Talk:Seale Harris

message: Hello, there is an article here that might be of interest. http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1146 -- It might be useful for content or an external link. 
Thanks, Justin --Duboiju (talk) 17:51, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: External Link

message: The "spontaneous hypoglycemia" that Harris recognized, is it something other than plain old hypoglycemia?  If so, then I would be very interested in getting a lot more information about it! (If not, then how did the adjective "spontaneous" end up here?)<BR>--Seren-dipper (talk) 15:01, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Spontaneous is a vague term that is not considered very useful by doctors interested in hypoglycemia. In some contexts it refers to hypoglycemia that is not induced by exogenous insulin (i.e., diabetic hypoglycemia). In other contexts it is equivalent to idiopathic hypoglycemia (i.e., of unknown cause). And some people use it to encompass idiopathic hypoglycemia with measured low blood glucose, reactive hypoglycemia with measured low glucose, and idiopathic postprandial syndrome. Bottom line: too imprecise to be very useful. When Seale Harris was writing about hypoglycemia, the only two kinds that were well understood were diabetic hypoglycemia and insulinoma. He asserted that were likely other types as well. His assertion was widely enough accepted that the diagnosis was assigned to, or claimed by, a large number of patients with otherwise unexplained adrenergic symptoms. His contemporary, a surgeon named Whipple, formulated the Whipple criteria as a sieve to sort out those who might have an insulinoma requiring surgery from those with symptoms but not measured low blood glucose. We still use them for exactly that purpose. alteripse (talk) 17:29, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: This was very helpful, enlightening and useful! Thank you!<BR>--Seren-dipper (talk) 03:54, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spontaneous hypoglycemia 

message: Why are there links to what appears to be a MLM wt loss company formed decades after Harris' death? Apparently they have appropriated his name for their marketing purposes but they actually provide no evidence of a relationship between his published work and this company's program. Any reason all those links shouldnt just be converted to the direct references to his published papers, or is the bibliography not available on a noncommercial website? alteripse (talk) 21:08, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It sure would be nice to also have more references to Harris' published papers, but I fear that many of them will not be available fulltext online. Besides, but not least, Lay summaries (See: "laysummary:") do often make a subject more accessible for the layperson and therefore do have some value.  Therefore I think that the links, to the "lite for life"-page about Seale Harris, should be kept. (Even though that page may be slanted towards being a sales pitch promoting certain comercial products or services).<BR>Another side of the matter is that the continued (30 years) existence of such a company (that is living solely off Harris' idea) is an interesting, noteable, fact in it self! While I do think the company name "Lite for life" should be played down (i.e. not mentioned except in the external link) I still think the success story of such a company is worth a paragraph or two in the Wikipedia article about Seale Harris , because it kind of indicates that Harris' idea had substatially more value to it, than just beeing a fancy idea and a fad.<BR>Now for the fact that the company, on its webpage, does not give much detail at all about Harris' idea or their use of it. <BR>I suspect that the reason why, is that Harris' idea itself is so short and simple (nevertheless effective), that if they were to give away the secret right away, then they would loose a lot of paying customers! Even though their weight loss plan is very effective, the thing that makes their customers "get their money's worth" is not the plan itself, but rather the provided support with sticking to the plan.--Seren-dipper (talk) 22:02, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: And if a company formed to sell peanut novelties in 1975 claimed that George Washington Carver was their marketing inspiration would you try link to them multiple times in the article about Carver? Frankly I didn't see any relationship other than it being a weight loss company exploiting a name that still has some reputation power in Alabama. What am I missing? alteripse (talk) 00:25, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Carver's idea was/is not largely being unduly neglected and forgotten, now is it?--Seren-dipper (talk) 19:09, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: "Eat less sugar if you want to lose weight" is hardly a neglected or forgotten message, nor exactly original or unique. Again, any continuity beyond that between Harris and Lite for Life other than the company thought his name has marketing value is not apparent to me. Do you think that's enough to warrant the links? We really try to weed out irrelevant corporate links from wikipedia articles. Do you have a stake in Lite for Life? Should we go to WP:RFC and seek some other opinions? alteripse (talk) 21:22, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm.. The thing is, that there is more to Harris' message than that! (And Harris' idea is important for some underweight people too!). Mention of (and sourced by one link each) successful business ideas, that are heavily based on Harris' idea, will be relevant here as far as they might help Wikipedia readers to avoid dismissing Harris' idea too quickly.  The links will be circumstantial evidence for the truth of the idea.<BR>Now, it appears to me, there is a problem in that Harris actually did not fully grasp all of the problem. Still, his proposed solution surely mitigates it and even goes a far way towards solving it.<BR> I agree that it is important to weed out irrelevant corporate links from wikipedia articles, but the link in question is not yet irrelevant in this article. (And: No! I do not have any stake in the company).<BR>Well! Now the task at hand, to mee, seems to be: 1.How to word a paragraph that fully describes Harris' idea (both the problem and solution). 2.Where do we find noteable sources backing up a more comprehensive description of the problem than the one Harris operated with.--Seren-dipper (talk) 05:50, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Lite for life needs to go

message: * I suggest that the Encyclopedia of Alabama article cited herein is the most accessible and appropriate source for general biographical information, and could be cited more effectively than the information published by the commercial weight-loss business. I removed some of the blatant puffery, but did not remove the bias tag since I'm sure there's more to be done. --Dystopos (talk) 02:14, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutrality