Talk:Placebo/Archive 7

Protected for 10 days

To give time for consensus to develop. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:34, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

That's quite ridiculous. As if reverting, rejecting and redacting the user's change were not enough, the article needs to be blocked just to make completely sure not a single bit of the change makes it back into the article. Don't you think that this is overkill? --rtc (talk) 22:00, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Following 10 reverts back and forth in the last couple of days, no I do not. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:32, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

No, rtc, it's entirely routine. As indeed is your conspiracist nonsense. Guy (Help!) 22:34, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

I think you clearly abused your admin powers once more by revdeling here. Not only was this by no means a copyright violation, you are also pretty involved into this article. You are the living proof that the Wikipedia checks and balances do not work. The protection granted to you by the cabal is too strong to let justice do its job and properly punish you for conspiracy and routine abuse of power. --rtc (talk) 23:00, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

I think you need to shut the fuck up before another admin comes along and blocks you. You've accomplished nothing here except causing a disruption, and with your confrontational and condescending attitude you're never going to change the consensus. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:50, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Please keep discussion civil. Anywikiuser (talk) 16:33, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Prove me wrong or butt out. Jumping in with a high-handed attitude is not only more uncivil than me using the word "fuck", but adds fuel to this editor's disruption here. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:44, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

My high-handedness is a venial sin, not so your persistent claim that I am disrupting just because I disagree with you about the article content. --rtc (talk) 22:41, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Bullshit. Your disruption comes from your persistent ascription of ulterior motives to everyone who disagrees with you and your persistent misrepresentation of what the sources say to people who've actually read the sources and know better. Your first couple of comments at this page in recent weeks were nothing but bullshit bitching and moaning about cabals and conspiracies. Now you've graduated into full-fledged pushing of bullshit alt-med. So fuck your "just because you disagree with me" bullshit. Nobody's buying it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:15, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

You need to calm down. See, I have hardly done any edits to this article recently. It's quite mysterious what you mean by "pushing of bullshit alt-med", really. I mean this is the article about placebos. It's not about alt-med. And in this article about placebos, I have recently not done that many edits. Again, please don't be too upset by what I write, it's not intended to increase your stress or blood pressure. If it is necessary for your health I will stop discussing here for some time. --rtc (talk) 14:21, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

You need to calm down. LoL You need to stop trying to read bad intentions into everyone who disagrees with you.

See, I have hardly done any edits to this article recently. Yet you've edited this page over 200 times since mid June. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:42, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Bingo! It's important to recognize that talk page disruption can be just as, or even more, problematic than controversial edits in articles. There comes a point where it is best to take a break and leave the room where nobody wants to hear you anymore. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 14:51, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Not bad intentions, certainly never assumed those. I mean what you are promoting are the values of the enlightenment. Can't be a bad intention, certainly not. --rtc (talk) 14:57, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Today: Not bad intentions, certainly never assumed those.

1 week ago: There is a strong cabal of editors here that try to keep this and other articles free from anything that contradicts their overly skeptic world view

Yeah. You're a perfect fuckin' angel of AGF. ;) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:58, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Are you prepared to indemnify the Wikimedia Foundation from copyright suits? WP:C is policy, and several editors concurred that the material was a violation. Once a violation is identified, removal becomes a matter of urgency. This has zero effect on any content dispute as there is nothing preventing editors from using the same sources in a way that is not a close paraphrase. Guy (Help!) 13:40, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

You were deleting the text, not the Wikimedia Foundation. Is it your responsibility to indemnify the Wikimedia Foundation from copyright suits? No? Then why do you care so much about copyright here? This was not in any sense a copyright violation. Copyright is perfectly okay with close or even literal paraphrasing a source for educational reasons as long it is being cited properly. Go take some courses in copyright law. But let's be honest, copyright is pretext here. --rtc (talk) 16:41, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

I was deleting the text because the Wikimedia Foundation mandates suppression of copyright violations for legal reasons. We have a policy and everything. I understand that you believe it was not a copyvio. Others disagreed, tagged it as such, and I revdeleted per their request. Guy (Help!) 16:49, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

No, it wasn't cited properly. Proper citation implies quote marks or other ways in which one tells the reader he/she copied the text from another source. It does not include passing someone else's work as your own. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:19, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Neither was the text copied, nor was this the even alleged to be the case (the charge was close paraphrasing). It is false that one needs quote marks to obey copyright, and the fact that it was reporting on what the source says was completely obvious, given the citation. --rtc (talk) 22:41, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Wrong, four phrases were copy/pasted. Quote marks are a sign of minimal decency, which some people do not have. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:51, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

It's easy to make that false claim now that the evidence has been properly destroyed. And no, quote marks are not at all necessary. And let's be honest, had anyone of those who worry so much about copyright here asked the copyright holder, it is quite clear permission would have been given to use those four phrases for any purpose whatsoever. It's not as if anyone would be suffering even the slightest financial or other loss if those phrases were in the public domain (in case one preupposes that false assumption that those are copyrighted in the first place, rather than obviouly being below the threshold of originality) --rtc (talk) 23:19, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

I have provided you with enough evidence for copy/pasting at [1]. So, you have had every opportunity to verify what I wrote. Besides, the evidence wasn't destroyed, but it is just hidden. Admins can still see it. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:24, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Evidence for what? That google finds some arbitrary web pages with some arbitrary phrases? Do you think I'm that stupid? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwdba9C2G14 --rtc (talk) 00:05, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

It's stupid to argue that much about that: it is how plagiarism detection programs work, these select arbitrary phrases from the text, ignore punctuation and use search machines (Google was their preferred choice before it has limited the number of searches per unit of time). Hint: searching text between quote marks produces exact matches. It's not rocket science. Oh, yes, Wikipedia's own plagiarism detector does not understand text produced by JavaScript and from PDF documents, this explains why the plagiarism report showed no matches. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:23, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Right, and did you in fact "select arbitrary phrases from the text, ignore punctuation and use search machines" with "quote marks" and then got "exact matches"? I mean that's obviously not something your evidence says. It's just a search engine query. You could as well have copied those phrases from the pages that google lists and although the evidence has now been removed and "hidden", my memory tells me there were quite some differences between the text you entered into the search engine and the text that was claimed to be a copyright violation. Which it wasn't, not even if it had actually been a verbatim copy. Copyright is certainly not as draconian as you fear it to be. --rtc (talk) 05:34, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

I simply selected text from those edits, pressed right click and obtained the Google searches, then I have put quote marks for exact phrases and removed the cruft, that's how I got those Google searches. If you have doubts about that, take it to WP:ANI and ask an admin to check my evidence. Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:43, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

So it's obviously not a straight forward copy + quote + search but involved some "removed the cruft", whatever that means. I hope you don't mind if I don't use that proposed complex bureaucratic process. That would give too much legitimization to the revdeling. My memory isn't that bad and I am still trusting it. --rtc (talk) 05:51, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

It boils down to: four lines (sentences, phrases) were copy/pasted and the fifth was closely paraphrased (while I don't exclude the possibility that part of it was copy/pasted). Again, if there were quote marks, I would have had nothing against it. Quote marks convey the message that there is no mens rea. By "removing cruft" I mean removing punctuation and also removing whatever Google appends to search URLs. Tgeorgescu (talk) 04:03, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Lactose intolerance

People having lactose intolerance can safely drink a glass of milk per day; it's a large quantity of milk that makes them feel sick. So the claim about lactose is dubious. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:18, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

The whole section is drawn form a paper that is a review of studies, but not a review study, in that it draws novel and somewhat speculative conclusions. I don't think this meets WP:MEDRS. Guy (Help!) 23:33, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

What is actually wrong with these edits?

I made a series of edits resulting in this version, which got reverted with the edit summary "reverted to revision 863099967 by Premeditated Chaos: You really need to get consensus before making huge changes like this. At least one of your edits changed text so that it was no longer supported by the source."

I would strongly contest this; It was mostly organizational changes and none of the slight rewordings caused anything to become unsupported by its source(s).66.87.152.245 (talk) 22:15, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

• Here's the diff, judge for yourselves.66.87.152.245 (talk) 22:19, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Okay, the mass revert was because you made so many changes that it's difficult to evaluate them all, but since you feel strongly, I'll go ahead and go through it now.

The most recent edit changed text such that it was not verifiable in the source (I have a pdf of What’s in Placebos: Who Knows? Analysis of Randomized, Controlled Trials open right now, in case you can point out that I'm wrong).

Going through the rest from first to last:

• this edit isn't quite right; the only effect listed that was actually the same as the Placebo effect were "expectation effects", but I didn't see how removing the whole bunch really made the article less clear. Consider me a firm "Meh" on that one.
• this edit looks legit to me. You can go reinstate it right now and I won't object.
• this I kinda don't like: those quotes are there to isolate the term "placebo effect". They don't look like scare quotes to me.
• The edit summary here is flatly wrong. "At best" is editor summation of the source, and it's fully supported by the source -via the "some people" wording- that a placebo could have a lesser effect than what is described. Plus, I prefer the "at most" phrasing because it acknowledges that there's no guarantee a person will experience the placebo effect when given a placebo.
• this edit looks fishy, as does this one.
• this one clears up the previous two. I'd be okay with you inserting the changes that you made in these three edits.
• This edit quibbles about "at most" again and I'm not cool with that. I think the "at most" phrasing belongs in our article.
• this edit is straight up good. I like it. Please restore it.

So some of those edits are pretty good. I would not object to you restoring them. The second-to-last edit was good enough that I may restore it even if you don't. But the rest, I think would need to get some consensus first. And the last edit in that series looks like it makes a serious mistake to me. If I'm wrong, please show me how, but I don't think I am. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:33, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I was about to reinstate the portions of my changes that you considered noncontroversial, but someone else just removed one of the subsections that I had simply moved from one section to another. 66.87.152.245 (talk) 23:40, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Well, see the section below, and just restore the rest of them. <shrug> Welcome to Wikipedia. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:46, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I just went ahead and reinstated what I could of the noncontroversial organizational change without conflicting with that other edit.66.87.152.245 (talk) 23:48, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Sweet. It looks much better to me, now. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:50, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I disagree with that change. The "mechanism" is mainly error. There is no provable mechanism and no need to look for one unless you start by ignoring the obvious. Guy (Help!) 09:01, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with your statement here. However, I don't see how the edit you reverted disagrees with or minimizes that. That being said, I don't particularly care where the material is, so either way works for me. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:23, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

The IP's reorganization worked better, in that it separated reasons for a possible effect (e.g. classical conditioning) with reasons for the effect being an illusion (e.g. natural recovery). Anywikiuser (talk) 15:33, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Placebo effect on nausea

I have attempted to add the findings of a systematic review and been reverted twice, so far with no explanation so far (the first time may have been an accident). There seem to be editors out there who get suspicious of any outsider edits to articles related to alternative medicine, but I don't see how these edits could possibly serve this purpose. The placebo effect is one of the key scientific explanations that debunks claims made about alternative medicine.

The source cited is a reliable secondary source. It's notable enough for the article. It is not at odds with the other sources cited here, which state that the effects of a placebo are limited to affecting the perception of a condition (and nausea is a feeling). It doesn't even contradict the findings of Hróbjartsson and Gøtzsche's 2010 broader meta-analysis, even if it more assured in tone that the placebo effect can reduce feelings of nausea. 78.33.33.241 (talk) 15:26, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Because it's weak, rarely cited, contradicted by other data, and based on the subjective outcomes beloved of woo-mongers. Oh, and the "placebo effect" is not a thing. Guy (Help!) 18:57, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

The article is confident in its conclusion while understanding what it can and can't show. It reviews 14 studies. I could look up how many citations it has received in the four years since it was published, but why bother? WP:MEDRS does not say that an article needs a minimum number of citations in order to be included. The only time it suggests looking at how many citations an article has is if the journal is predatory. The journal is reputable. I already mentioned above that it's not in conflict with the conclusions of a previous review on the subject. Even if it was, WP:MEDRS does not say that newer reviews should be rejected for contradicting older ones. Imagine if it did!

The idea that only "woo-mongers" would care about nausea is unfair to legitimate medical professionals, who would never ignore a patient who says "I feel sick" even if they couldn't find a reason for them to feel that way. The idea that subjective outcomes are irrelevant is an exaggeration of the McNamara fallacy. 78.33.33.241 (talk) 10:26, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Is it a chimera?

There is research suggesting that the placebo effect does not exist, is over-blown, or is merely psychological. 2012/02/05 BY THE ORIGINAL SKEPTICAL RAPTORHow the placebo effect proves nothing and means nothing at skeptical raptor;Placebo effects are weak: regression to the mean is the main reason ineffective treatments appear to work Published December 11, 2015 at dcscience.net;Perspect Biol Med. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 Oct 1. Published in final edited form as:Perspect Biol Med. 2009 Autumn; 52(4): 518. doi: 10.1353/pbm.0.0115 PMCID: PMC2814126NIHMSID: NIHMS168943PMID: 19855122 The placebo effect: illness and interpersonal healing; and more in any Internet search using 'fallacy of the placebo effect' as a search term. Kdammers (talk) 00:29, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

"Placebo studies"

Note there's a discussion at WP:FT/N about our Placebo studies article. In particular it has been suggested that some of it might be merged here. Eyes from placebo-savvy editors welcome ... Alexbrn (talk) 00:46, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Intro

I think "no specific therapeutic properties" is fairly vague and is less likely to be understood by the general reader than the previous intro. – Thjarkur (talk) 19:56, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

The previous definition was not technically correct, as we have established on this talk page that placebos can have therapeutic value in some conditions, such as Parkinson's. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 20:00, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

But the change doesn't seem to cover that either, since if it's being used for Parkinson's then it is being used for a specific therapeutic property, or what? (Describing this "supposed to not work vs may work" reminds me of this xkcd) – Thjarkur (talk) 20:35, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

A specific therapeutic property in the case of Parkenson’s diseases would be a property intended specifically to treat Parkinson’s disease (e.g dopamine agonists) rather than one that works for any condition that responds to placebo. —Wikiman2718 (talk) 21:09, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

The "not designed" wording actually paraphrases the American Society of Pain Management Nursing's definition. Anywikiuser (talk) 15:02, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Novel content in lede

Wikiman2718 is trying to force[2] an opinion piece into the lede (which is not cited in the body) with the claim it has consensus. What? We are not at liberty to go against WP:LEDE without good reason, and the source is questionable in any case. Alexbrn (talk) 15:35, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Firstly, I did not place that content there. Þjarkur placed this information in the lede in recognition of consensus established on this talk page. I am just defending the edit. The body reads: "There has also been research aiming to understand underlying neurobiological mechanisms of action in pain relief, immunosuppression, Parkinson's disease and depression.^[68] Dopaminergic pathways have been implicated in the placebo response in pain and depression.^[69]." Note that the sources make stronger assertions than the article. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 15:44, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

A simple solution is to replace the cite given in the lede with a cite to the scholarly article cited in the body. Here come the Suns (talk) 15:49, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Let's not start using novel opinion pieces in the lede then. This technical detail (in the body, more properly sourced) looks too trivial to make an appearance in the lede. Alexbrn (talk) 15:50, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Is it a "novel opinion" that there has been research into placebo effects in pain relief etc..? I don't think so. Here come the Suns (talk) 15:55, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

My meaning was it was novel to the lede, not covered in the body as such. Alexbrn (talk) 16:05, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Fixed it. Thanks for the suggestion, Here come the Suns. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 16:12, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

The sentence on Parksinson's is WP:UNDUE in the lead anyway. It's much too early to make any confident statement. Guy (help!) 07:36, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Since ME/CFS has a lower than average placebo effect, it doesn’t seem worthy of being one of the three conditions or symptoms covered. Average placebo effect is 32 - 35%. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3130397/ The average effect for ME/CFS is 20%. See cite in article. I have removed the section. Please discuss before restoring. Thank you. JustinReilly (talk) 15:10, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

@Justito: It's not the magnitude of the placebo response that matters, but rather, the existence/non-existence of a response. Therefore I have returned the section pending discussion per WP:STATUSQUO. It is also notable that most placebo research is pointing towards the existence of a placebo response in all neurologically-rooted conditions. However, the response has only been proven to exist in a few so far. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 15:22, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I do find that interesting, because I know that CFS patients are often highly skeptical by now, given the history, so I would expect them to see lower placebo "effect" consistent with placebo "effect" not actually being a thing. Guy (help!) 15:24, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

What is the relevance of the linked article on Cochrane Reviews for Mental Health? I did searches for placebo and cfs. Neither turned up anythingJustinReilly (talk) 16:57, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

@Wikiman2718, it seems hard to believe that placebo effect has only been shown in a few neurological disorders given that the placebo effect almost always occurs when a placebo is used, iirc, and that the average effect is so great. Are you saying the effect is less common and/or weaker in neuro disorders? Any links?

Even assuming your facts, I really don’t see how this section substantially adds to the understanding of placebo. Additionally, the mere existence of a placebo effect in ME/CFS is NOT notable since almost all disorders display a placebo effect. A list of disorders which display no placebo effect or a notably small or great effect would be appropriate. And Why not have a few sentences stating which specialties have disorders which generally have greater or lesser placebo effects than average and why, if known? These two topics would be notable and increase understanding of placebo substantially. A section on ME/CFS does notJustinReilly (talk) 16:57, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't blame you for the confusion, but when we talk about "the placebo effect" existing or not existing on this page, we are talking about whether or not placebos produce real, rather than just self-reported changes in outcomes. So when someone says "the placebo effect does not exist", they don't mean to deny that placebos change how patients feel about their condition or that they change self-reported outcome measures-- rather, they are denying that placebos can change objective measures of outcome. Personally, I feel like this section does add to the page because it give an example of how a poor prognosis can result in a lessened placebo effect. This is very interesting. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 17:08, 10 October 2019 (UTC)