Talk:Medical University of the Americas – Belize

message: I've separated Accreditation from Licensing - the two issues although related are not a single matter, and in this case there seems to be little debate about whether the school is accredited or not - the Belize Government publishes "Medical Universities in Belize" authored by "Belize Medical School Accreditation Committee" which trumps all. However, I recognise that the accreditation regime for medical schools in Belize may be less rigorous than in those countries with a longer tradition of medical education such as the UK, or even countries where such education is less established such as the USA. DMcMPO11AAUK/Talk/Contribs 15:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with this. First comes local accreditation and then comes international recognition. Bstone 17:32, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Structure

message: Without a doubt, the licensure section contains weasel words and is NPOV by painting the most negative picture possible, especially in the words of the Texas entry. Thus I am tagging this section as having weasel words and being NPOV. Let's discuss here how to make it neutral and remove the weasel words. Bstone 07:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please read Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words.  Please demonstrate how the current text uses weasel words per that definition.  As far as NPOV goes, I don't see how directly and exactly quoting a WP:RS can be any more neutral.  It's not like there's someone's personal opinion in there.  Leuko 07:53, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Finding the most negative things to say is not neutral. Indeed it violates the spirit of weasel words. At least one other editor feels this way. Until we can discuss and come to a conclusion please cease is removing the tags. Thank you ahead of time for your cooperation. Bstone 07:55, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, so you can't actually demonstrate the use of weasel words?  Then continuing to insert the template is disruptive vandalism.  I would urge you to please stop disrupting WP.  And just because you don't like what a WP:RS has to say, doesn't make it NPOV.  Please read WP:NPOV yet again to learn the real definition of the policy, not some made up construct to suit your purposes.  Leuko 08:02, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Leuko, why is it that I am not surprised that you once again throw around the vandalism word? It is mystifying why you throw this term around whenever you are in the minority of editors for a particular issue. I urge you to be more civil and stop throwing around your fake vandalism warning. Bstone 08:15, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Because I call it like it is.  I would urge you to stop revert-warring and abusing the weasel words template since you keep placing it without being able to explain how the guideline is being violated, and utilize further steps in the dispute resolution process, such as WP:RFC.  As has been pointed out before, when there are only 3 editors involved with an article there is no minority and certainly no consensus. Leuko 08:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Texas reference very specifically does not state that the list is a "list of institutions whose degrees are fraudulent or substandard". That is an inference you are drawing from wording elsewhere on the web page. WP is not the place for the stating of inferences as if they were fact. As has already been pointed out, Oregon has it's own definition of accreditation, and therefore using the word "unaccredited" in association with the Oregon entry requires a full explanation of that term. In general, where an entity that you are using for a source redefines a word or phrase, you should avoid using that word or phrase without a complete explanation of how it has been defined, to ensure that your audience understands that their normal definitions of those words and phrases used may not apply in the circumstances in which they are quoted. In these cases, you can substitute "not recognised as valid qualifications by the state of Texas" for "fraudulent or substandard", and "not recognised as valid qualifications by the state of Oregon" for "unaccredited". Your persistence in using the most negative phraseology that you can associate with a medical school calls your neutrality into view, and I find your apparent inability to distinguish between accurately quoting a reference and drawing an inference from a reference quite astounding for a medical student. DMcMPO11AAUK/Talk/Contribs 11:31, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not an inference - it's right there in black and white, just like "Institutions Whose Degrees are Illegal to Use in Texas."  I fail to see the difference between the two phrases, except for bold font.  They are both on the same page referring to the same institutions, yet one is acceptable and the other not?  Substitution is not valid as you would be inserting your own personal interpretation.  The only acceptable course of action is to directly quote the WP:RS exactly.  These state licensing boards knew what they were saying when they used these words - they do not need you to censor it for them. And please stop with the personal attacks. Leuko 00:57, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The relevant fact as far as licensing of physicians is concerned is whether a specific jurisdiction accepts the qualification from a given institution for that purpose. I don't see any dispute over this. The dispute is on how this is reported. Neutral reporting of negative facts means that we avoid using negative constructs just because they're there. If you examine the minutiae of Oregon and Texas law, you will see that in fact these qualifications are not "illegal" in a blanket sense of the word, but that it is instead illegal to use the qualification for certain purposes. This means that the use of qualifications or title are restricted by statute. No-one can throw you in jail for simply possessing a qualification from the cheapest diploma mill. Whilst articles about institutions may not be subject to as strict control as WP:BLP, striving for similar standards of neutrality of reporting is not a bad ideal to aim for. We do not in fact need to include any specific text from any given reference, provided that we accurately paraphrase or summarise the factual content of the reference. We certainly do not need to include buzzwords such as "illegal, fraudulent, bogus, unaccredited" at every opportunity when talking about foreign (for whatever value of foreign suits your taste) medical schools simply because we believe, regardless of the basis of that belief, that they are somehow inferior to the ones at home. In these specific cases, where an institution is identified in a list, you can either paraphrase what the appearance of the institution being in the list means, or you can use the title of the list along with any qualifiers that might be needed to ensure that the reader interprets the terms in the same manner in which the publisher of the list uses them. Moreover, it is also important that you are careful not to pick up on a phrase or term that appears coincidentally with a list and use that phrase or term to refer to the list unless the publisher of the list clearly and explicitly does so. For the Oregon list, the full description of the list as given by the reference is "The following list of unaccredited degree suppliers is maintained by ODA for the protection of the citizens of Oregon and their post-secondary schools by identifying those degree suppliers that do not meet the requirements of ORS 348.609(1)." If you quote this text in an article, you need to qualify the use of "unaccredited" with "Oregon law (ORS 348.609) defines accreditation to include only those accreditors recognized by the U.S. Department of Education." It is possible to avoid the excess verbosity by paraphrasing thus: "The state of Oregon does not accept qualifications from institution for the purpose of licensing of physicians." You could add "and places further restrictions on the use of such qualifications and the titles they confer" without compromising the factual accuracy of the neutrality of reporting. The same wording can be used for Texas. By doing this, we have reported the pertinent negative information, the non acceptability of certain qualifications for physician licensing and other purposes accurately, succinctly, and in a neutral manner. As soon as we start using additional words and phrases to add emphasis to the report, we start to lose the neutral reporting that we are striving for. This is especially true if our justification for doing so is "they're in the reference, so we're citing facts / have to use them" - just because something is in the reference is not the touchstone of whether it should be in the article. The touchstone is whether it adds to the article. DMcMPO11AAUK/Talk/Contribs 07:13, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Weasel Words

message: I would like to suggest that we apply for mediation to determine if there are problems with how Leuko is presenting the licensure section. Since we have just experienced 3RR violation it would seem proper to get outside perspective. Please comment here if you are agreeable. Bstone 21:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Mediation

message: I'm quite happy to open the following issues to WP:3PO or WP:RFC.
#The use of "bogus" in relation to institutions in the UK ASIC "organisations which have been brought to [ASIC's] attention offering degrees and [ASIC] suggest you undertake detailed research before embarking on a programme of study" list
#The use of the Oregon "degree suppliers that do not meet the requirements of ORS 348.609(1)" list as a reference to accreditation in an institutions own jurisdiction given Oregon's definition of accreditation as (paraphrasing) "[recognised by Oregon]"
#The use of "fraudulent or substandard" in relation to institutions in the Texas "Institutions Whose Degrees are Illegal to Use in Texas" list
#The significance of "not being on the approved list for a given US state" and the selective use of such not being listed to infer unsuitability of specific qualifications and medical schools
#The selective highlighting of an institution's failure to meet one or more requirements of a given state to assert that qualifications from that institution are not recognised by that state
#The selective use of membership of IVIMEDS to introduce negative commentary about accreditation to articles about specific institutions
I believe that these issues may relate to several articles, including but not necessarily limited to MUA-B, SCIMD-COM, UHSA, CMU. DMcMPO11AAUK/Talk/Contribs 22:14, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. The past 24 hours has been particularly bad for us as editors. We need a third party or mediation. Bstone 22:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've put a pointer to this section on the talk pages of the other articles identified above. Hopefully everyone involved is intelligent and sensible enough to keep the discussion in one place. Perhaps I should add "please go there to comment" to those pages though. +Done+ DMcMPO11AAUK/Talk/Contribs 22:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As there are more than two people involved, it really needs to be an WP:RFC and not a WP:3PO, but I would gladly have some additional input on the subject. Leuko 00:40, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

text: The RFC is in the next section of the discussion, and runs for 30 days. So far there's been one response. DMcMPO11AAUK/Talk/Contribs 14:31, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  3PO / RFC 

message: Lack of consensus concerning citing and use of references across several similar articles, WP:OR, WP:SYN, WP:POV, WP:SOAPBOX.
Note RFC was originally issued as econ, changed to sci, then policy + sci, then policy 28th Oct, then policy + econ + sci 3rd November, guidance at WP:VP now indicates that Policy is not applicable - policy RFCs are for discussing changes to WP policies, not the application of policies to articles, policy removed 6th Nov. DMcMPO11AAUK/Talk/Contribs 14:34, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am of the opinion that DMcMPO11AAUK holds to. Bstone 15:45, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the opinions of Bstone and DMcMPO11AAUK, with an additional note regarding #2.  Corporation or company establishment should not be assumed to be the same date as the establishment of the university.  It is actually original research and synthesis to conclude that universities are established or re-established any time the corporate structure changes.  Definitive information in this regard can be obtained from IMED as noted as "year instruction began" Buzybeez 15:29, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

text: The accreditation and licensing sections in this article presently look okay to me. I agree with DMcMPO11AAUK's first bullet point. I dunno about the rest, as the wording gets a bit complicated for me to follow.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by ChrisChiasson (talk • contribs) 10:24, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

text: The main accreditation for any academic institution is the government. If this jurisdiction has made a ruling that it does not recognise the qualifications given by a certain institution, and has given reasons then these reasons certainly need to be noted.Any other governments and institutions that recognise the qualifications may then be listed. As this regards SCIMD-COM, I think that while the Universite El Hadj Ibrahima Niasse may well be accredited (by the government of Senegal), St Christopher Iba Mar Diop College of Medicine is not (by the government of the UK, via the GMC). This is what is important, and it is important to state why. Other possible recognition can then be listed. Thehalfone 08:13, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: However, since SCIMD-COM is just a branch campus and not a separate, self-standing UK educational entity it is covered under the recognition of it's parent university. SCIMD-COM does not need to be recognized by the UK government since it is not a UK educational institution. 67.177.149.119 15:40, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  RFC Oct 2007 

message: It is my understanding of WP:RFC that the type of RfC requested depends on the subject of the article, and the subject of this and the related articles are institutions offering training in exchange for fees, thus commercial organisations. Also, it looks like having multiple RFCs on one talk page breaks the RfC bot, I've added notes and links between the RfC requests so that hopefully people navigating from the RfC lists can find the one they're looking for. I also added the "reason" for the earlier RfC to the talk page text per the RfC guidelines. DMcMPO11AAUK/Talk/Contribs 01:00, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Requesting RfCs

message: User:Formerrockstar made a series of non-constructive edits to the page which I believe all should be undone and the page restored to 11:13, 21 October 2007 by DMcMPO11AAUK. I can't figure out how to do so. Help? Bstone 06:17, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You seem to have managed OK. DMcMPO11AAUK/Talk/Contribs 06:39, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I ended up clicking undo for all 4 of his/her edits. Is there an easier way to restore to a specific one? Bstone 06:41, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please add a level of indent each time you respond. I use some javascript extras called Twinkle (TW) that integrate into firefox and give better handling of reversions and difference lists. Incidentally, I made some edits in "Licensing" - the basic statement at the head of the section has an extra bit tacked on, I gave a couple of refs that were just URLs their appropriate titles, added a ref for the Texas Penal Code and clarified that the other Texas ref was the Educational code. The change of "Degrees conferred by MUA-B are not accepted for the licensing of physicians in some jurisdictions:" to "Degrees conferred by MUA-B are not accepted for the licensing of physicians in some jurisdictions, and the use of such qualifications and the associated titles may be subject to other restrictions:" can probably be copied to the same position in other similar articles. DMcMPO11AAUK/Talk/Contribs 07:43, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry about the indent. I do it 99.999% of the time. Just tired, so I forgot. I installed Twinkle. It's so cute!! Bstone 08:31, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Just undid 2 more edits by formerrockstar. They just don't seem to be constructive. Please discuss here if anyone believes otherwise. Thanks. Bstone 23:32, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: undo?