; paid editing is actually really hard to do well, and few people can pull it off with regard to content and with regard to behavior.

• So how does all that apply to GLAM?
  1. From a structural perspective, GLAM is a kind of paid editing. The editor is getting personal income. The employer/host has its own interests. In the case of GLAM, there are aspects where the host's mission and WP's mission are aligned, which is what makes GLAM different from commercial paid editing. GLAM can be beautiful thing - a win/win for WP and for the host, and a win for the editor, who also gets personal income.
  2. GLAM participants should disclose their GLAM activities at their Userpage and locally.
  3. With regard to content, and COI is always local to an article or topic:
     1. As long as the GLAM participant is using the institution's resources to support WP content (e.g adding pictures or references), we don't ask them to put things through prior review. This, and precisely this, is where we cut GLAM editors slack, because the host's interests and Wikipedia's interests are aligned enough.
     2. In my view, if a GLAM participant starts editing content about their host (and this would include for example faculty or staff or programs of the host) they are conflicted, and they should put that through prior review. Content about the host is where the risk of promoting the host gets high and that risk should be managed with prior review.
  4. With regard to policies and guidelines, a GLAM participant should never directly edit policies, guidelines, templates etc that directly concern their activities as a paid editor as long as they are still doing that (or intend to keep doing it, if they are between GLAM gigs).
  5. In general, GLAM editors should be acutely aware of their conflicts of interests, and of the slack they are cut. They should also be mindful of the reputation and status of GLAM programs generally and the interesting way they fit in the universe of activities within the WP editing community.

I initiated a COI investigation of myself with regard to ag biotech, articles concerning which are often contentious, and in discussion of which COI charges can fly too easily: results are here. (diff)

Here is what happened there. Via email with an oversighter, I disclosed my real life identity and what i do for a living, my life story, and my work history, and we had some discussion about that. The oversighter with whom I emailed evaluated all that (and based on what he wrote, did some research on his own based on what i told him) and found no COI for anything related to ag biotech. I did not mention editing for pay, as I have never done that. I was not asked if I edit for pay and we did not discuss that. In case I have never said it before (it is hard to believe I haven't with all the hammering I have gotten): i have never been paid, or received any consideration of any kind, for anything I do in Wikipedia, nor have I expected to, nor do I expect to, nor have I ever agreed to. I edit here purely as a volunteer; it has never been, and is not, part of my day job nor any paid work nor any volunteer work i do outside of my day job. I have tried to make that as broad and clear as possible - I am not a paid editor. I have no COI for ag biotech.

If you care, i explained how i got interested in ag biotech on an older version of this page, which you can see here.

I ask myself the questions in WP:Tendentious editing all the time. I cringe sometimes, but overall, I think I am clean. We are all human, and I have made mistakes. When I have, and have seen them, I have acknowledged them and done what I could to apologize and correct them. The goal of my work here is to create a great encyclopedia per the five pillars.

• In the fall of 2015 an Arbcom case was opened, and it was closed in December 2015: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Genetically_modified_organisms. Notice of the close was given to me here.

I was "indefinitely topic-banned from all pages relating to genetically modified organisms and agricultural chemicals, broadly interpreted"; I was "admonished for their poor civility in relation to the locus of this case", and an interaction ban was imposed with another user. The TBAN was made appealable in 12 months.

• On 27 June 2016 I was blocked for violating WP:OUTING in the course of doing COI work, and that block was lifted on 8 August 2016 with an indefinite ban from discussing any COI of editors (see unblock notice for details), which was appealable in six months and every six months thereafter. I appealed in February 2017 and the TBAN was lifted. ARCA discussion is here; notice given to me here.

This user is a participant in WikiProject Medicine.

This user has rollback rights on the English Wikipedia. (verify)

s new source mentions some abuse liability, but does not mention magnitude, relative magnitude, nor does it distinguish between dependence and addiction, rather overall drug abuse. I still think low is the best choice for addiction liability.Petergstrom (talk) 16:48, 11 January 2017 (UTC) Petergstrom (talk) 16:48, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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