Talk:Qapqal disease

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Merge for now, pending expansion should better evidence of independent notability become available. Klbrain (talk) 20:54, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

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I propose that Qapqal disease should be incorporated into the existing article on botulism per WP:OVERLAP. For example, there are not two pages for "consumption" and "tuberculosis"—they are different names for the same disease. Enwebb (talk) 01:06, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for raising this concern. In my opinion they are quite different. Botulism is a general name for the disease, and it should be considered as a pathological term. However, Qapqal disease describes a cluster of endemic outbreaks, and should be considered as an epidemiological term. Qapqal disease is certainly not another name for botulism, although the underlying cause of this disease is botulinum. In fact, its clinical features and epidemiological patterns are distinctive. For example, there is a page called Spanish flu, whereas there is another page called influenza. I hope this helps to clarify the situation. Thanks! Peiyangium (talk) 02:24, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate the distinction, but it's not quite a fair comparison to invoke Spanish flu IMO. Obviously the Spanish flu is a highly-notable event that provoked widespread coverage. There seems to be very little coverage of this outbreak. How many people were affected? How many died? This outbreak doesn't seem notable enough for a standalone article, per WP:NOPAGE, and it unlikely that there will be much more novel coverage of the event. I think the information in this article would be a great addition to Botulism#China rather than having it as a permanent stub. But anyway, I let WikiProject Microbiology know that there was a merger discussion here, so hopefully more people will chime in and we'll get some kind of consensus. Enwebb (talk) 04:37, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

• Support Merge as this page is not sufficiently notable; cited sources aside, even though this "disease" was reported in the 1950s a search of Pubmed yields nothing; have obtained similar results after searching other reliable medical sources. — soupvector (talk) 04:52, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I hold no objection to your reasoning, yet I do not think searching on PubMed is a good idea. It was China 1950's, and it would be weird to be published on an indexed journal. In fact, National Medical Journal of China was the most influential journal it can possibly be published on in those days, and the journal continues to be THE most eminent Chinese language clinical publication. Peiyangium (talk) 17:58, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

If this were notable on its own (like the Spanish flu), isn't it likely to have been discussed since then? — soupvector (talk) 22:32, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Mostly in Chinese contexts, such as in a Chinese course of epidemiology.Peiyangium (talk) 23:01, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

@Peiyangium: do you object to this content moving to Botulism#China? Enwebb (talk) 22:44, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

If you would allow me, I will give no opinion. I am not familiar with the merging criteria in this specific community. I am happy to provide as much fact as I can, but I hesitate to make the judgement. Peiyangium (talk) 23:01, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

By "fact" I mean fact that I believe to be true. :-P Peiyangium (talk) 23:02, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps one of the challenges is the article title, which suggests that this is about a distinct disease or condition; from that point of view, it seems clear that this was an epidemic of botulism, and belongs in Botulism#China. On the other hand, from a historical / public health point of view, the epidemic might be notable (we have a number of articles about epidemics); however, the available English reference material seems scant so far. — soupvector (talk) 23:25, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

The name is not a problem; see Minamata disease, which is mercury poisoning, and Itai-itai disease, which is cadmium poisoning.

I agree that English-language sources are scant. I've found two possibilities at doi:10.1016/S0895-3988(08)60054-9 and doi:10.3109/15563650.2010.526943, but I'm not sure that they add significantly to what's already here. I found nothing in English-language books. (Note that Wikipedia does not require English-language sources.)

And also this systematic review: doi:10.1093/clinids/8.6.984, where the original Chinese case report was cited but the name mistranslated as "Chabuchaer", which is the Pinyin transcript of the name of the place. Peiyangium (talk) 20:56, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

My current inclination is to merge all of that information to the ===China=== section, and to redirect the title straight to that section. The redirect should make the information easy to find, and putting it in the larger article will probably result in more people reading about it. If, in the future, there is much more to say about this particular situation, then it could and should be WP:SPLIT back out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:15, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

• merge--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:38, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
• I think there is sufficient reason to keep Qapqal as a separate article, because it is a distinct outbreak and there is precedence that these can be notable, but it comes down to the amount of material. If the article can be expanded, keep it separate. The current content, however, could be merged. Bondegezou (talk) 14:27, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
  • I think that a fair conclusion is that we should merge for now, but that it would be okay for someone to later WP:SPLIT the article if there is more (2x? 3x?) to be said later. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:07, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

  Y Merger complete. Klbrain (talk) 20:54, 26 May 2019 (UTC)