Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Maths, science, and technology

The following discussions are requested to have community-wide attention:

Talk:Billion

There is currently a dispute about how this article should be structured. Here are the two competing options:

1. Version 1, using bullet points to treat the definition on the two number scales equally and clearly.
2. Version 2, prioritising the modern-day definition in English speaking countries.

Other relevant considerations:

• #No, there are not two current definitions to the word in English – the discussion above that led to this RFC
• The Trillion article
• Names of large numbers article

Betty Logan (talk) 17:16, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Are independent, secondary sources considered reliable to state the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was formerly known by the names "Bull and Terrier", "Bull Terrier", "Pit dog", "Half and Half" and "Bulldog Terrier"? Cavalryman (talk) 02:52, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Talk:Vision therapy

Vision Therapy is an umbrella term for many practices, some of them fraudulent, but many of them - based on my own and several family-members' experiences - not fraudulent. Going by the rest of the talk page, I am far from the only one who's upset that this whole entire field of medicine is being framed as a pseudoscience - but the fact that most of the existing sources are sneerish handwringing about the efficacy studies which have been done, makes it hard to actually edit the thing. People just revert it for "removing sourced content". I need help.2406:5A00:329C:4600:6496:382F:F297:11C5 (talk) 06:04, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Talk:Addiction

Should addiction be called a "biopsychosocial disorder" or a "brain disorder"? Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 22:29, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory

The second paragraph of the lead currently reads as follows:

The idea that the virus was released from a laboratory (accidentally or deliberately) appeared early in the pandemic. The theory gained popularity in America through promotion by conservative figures including president Donald Trump and other members of the Republican Party in the spring of 2020, fomenting tensions between the US and China. Many in American liberal media and political circles subsequently dismissed it as a conspiracy theory.

QUESTION: Should the following sentence be added to the lead...

Some scientists initially supported the lab leak theory in early 2020, but later changed their stance.

... so that it reads ...

The idea that the virus was released from a laboratory (accidentally or deliberately) appeared early in the pandemic. Some scientists initially supported the lab leak theory in early 2020, but later changed their stance. The theory gained popularity in America through promotion by conservative figures including president Donald Trump and other members of the Republican Party in the spring of 2020, fomenting tensions between the US and China. Many in American liberal media and political circles subsequently dismissed it as a conspiracy theory.

Le Marteau (talk) 20:46, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Talk:Climate change in the United States

The narrow question is: which one of the following two Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) sections is most appropriate for a Wikipedia article on the topic of Climate change:

1. The 9 Jan 2022 version (which has been reverted), versus
2. The current (16 Jan) version, Climate change in the United States#Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)

The following issues are raised:

• WP:NEUTRAL Point of View
• WP:NOTAFORUM
• WP:Minority viewpoints (esp. re breadth interpreting the term, "climate change adaptation")
• Direct WP:RELEVANCE to climate change adaptation (distinguish from WP:UNDUE weight re background topics such as relative virtues of TEK in general, power politics of getting TEK accepted, etc.)
• WP:WIKIVOICE and general WP:PROMOTIONal tone

The debate is not about editors' "world views", personal "expertise", underlying righteousness of a cause, etc. —RCraig09 (talk) 19:40, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Talk:House system at the California Institute of Technology

The names of two buildings, the South Houses and North Houses, have been capitalized in this article since it was created in 2005. There have recently been discussions and edits proposing that these terms should be lowercase. The disagreement arises from whether these building names are proper nouns, and whether the sources using capitals constitute a "substantial majority".

According to MOS:CAPS, "In English, proper names, which can be either single words or phrases, are typically capitalized," and "Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia." This RfC applies to this article as well as the related articles History of the Caltech house system, Campus of the California Institute of Technology, and California Institute of Technology.

Please !vote whether to retain uppercase or change to lowercase. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 03:42, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Talk:Malassezia

I propose to replace the following statements concerning Dermatitis and dandruff (D/SD) diseases and related to Malassezia info (Revision of 01:44, March 25, 2021):--AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 19:40, 1 April 2021 (UTC)