Talk:Digitalis obscura

Some concerns

I've just copyedited this article, and while it largely does a good job of synthesizing the references in the author's own words, there were a few cases where the article used the exact same wording as one of the references. I think I've cleaned it out, but this is copyright violation. I know it can be tricky—and the author was clearly trying to avoid it, or it would have occurred more extensively—but it's really important that Wikipedia articles not include any copy-and-pasted text that's not quoted and attributed, even if it's only a striking phrase or a sentence.

However, the big issue is the medical material. Medical information comes under stricter scrutiny in Wikipedia as to accuracy and sources: see Wikipedia:MEDRS. It's easy and dangerous to propagate misinformation—for instance, I removed the statement about comfrey being "completely harmless," as pyrrolizidine alkaloids may make it hepatotoxic! Furthermore, the use and misuse of foxglove is largely covered already by the articles on Digitalis and digoxin toxicity. It would probably be better to briefly summarize those two articles, provide links there and a source or two which makes it clear that D. obscura has the same medicinal effects as other Digitalis species.

In my opinion, at least, that level of scrutiny shouldn't apply to the ethnoveterinary information; ethnomedical information discusses what people have traditionally believed about the medicinal effects of a plant, whereas WP:MEDRS applies to statements about what is currently believed to be true, based on scientific testing, about the plant's effects.

If someone's interested in adding additional material, this journal article [1] looks like it might have some useful discussion of genetic variation within the species, and maybe some background on its cultivation to extract cardiac glycosides. Choess (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Another issue is the referencing. When a single reference is placed at the end of a paragraph, the implication is that the whole paragraph is based on that source, but this doesn't always seem to be the case (e.g. ref [1] doesn't support the whole of the Description and habitat section). The article is basically sound, but needs more work; definitely not B class at present in my view. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:30, 23 April 2012 (UTC)