Talk:Fertility awareness

message: (The bias isn't strong enough to justify tagging the whole article, so I'm putting the template here for the moment instead. Njál 21:02, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The 

message: Aware belongs to a nonprofit. I don't own it. Who deleted the link and are they associated with competing software? —Preceding unsigned comment added by  69.231.65.61 (talk • contribs) 03:17, 15 March 2007
:I'm not sure why it was deleted. Wikipedia is not a collection of links, and link categories that potentially include large numbers of sites are discouraged.  But software that tracks fertility signs seems sufficiently rare that I do not have a problem with including it. Lyrl    Talk     C   22:57, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please sign your talk page comments. Next, I see nothing in your post, or the conversation above that addresses a SINGLE ONE of my concerns. Please do a better job of explaining your justification for inclusion, citing which policy points at WP:EL your link meets. It has to do with NFP, not FA, which is a different topic. It doesn't help the user understand FA any more, and it is simply a glorified product purchase page. The link clearly isn't encyclopedic. Please refrain from editing the article further until this issue is cleared up. You can't force disputed content into an article. Thanks for your consideration.-Andrew c 15:39, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Andrew c requested my input here.  I have viewed the Aware! site, and I agree with Andrew c's assessment that it is commercial, fails WP:EL and should be excluded.  While there are indeed links from this site to "Marian apparitions", the "Shroud of Turin" and The Vatican (which are clearly related to the Catholic religion and thus the rationale of NFP), the fact that it is off the topic of FA is secondary to its failure of the EL guideline.  I support the removal of the Aware! link from this article, from Natural family planning if it turns up there, and anywhere else it appears.  Please consider reading the guideline, it explains much more thoroughly than I have.  Joie de Vivre 16:14, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Comment Link to Aware provides no additional information (except perhaps that such software exists). There is a shopping cart link on the page linked. I would definitely remove the link, though I will not because I do not wish to be in conflict of interest (having recently become acquainted with and impressed in general by User:Joie de Vivre). However, it's my firm belief that the link is advertising/spam.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by MalcolmGin (talk • contribs).
The nonprofit is the Fitch Fertility Center. One of the issues with fertility is problems with artificial birth control - rendering women infertile. Also, the Aware application allows tracking of fertility, which can be used to promote or inhibit pregnancy.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.84.156.180 (talk • contribs).
*So, I removed all the software links. I also scrod up and removed the categories and interlinks, oops. But regarding the software: "perimon" is commercial, or at least fee-based (first few months are free); I was fooled by Fertility Friend, missing the "free!" and seeing only the "ordering info"; and the "taking charge of your fertility" one is also commercial. But: there are dozens of fertility awareness software packages out there; what makes one or two of these worthy of linking to? Wikipedia isn't a web directory; an interested person could do just what I did (google for fertility awareness software) and have a real choice, as opposed to the highly selective pick here. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 00:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I agree with you. We have the power to push potential customers towards specific products. By including only a few of the available products, we are biasing the market, which I think goes against wikipedia's principles. It's better to not include any. These products do not help someone who is researching the idea of FA learn more about FA. Sure they help someone track their own fertility, but that isn't the purpose of wikipedia. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. We should try to limit links to articles or webpages that go into more detail on the topic at hand, or official webpages for the topic (for example a band's webpage from an article about the band). Under the spirit of the GFDL, it may be ok to link to free software, but I think removing the commercial product pages is for the better. What do others link?-Andrew c 00:52, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Can you please sign all talk page comments. The top and bottom of every edit page for talk pages explains how. You do this by typing four tildes ~~~~. This way everyone can see who is saying what (and when). The four tildes automatically produces code for your name and timestamp when you hit "Save page". You'll notice that everyone else here signs their comments.-Andrew c 16:15, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: External links - Software

message: This article has been categorized with more specific articles on fertility awareness since July 2006.  It was recently re-categorized with coitus interruptus and sexual abstinence (diff).  The old :Category:Periodic abstinence has been nominated for deletion.
I feel this new grouping is less useful.  Someone unfamiliar with methods of fertility awareness could previously read the intro paragraph to fertility awareness and then have a good idea what all articles in :Category:Periodic abstinence were about ("determin[ing] the fertile and infertile phases of [the] menstrual cycle" and timing unprotected intercourse based on that information).  I believe the new categorization scheme is not as useful as the old one - it only offers the information to the navigator that behavior modification is involved, like that involved in coitus interruptus.  Nothing about fertility or the periodicity of the behavioral aspects.  What do others think? Lyrl    Talk     C   20:26, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There seems to be a rough consensus at Categories for discussion to put this article into a new :Category:Fertility awareness.  I'll leave this notice here for a couple of days, and if there are no objections, go ahead and create the new category. Lyrl    Talk     C   01:41, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So there was a consensus not to have a category periodic abstinence category (which is why the CfD result was delete), and there was an new alternative category proposed here on talk, yet somehow the deleted category got recreated without deletion review? I'm going to remove the deleted category, and we can discuss if :Category:Fertility awareness should be created or if we should use the behavioral methods category or what. But please do not say there wasn't a consensus to delete periodic abstinence, when the CfD result was delete. We should have a centralized discussion, instead of discussing the same thing on 7 different talk pages. [{Talk:Birth control]] seems like a high visibility, centralized location.-Andrew c 13:45, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categorization - what articles should this one be grouped with? 

message: This article has been moved to :Category:Fertility tracking as part of a planned deletion of :Category:Periodic abstinence, :Category:Fertility awareness, and :Category:Natural family planning.  Please bring up any concerns at Category talk:Periodic abstinence.  If there are no objections within four days, these three categories will be tagged for speedy deletion. Lyrl    Talk     C   21:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Category move

message: This article was recently tagged (at the top of this talk page) as being U.S.-centric.  I would like to help fix this, but I'm not sure what the editor was concerned about.  An explanation would be appreciated. Lyrl    Talk     C   03:03, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Worldwide view 

message: The "typical use" numbers in the infobox, and the "effectiveness" section were recently tagged as being inappropriate synthesis.  
*The only explanation offered was specifically: "the same as oral contraceptives".  The comparison to oral contraceptives is certainly easy enough to reference ( This effectiveness is about the same as the birth control pill or  A natural family planning method is as effective as the contraceptive pill, for example).  I'm not clear on whether the editor is asking for a reference to be inserted, however, or just indicating their view that this statement is not appropriate for this article.  Personally I would be fine either way (adding a reference or removing the statement).
*A table was also added to effectiveness section.  I'm not sure what purpose the table is supposed to serve; it seems to me that anyone interested in that level of detail would be motivated to follow the footnotes, while those just looking for an overview are better served by the prose explanation and the table may decrease the utility of this article for them.  I think the article would be improved by removing the table.
*The language describing the claim of a 99% use effectiveness was also changed from mildly negative (the paragraph cited only one study that found this, then went on to cite a number of studies that found slightly lower use effectiveness) to completely denigrating ("one unpublished Chinese study posted on a website").  As I have stated previously to the person who edits from a dynamic set of IP addresses starting with 68 and 69, I strongly disagree with the practice of smearing an article's sources in the text of the article.  If the sources are actually that bad, they should not be used in an encyclopedia!  If they are good enough to be used in an encyclopedia, then they don't deserve that kind of condemnation.
**Also, the study is claimed to have been published in a Chinese journal.  I do not have access to the browsing or search features here.  Just to confirm - has the person who added the "unpublished study posted on a website" comment looked through the volumes of that journal published in the year 2000 and verified that the Billings' study was not published?
**Further, while I agree with the sentiment that this study isn't as reliable as the other studies covered, the claim of 99% use effectiveness is made by the oldest, largest, and arguably most influential fertility awareness organization.  I believe their position needs to be mentioned in this article.
*I'm also confused by the tagging of the infobox typical use statistics as inappropriate synthesis.  It cites a range of numbers from reliable sources, which are cited in the article.  Just like the infobox in the condom article does.  No conclusions are drawn from the numbers, the numbers are not manipulated from how they appear in the original sources - I don't understand how this is viewed as a synthesis at all.  Unless the intent was to encourage the inclusion of the 1% number from the Billings' study in the infobox?
LyrlTalk     C   23:31, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You make very good points. I'd like to hear the response from the person who tagged the article. -Andrew c [talk] 00:05, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Synthesis tags 

message: ===Lyrl's involvement===
Just to disclose my history with this section, I'll go through what I have done (or been involved in doing) with the external links.
Immediately before I became involved in this article (while it was still named "natural family planning"), it had quite a few external links: 17 August 2005
One of the first things I did to this article was add sub-titles to the links section, and add links in the same categories that I felt were as or more important than the existing links: 10 September 2005
The external links section remained largely unchanged until Joie de Vivre became involved in the article in October 2006.  This resulted in removal of all the "descriptions" links, a couple of software links deemed poor quality, and teaching organizations with links to the Catholic Church; and addition of new software links and websites of secular teachers.  Related discussion is at Talk:Fertility awareness/Archive 1#External links organization.  Part of the discussion was the criteria to include links to teachers; I wanted to limit it to organizations, while JdV wanted to allow links to individual teachers.  In an unfortunately pointish move, I added a ridiculous number of teaching links (diff).  These were fortunately removed just a month later by an editor otherwise uninvolved in the article (diff).
===Current state and suggestions===
A discussion in April 2007 (#External links - Software) resulted in the software section being removed (diff).  In late April 2007 an anonymous editor readded the Couple to Couple League (which had been deleted because of its links to the Catholic Church) - diff.  In January 2008 another editor readded the link to the Fertility Awareness Center (which I had added in Sep 2005, and it was caught in the mass deletion in Dec 2006) - diff.  And just last week, the link to the Ovusoft website was deleted diff - this probably goes with the spirit of the decision to delete the 'software' section, although the free printable charts and message board community associated with Weschler's best-selling book might have been redeeming characteristics.
The current external links section is disorganized: it first has a link to the "natural family planning" article, saying there are teaching resources there, and implying all the links here are secular.  Then it has a link to a very Catholic teaching organization, followed by a secular teaching organization, then a university research website, another secular teaching organization, and finally an informational website on women's reproductive health.  This seems like it would be confusing to someone trying to find information from these links.
I would like to remove the hatnote to the "natural family planning" website, instead including the teaching organizations from there in this section (so readers don't have to navigate through the religious websites also listed there).  I would suggest including notes on the degree of affiliation with the Catholic Church (which varies between the organizations) in the link description.  I would also link to add bold subtitles for "teaching organizations" and "related information", so these two types of links could be separated.  What do others think of these suggestions? LyrlTalk     C   15:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links 

message: A discussion in April 2007 (#External links - Software) resulted in the software section being removed (diff).  In late April 2007 an anonymous editor readded the Couple to Couple League (which had been deleted because of its links to the Catholic Church) - diff.  In January 2008 another editor readded the link to the Fertility Awareness Center (which I had added in Sep 2005, and it was caught in the mass deletion in Dec 2006) - diff.  And just last week, the link to the Ovusoft website was deleted diff - this probably goes with the spirit of the decision to delete the 'software' section, although the free printable charts and message board community associated with Weschler's best-selling book might have been redeeming characteristics.
The current external links section is disorganized: it first has a link to the "natural family planning" article, saying there are teaching resources there, and implying all the links here are secular.  Then it has a link to a very Catholic teaching organization, followed by a secular teaching organization, then a university research website, another secular teaching organization, and finally an informational website on women's reproductive health.  This seems like it would be confusing to someone trying to find information from these links.
I would like to remove the hatnote to the "natural family planning" website, instead including the teaching organizations from there in this section (so readers don't have to navigate through the religious websites also listed there).  I would suggest including notes on the degree of affiliation with the Catholic Church (which varies between the organizations) in the link description.  I would also link to add bold subtitles for "teaching organizations" and "related information", so these two types of links could be separated.  What do others think of these suggestions? LyrlTalk     C   15:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Current state and suggestions

message: Template: has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — LyrlTalk     C   03:00, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  TfD nomination of [[:Template:{{ucfirst:Fertility awareness}}]] 

message: A recent edit adding "those associated with contraceptive failure" to the possible side effects of fertility awareness.  While this is true, it is true of all birth control methods, and is somewhat beside the point: any contraceptive significantly reduces the risk of pregnancy when compared to no method at all.  Aside from a discussion of justifying life-threatening side effects in the COCP article (last paragraph in this section), none of the other Wikipedia contraception articles even mention side effects associated with pregnancy.
I'm curious if the editor believes all the other articles need to be changed, or if there is something unique about fertility awareness that merits this mention here but not elsewhere. LyrlTalk     C   23:54, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pregnancy as side effect? 

message: Can someone explain why this page lists 24% at the top as typical failure rate? Other related articles cite much lower rates.
Natural Family Planning "A study of 19,843 women in India (52% Hindu, 27% Muslim, and 21% Christian) using natural family planning to avoid pregnancy had an unexpected pregnancy rate of 0.2 pregnancy/100 women users yearly. A German study had an unexpected pregnancy rate of 0.8 pregnancy/100 women users yearly."
Comparison_of_birth_control_methods lists a typical use failure rate of 1.8% and ideal of 0.6%
Can someone give me a good reason to justify the 24% vs. several sources cited elsewhere on Wikipedia giving under 2%? >> M.P.Schneider,LC (parlemus • feci)  21:09, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reliability 

message: Please add info about electronic devices that test urine for personal fertility cycles, they've been around for YEARS and it would be a better article if they were mentioned ! Personal Fertility Monitors Research http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3017256/
They're called Clearblue in the USA and Persona everywhere else http://uk.clearblue.com/persona They're a Swiss company and have been around for a long, long time ! http://www.persona.info/ Veryscarymary (talk) 19:09, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Electronic Devices

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Fertility awareness. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121102140038/http://www.who.int:80/reproductivehealth/publications/family_planning/9789241563888/en/index.html to http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/family_planning/9789241563888/en/index.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070219081722/http://www.woomb.org:80/omrrca/bulletin/vol29/no1/thequest.shtml to http://www.woomb.org/omrrca/bulletin/vol29/no1/thequest.shtml
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070213070450/http://www.familyplanning.net:80/main.php?parent_id=1&id_area=1 to http://www.familyplanning.net/main.php?parent_id=1&id_area=1
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 5 external links on Fertility awareness. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/family_planning/9789241563888/en/index.html
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.woomb.org/omrrca/bulletin/vol29/no1/thequest.shtml
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.familyplanning.net/main.php?parent_id=1&id_area=1
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051224031839/http://www.woomb.org/bom/science/physiology.html to http://www.woomb.org/bom/science/physiology.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070427204752/http://www.woomb.org/omrrca/bulletin/vol27/no4/chinaEvaluation.html to http://www.woomb.org/omrrca/bulletin/vol27/no4/chinaEvaluation.html
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Fertility awareness. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070323160200/http://www.fertilityuk.org/nfps822.html to http://www.fertilityuk.org/nfps822.html
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Fertility awareness. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121102032112/http://womenshealth.gov/publications/our-publications/fact-sheet/infertility.cfm to http://www.womenshealth.gov/publications/our-publications/fact-sheet/infertility.cfm
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: On Condoms, the rates are quoted as pregnancy rates rather than failure rates, I think this would be more appropriate in the Fertility Awareness page as well but I wanted to check with anyone here before maybe trampling over some important distinction. I think it makes more sense since the rates quoted in the section on FA are specifically unintended pregnancy rates, as FA can also be used to encourage pregnancy, which has completely different rates of “failure”. In any event I think I'll go ahead and make the edit unless I see any objection to that. Aaron Muir Hamilton <aaron@correspondwith.me> (talk) 13:35, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pregnancy rates vs "Failure" rates