Talk:Alcoholism
Important subject deserves better treatment
changePeople may be coming to this page for vital information, in simple english. this is NOT a decent, basic summary of the disease, in simple english. some of the sentences make no sense.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 21:20, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
Added "disputed" tag
changeWith all due respect to the original editor(s), I'm not sure this article is completely accurate. The "Stages" section is unreferenced, and makes a number of unverified claims. Regarding the "Types of Alcoholics" section, theories that alcoholics can be classified into multiple "subtypes" are controversial and were never generally accepted (see for example "Medication Treatment of Different Types of Alcoholism" from the American Journal of Psychiatry (2010) at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2939449/). The three sets of "subtypes" listed in this section are from 1960, 1981, and 1992. Those are very old theories for an article on alcoholism.
I also don't think the language in this article is "simple"... just my $0.02. Thoughts? Fuhvah (talk) 21:56, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
- Go ahead, and change what you think is inaccurate; when I added the sections (like two-three years ago), I did copy/translate material from dewp/enwp. --Eptalon (talk) 17:56, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
- My standard comment on most of our medical pages is that they are far too complex for our readership, this one included. I have no objection to throwing out much of this material and replacing it with better sourced ideas. I would like to see a medical page which is readable for a general audience. Of course, accuracy in necessary, but so is comprehensibility. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:58, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
- Following the comments I have removed the "types" section (if available, replace by something more appropriate). I have added the Epidemiology section from enwp. As to the phases: see DeWP (Jelinek, 1951 mostly; other reference works but they are German). --Eptalon (talk) 22:09, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
- My standard comment on most of our medical pages is that they are far too complex for our readership, this one included. I have no objection to throwing out much of this material and replacing it with better sourced ideas. I would like to see a medical page which is readable for a general audience. Of course, accuracy in necessary, but so is comprehensibility. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:58, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
- For me, I break out in allergic rashes over unfactual and outdated content in these categories of articles. I have one in mind that I couldn't sleep until I updated and removed untrue content. There is so much new knowledge, research, change in treatments, and just how people perceive illness of all types. We really need to be cutting edge. I also agree our articles need to be readable for a general audience. Our general audiience, I believe, is anyone who turns up here because they cannot understand the complex state of medical journals, even English Wikipedia. Please, feel free to wean, amend, cut, start over. I will try to help some too. Fylbecatulous talk 18:58, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
- I am willing to help rewrite/adapt the article; The problem I have is that most scientific articles are behind a paywall, so If you don't happen to be at a university or research institution/library, getting such articles is difficult. I cut out the classification; yes, we can mention that people drink alcohol for different reasons. The most common of these reasons will be to relax/lower inhibitions and cope with stressful situations. Yes, there may be people who need the alcohol to function in society, but I don#t beleive mentioning these in the article will be what our target audience wants. Also not that the more complex a subject gets, the more difficult it will be to put it in simple/understandable wording. --Eptalon (talk) 19:42, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
- So, I tried simplifying the language and also adding some info in simple English that our readers might be looking for. But the page just looks visually overwhelming to me. I'd like to have useful info in there because as Fylbecatulous said, I think even the Enwiki article would be too complicated for many of our readers. I'm never sure how to balance providing the info our readers might want with the page being too long. Any feedback is welcome. On a side note, I wish we could get a positive picture on this page for the treatment/recovery section but I haven't been able to find one. Fuhvah (talk) 12:30, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
- Often to simplify an article requires far more words and explanation. Do not worry about article length. If it becomes unmanageable, we can have short sections which link to a separate article which can be developed in full.--Peterdownunder (talk) 09:12, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
- So, I tried simplifying the language and also adding some info in simple English that our readers might be looking for. But the page just looks visually overwhelming to me. I'd like to have useful info in there because as Fylbecatulous said, I think even the Enwiki article would be too complicated for many of our readers. I'm never sure how to balance providing the info our readers might want with the page being too long. Any feedback is welcome. On a side note, I wish we could get a positive picture on this page for the treatment/recovery section but I haven't been able to find one. Fuhvah (talk) 12:30, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
- As already pointed out above, in my opinion these are twe options, that need to be combined:
- 1) You cannot avoid certain language of science (else you will no longer be accurate), so you need to explain well what you mean. Examples often help.
- 2) Sectioning / subsectioning. Once the sections become too long, oyu can split them to aricles of their own, and only provide the gist here.
- DOn't fall for what people tell you, given the right combo of both points above, almost any subject can be explained to almost any audience.--Eptalon (talk) 21:45, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- I am willing to help rewrite/adapt the article; The problem I have is that most scientific articles are behind a paywall, so If you don't happen to be at a university or research institution/library, getting such articles is difficult. I cut out the classification; yes, we can mention that people drink alcohol for different reasons. The most common of these reasons will be to relax/lower inhibitions and cope with stressful situations. Yes, there may be people who need the alcohol to function in society, but I don#t beleive mentioning these in the article will be what our target audience wants. Also not that the more complex a subject gets, the more difficult it will be to put it in simple/understandable wording. --Eptalon (talk) 19:42, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
Difference between alcholoism and "alcohol dependence/dependency"?
changeHello all, the page "alcohol dpeendency" currently redirects here (to "alcoholism"). I do not really see much of a difference, but I am not a doctor. The question I ask myself: should there be, or is the redirect a workable soluzioon for the moment? Eptalon (talk) 22:03, 24 March 2023 (UTC)