This template was recently changed to a redirect to a much larger and harder to navigate template. For the purposes of the hormonal contraceptive articles, [this version] of the template is much more useful. It gives the generations, and lists many of the major hormones used in those articles. The full on template has so much on it that finding anything is a challenge, and it would be likely to turn away the reader.
If there was any discussion about doing away with this version of the template, I haven't figured out where it is. I think it should be discussed in a broader forum than just this talk page, with a note in Wikiproject medicine, as well as any other projects that are likely to be affected. I have to sign off now, more later. Zodon (talk) 07:05, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi El3ctr0nika! While I very much appreciate your tireless work on pharmacological substances, I have already stated that I disagree with your approach to navboxes.
An example: Etomidate is an anaesthetic agent. As far as I know, its affinity to 20,22-desmolase has no clinical relevance, and its anti-estrogenic/progestogenic/androgenic action is more or less theoretical.
Placing five navboxes at the bottom of the article does not aid navigability of the pedia, which is the use of these boxes, but merely confuses readers. (It confuses me, and I know a bit about pharmacology.) There are countless other examples, mainly neurology drug articles that seem to have about six navboxes on principle (adrenergic, cholinergic, dopaminergic, serotoninergic, GABAergic, adenosinergic) just because someone found them to have receptor or enzyme affinity in vitro.
Please let's keep navboxes simple, and discuss the subtleties in articles and lists, with references.
Hi guys. Personally I think there are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches, when there are a very large number of research ligands for a particular target it can be very useful to have them all laid out in a big navbox split by subtype selectivity etc. But then when you want to compare one prescription medicine to another one, you only really need the few drugs marketed for that condition listed, not every known research ligand for that target. I don't see the harm in having multiple navboxes at the bottom of an article, so long as they are all collapsed neatly, and the information and organisation they provide is complementary, not just repetitive. At the same time though, there is definitely a strong argument to keep the smaller navboxes tidy and only have key drugs and topics listed, and if you want to add lots of obscure research ligands to a big chart then have a different navbox for that, which might appear at the bottom of the page for research ligands but maybe not on all widely used drugs. Meodipt (talk) 22:00, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As far as the {{Hormonal contraceptives}} template, thank you for creating it. I haven't analyzed it in detail, but it seems to give more focused coverage for that use. However I am not sure how viable the approach is. For instance, many of these drugs are used for other things (treating menstrual symptoms, hormone replacement therapy, etc.) If we start having templates for each specific use there is going to be a lot of overlap. (And a lot of template buildup on some articles.)
There is also the problem of point of view - contraception can be rather politically charged, etc. Some groups frown on them, even though they may have other uses. Consider if we have a template of abortifacients. That may tend to bias the view of the reader towards those chemicals, even if in a given application they are not being used as abortifacients.
:The system that had been worked out for the medicine navboxes seemed to work fairly well.
This template for instance does not cover all the hormonal contraceptives, but it covers a fair number of them.
It also is applicable to drugs for other conditions as well. There didn't seem to be a lot of overlap and duplication in these navboxes, and I had not noted them building up to where there were an overwhelming number of them on a page.
I think the medicine-related navigation templates (those that contain marketed/late-stage clinical candidates) are most useful for the Wikipedia community. They list topics that are more sought after, in general, than the topics listed on the more extensive mechanism of action templates. I haven't had a chance to read everything relating to this discussion, so I'm not sure if this has been suggested already or not, but what about including both templates since they serve two different purposes. The larger mechanism of action templates can be set by default to be collapsed so that they don't interfere with the readability of the article, or distract from the generally more relevant medicine templates, but they can be expanded and used by those that are interested. -- Ed (Edgar181) 12:12, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I'm trying to sum up the results of the above discussion. Please contradict me if I got anything wrong.
el3ctr0nika, unless you or someone else have complaints about this summary, would you be so kind and reinstate the ATC-based boxes? These are {{Calcium channel blockers}}, {{Androgens}} and {{Sex hormones}}, and any others you might know of. I'd ask you to add them on top of the mechanism boxes, because (as has been pointed out somewhere above) they are probably the most useful for most people and certainly the easiest to navigate. Hope everyone is happy with my conclusions. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 13:49, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]