I would like to understand why it can't be both, but be distinct. Have the medical article. Throw in all the stuff that we vapers know to be lots of junk science but is deemed 'authority' by the various medical establishments. I get that some people feel that needs to be conveyed about eCigs. But don't get why the page about eCigs needs to include all that as the main article is, to me, about WHAT an eCig is (and the various components, styles, etc.) while the other stuff is about perceived usage and/or place within society.
The reason is that medical articles have their own style on wikipedia, the organization of sections is different than regular articles and emphasis on health related claims is stronger. Finding reliable source for medical article is much harder to. For example; let's say that you are editing the Ebola article; you cannot point to a New York times article that says something about ebola to support your ebola claims. Even better, you cannot even point to a single scientific study about ebola, it will not be good enough, you need to use what is called secondary sources `(review articles) that compounds all the scientific literature of multiple studies into one cohesive text.
By the way, we just had a small victory today! The health section is no longer the first section, the article is no longer classified as a medical article (it never really was but it was treated as such).
But we still have to use secondary sources when making any health or scientific claims.... You can't just point to a farsalinos study and say "See!!! Told ya" You have to find a review article that cites farsalinos studies to be considered reliable. It seems weird, but it makes sense. If you could do that... they could simply point at a Stanton Glantz study and say: "Well in your face"
The secondary source requirement is the best way to gather neutral point of view scientific literature... Although there is the crappy Grana/Glantz review article that our ANTZ friends love to point at.
I disagree that Global Warming article doesn't have real controversy. Also disagree from earlier assertion you stated that smoking article is without controversy. It clearly is. The smoking one is actually worse than the eCig one, but for reasons I don't necessarily feel like getting into, at least in detail. To make the point short, with global warming main article, everything is 'backed up,' by constantly stating, 'according to scientific consensus' or attributions to scientific literature/bodies, where as eCigs are written with the whole POV thing trying to put forth what is clearly agenda on the 'what is an eCig' main article page. And by "trying to put forth", I mean via the language that is used as science doesn't really know. Yet, for some, that is enough to include it as if science has weighed in in some definitive way. I find that ridiculous and yet am okay if that is conveyed, but just don't see it as being necessary on same page as 'what' is this we are talking about. Given what shows up to me right now as inherent bias of Wikipedia, I'd compromise/settle for the health one being 'main page' and another one being written that is free of that.
Yes... there is a real controversy about global warming... Just not a scientific one. And since climate change is a scientific issue, we need scientific sources to back up the claims. Good luck trying find reliable sources that says otherwise on that particular article, just try making the point that climate change is not man made, they will eat you alive.... And rightfully so, the science is just not there to back you up. I do not want to debate climate change here... I'm just saying.
I don't remember saying that the smoking article is without controversy. If I said that, I spoke out of my ...., I didn't read, nor am I interested in the Smoking article.
To come back to the ecig article... We had a lot of victories over the ANTZ claiming outrageous things. At one point, the article was claiming that vaping was worse than smoking.... Now at least the article says something like "all the evidence seems to say that vaping is better than smoking". I'm telling you, Farsalinos is right, a lot of the researchers are uneducated in this new field of research, there is very poor quality scientific papers out there that unfortunately passes every Wikipedia reliable source criteria. Highly respected medical journals publish bad science right now when it comes to e-cigs, giving the ANTZ ammo that they can use to steer the article their way... But on the other hand, they publish very good ones to (Thank God for Farsalinos and a few others!!!!) . But all of this is temporary anyways, this is a new field of research, once the scientist will truly understand the field of vaping the research will yield accurate results, the low quality is to be expected right now.
If you decide to jump in, which every one here should.... Just don't be a troll and don;t be insulted when other experienced contributors tells you that it does not work the way you think it works, just learn as you go, Wikipedia has alot of "rules" that seems strange at first but actually really make a lot of sense.
I would advise against jumping in and making, right off the bat, massive restructuring of the article without being comfortable with Wikipedia's policies and environment.
Take your time, make small contributions and edits at first, participate in the talk page, there is a very large and very well organized community over there and a lot of them are willing to help you. I won't lie.. it can be very frustrating... but very satisfying at the same time when you manage to get your point across.
The e-cig article is a very hardcore way to learn wikipedia due to the nature of this controversial article.
And to anyone that actually read through this TL;DR post, just remember that, when John Doe types "Electronic cigarette" in google, the Wikipedia article is one of the first result that pops up... It is in our interest to make it better.
Just create an account and make yourself heard.
Wikipedia Introduction to new contributors <----- Click the link
