[WikiEN-l] Should [[Category:Alternative medicine]] and [[Category:Quackery]] be merged?

Tue Jun 28 16:05:53 UTC 2005

> OK, I could very well be wrong. May I ask, is it the only meaning of
> the word mentioned, or the main one? Someone else who has a good book
> to check? Words often have several meanings... the word is often used
> as an insult, carrying negative connotations. On that I hope we can
> agree.

Certainly. And the word "quackery" is negative
because the phenomenon it describes is negative
like, say, "vandalism".

> It looks to me that you actuallly
> want to use it for this very purpose - to warn the readers i.e. you
> decide what people should be warned of. Maybe I want to warn people
> for religion - can I create [[Category:Unscientific supernatural
> beliefs]] and put [[Christianity]] in it?

Fine by me. And wouldn't most Christians
agree that their religion is a collection
of unscientific supernatural beliefs?

> During the course in oncology, our teachers told us that many of their
> patients also sought for some alternative method of various kinds.
> They were not at all against it - they said the alternative people
> gave the patients something they badly needed, both for better
> prognosis and for quality of life - often not a very long period of
> time. That thing the alt.med. stuff can give in that situation, is
> hope...

Sure, how about [[Category:Comforting lies]]?

>and I still can not see that you have explained
>wherein the usefulness of this particular category lies.

What's the usefulness of any category? It's mostly
an aid to browsing, I suppose. You're reading about
one thing and maybe you'd like to read about other
similar things.

You're right that the category shouldn't be a primary
warning label. The article itself should make clear the
efficacy of its subject (or lack thereof). On the other
hand I'm arguing that upholding a distinction between
quackery and alternative medicine in the category system
is misleading.

Regards,
Haukur

P.S. I hope I'm not getting too worked up about this.
I haven't actually edited much in the quackery field
in the past, I mostly work on Norse mythology. In that
field I frequently see categories used to claim something
not actually supported by the article.