Talk:Complementary and alternative medicine

Does not this article just duplicate Alternative medicine? Integrative, Alternative and Complementary Medicine all basically come under the same heading of Alternative medicine. Why not just improve the alternative medicine article?--Mr-Natural-Health 13:13, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Agreed. This article is the same topic as the alternative health article. The two should be merged. RK 15:22, Dec 21, 2003 (UTC)

Waiting for 68.167.248.20 to do the merging as I have better things to do with my time. :)--Mr-Natural-Health 10:16, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Contents

1 This Article is mostly Irrelevant! 2 Comparing this page with its merge partner 3 There must be a history behind this all... 4 History vs. current state, and some potential points of agreement

This Article is mostly Irrelevant!

This article contains mostly irrelevant information and personal opinion which is simply wrong and cannot be supported with references.--Mr-Natural-Health 19:22, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Comparing this page with its merge partner

IMHO this page has a few traits in its favor:

• It's a quick introduction; its about a quarter of the size of the other page. It's handy to have a short introduction to such a broad topic.

You do not need an introduction to an introduction. Alternative medicine could be improved however, by separating the definiton from the overview section.--Mr-Natural-Health

• This page attempts to highlight some common threads among CAM practices; of course the brevity results in a loss of important detail but its easier to absorb the detail if you start with an organizing framework, then flesh out the detail and the exceptions afterwards.

This page fails to highlight any common threads. What is there is either unnecessary, or just plain wrong.--Mr-Natural-Health

• The taxonomy is the same one written by a center in the NIH; perhaps it could be improved, but again, all the detail about the various alternative methods are easier to understand as long as some sort of taxonomy is provided first.

No taxonomy is necessary. There are at least 4 possible classifications systems: Method of treatment, Therapeutic benefits, Medical Conditions benefited by, and Mode of Action for the Therapeutic Effects. Why is the method used in cam any better than anyone of these methods? The NIH is a fact, not a reason.--Mr-Natural-Health

• This page introduces complementary medical therapies as well as alternative medical therapies.

Alternative medicine does a better job as is.--Mr-Natural-Health

I don't know what fits best within the wikipedia culture. In terms of satisfying the needs of a general reader, I can offer an opinion though. I would want to have this page be the basis for an introduction to the topic, and the other page provide the detailed look that people could really dive into once they are past the introductory phase. Whether that means a collection of pages, or just a single 30K page is something I would have to defer to others. In the absence of a consensus to the contrary, I'd probably do it as a collection of pages. I'll give it a shot sooner or later if someone doesn't beat me to it.

68.167.248.42 12:29, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)
(Sorry, I don't have a login, and it would be pointless to get one just for this comment)

It is only a matter of time before this article is either deleted or redirected. So, take all the time that you want. Nothing written here needs to be merged with anything, as far as I am concerned.--Mr-Natural-Health 16:42, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)~

There must be a history behind this all...

All I did in the 68.167.248.42 comment was read two articles and explained why I agreed with RK and whoever else that a merge rather than a redirect was appropriate. If all that Mr. NH can respond with boils down to "don't merge, just delete or redirect", there doesn't seem to be any real discussion taking place here. He is just being dismissive of the specific comments I made.

BTW, when I read this page, it didn't come across as irrelevant or personal opinion. Google led me to wikipedia as well as NCCAM and Mayo Clinic's CAM pages, and all three seem to treat the subject similarly. Perhaps it is precisely because it's similar to the NCCAM and Mayo that this page can be considered biased in some way, but when I read all of these pages I come away with the impression that the language used here is neutral without resorting to detailed pro and con sections.

A quick perusal of the discussion on the AM page points out the long (for wikipedia) history behind this topic. My comments don't have the benefit of or the baggage from participating in all of those earlier discussions.

68.167.254.136 02:43, 25 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I have already expressed my opnion. You are the one you objected. Now, do the merge or I will redirect once again. Seems simple enought to me.--Mr-Natural-Health 07:50, 25 Dec 2003 (UTC)

67.100.124.108 appears to have caused a considerable amount of damage. Even though Alternative medicine can be traced back to Sept 2001. 67.100.124.108 went about, apparently unchallenged and undetected, adding cross-links in numerous other articles like Health science and Medicine; all pointing to the wrong article which clearly should have been Alternative medicine. Actually in many cases no links should have been added at all as they are clearly inappropriate, illogical and amateurish. It would take a major amount of work to undo all this damage. Where were all these busybody editors when this damage was taking place? One can only marvel at this mess called Wikipedia!!!--Mr-Natural-Health 06:00, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

History vs. current state, and some potential points of agreement

Although you still haven't commented on the concrete points I made in the 68.167.248.42 comment, your point seems to be that the bigger issues of the long history it took to get alternative medicine in the state it is today, and the numerous cross-links to this CAM page overshadow any reason to discuss what is of value in this page or merge it into an integrated set of pages on alternative and complementary medicine. I disagree, but can at least understand your position given the tortuous history of the AM page.

When I look past the name calling and your apparent frustration, I can also agree that an attempt at a merge needs to be done by someone interested in doing it and sensitive to the careful crafting of the AM page. If the original author doesn't step up to that, or someone like yourself with a long involvement in the topic doesn't do it, I'll give it a shot.

I don't agree with the sense of urgency you have about either doing it now or turning it into a redirect; there are plenty of wikipedia examples where overlapping or parallel write-ups exist. Wikipedia seems to get better over time, with some progress made in hours and others taking weeks, months, or I guess in the case of AM, years. If this had been a case of vandalism, prompt action would be warranted, but this is obvious not applicable to this case, so I'd advocate a merge, and when I try, it'll be guided by the 68.167.248.42 comment.

The other thing I'll do for now is cross reference this discussion with Talk:Alternative medicine.

68.167.191.104 00:01, 28 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Seems simple enough to me. You objected, therefore you do the merge. And, I and everybody else on the planet will undo it tomorrow, if we object to it. Otherwise, I am sure that what is here will end up deleted sooner than later.

Of course, Wikipedia could easily end up history tomorrow too.--Mr-Natural-Health 04:21, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

By the way, I object to quackery in alternative medicine just as much if not more so than the science Geeks do. I just hate the medical scientism people more than I hate quacks. Just thought that you might want to know.--Mr-Natural-Health 04:27, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)