Talk:Polyunsaturated fatty acid

Last edited at 02:12, 29 April 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 03:12, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Here is the edit. 1) The ref being used by the IP was extremely low quality (a conference poster gussied up look like an actual article at first glance - see here but look at the citation in the diff; 2) the content being added was a) added only to the lead and not in the body; b) was blatant

• Venturi, Sebastiano (2014). "Iodine, PUFAs and Iodolipids in Health and Disease: An Evolutionary Perspective". Human Evolution-. 29 (1-3): 185–205.
  ISSN 0393-9375
  .

This appears to be fraudulent, as the journal shown the ISSN ceased publishing in 2006 with volume 21 -- see here. But worldcat provides a citation here as

Title: Iodine, PUFAs and Iodolipids in Health and Diseases: An Evolutionary Perspective

Author: S Venturi; M Venturi

Edition/Format: Article Article : English

Publication: HUMAN EVOLUTION, 29, no. 1/3, (2014): 185-205

Database: British Library Serials

weird. in any case the content was directly copied from the conference poster. Jytdog (talk) 21:00, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Zefr didn't articulate any of that for the simple reason that he didn't even for a moment suspect that it was a copyvio, but repeatedly (as in violating
  WP:3RR) reverted the IP for no obviously valid reason. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 21:32, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply
  ]

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281115776_Human_Evolution_Past_Present_Future_Anthropological_Medical_Nutritional_Considerations_Congress_in_London_8-10th_May_2013

Conference proceedings are not sufficiently peer-reviewed, so are not usable as reliable sources for an encyclopedia per

WP:COI; see under Common mistakes, scientists in academia. --Zefr (talk) 16:30, 16 December 2016 (UTC)[reply

]

The polyunsaturated fat content of sunflower seeds given in the table is inconsistent with that appearing in the table of the WP article sunflower seed, especially considering that the latter applies to dried seeds. The table in this article should specify whether each seed or nut entry applies to the dried product. Layzeeboi (talk) 19:04, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We don't really need two articles on this, but this is the common (if technically less compete) name. In terms of material, this article has better coverage of the food nutrition aspects, while the other one does a better job with the biochemistry. There's good parts of both, which is why it should be handled as a merge. oknazevad (talk) 01:47, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The distinction between a

Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid into Fatty Acid. In fact both of these article titles already have redirects to those pages... Synpath (talk) 00:48, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Having polyunsaturated fatty acid to the main fatty acid article could be a logical outcome as well. The merging of the polyunsaturated fat article to fat is too high of a merge. In fact, it was just undone as the merge left no details at the main fat article which are of interest and independently notable. oknazevad (talk) 02:34, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oh you're right, I didn't see how the rest of the Fat related articles were organized. Looking at the monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat articles there might be an argument to merge them with unsaturated fat. None of the three are very long, each lists several of the same compounds and have seemingly duplicate tables of information. To be honest it looks like all of these articles need work, at least to smooth out use of terminology and adding more relevant chemical images. Synpath (talk) 20:36, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Just as long as saturated fat and unsaturated fat keep their independent articles, as there's more than enough for them to have separate articles, and the previous merger of them into the main fat article (which was done despite there being clear consensus against such a merger) resulted in the topics getting a shallow, insufficient treatment. oknazevad (talk) 00:39, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Amakuru: Not sure why anyone would move polyunsaturated fatty acids to polyunsaturated fats? Does not make sense. These are distinct materials.--Smokefoot (talk) 20:58, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Smokefoot: see the thread above. The two articles were previously separated, but then were merged. However, as noted at the top of that thread, the term polyunsaturated fat is clearly the common (if technically less compete) name. If, as you say, the materials are distinct, then the merge should perhaps be reverted. But either way, the bulk of the content which has resided at the title of polyunsaturated fat for the entire lifetime of Wikipedia, should remain at this title. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 21:01, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you're going to quote me then you should also note that I agreed with the comment that "polyunsaturated fatty acid" is also a possible valid title for this article. It may be that a further split is needed. But the idea of merging all unsaturated and saturated fat articles into the top fat article is why they were split in the first place. Also, the person who actually performed the merge of the formerly separate articles chose the "fatty acid" version for a reason (I discussed it at their talk page).

In short, I think it was unwise to perform the move(s) without discussion. oknazevad (talk) 21:18, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop any and all moves and reversions immediately. You've made a total hash of the articles and now I have to clean up your mess. Stop. oknazevad (talk) 21:20, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Oknazevad: no, you stop. The pages were merged despite the objections of several editors, and as you can see Smokefoot has also objected, saying that the fatty acids and the fats are separate concepts. The previous status quo should remain unless there's consensus to change it.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:22, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

All past discussions were incomplete and piecemeal. I'm objecting to any moves, reversions, or de-mergers without thorough discussion. One talk page comment is not a reason to revert a previously discussed merger without a full discussion. You clearly don't have the technical knowledge about the subject to be making these moves. Leave things as they were while discussion is ongoing, and notify the appropriate projects in hope we can get some editors with necessary subject matter knowledge to chime in. oknazevad (talk) 21:27, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also I would like to note that the merge was actually carried out by Crashed greek, so they should chime in. oknazevad (talk) 21:31, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Stop insulting me, please. There is no primacy of "experts" here, consensus is established through discussion and I have simply restored the status quo to how it existed without issue for 20 years before the recent changes were made. As indeed was requested by Smokefoot above. That doesn't require technical knowledge. But it seems like even the principle of a merge is not established yet.

WP:COMMONNAME between the two, and should be the title of the merged page. As indeed you yourself also said in the opening comment above. But first the principle of a merge needs to be established anyway.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:34, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

Look, I have no objection if the correct course of coverage is to have separate articles for mono and polyunsaturated fatty acids, and one on monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, or if the just the general

monounsaturated fatty acid

makes little sense. Which is why the monounsaturated fat article was moved for consistency with this article, which was at polyunsaturated fatty acid following the merge.)

The point being that when dealing with a technical or scientific subject, factual correctness is too important to act impulsively, and full discussion is the best course. Anything that has been in place for over six months isn't just a straight reversion at that point. We shouldn't just revert without taking our time to get it right. oknazevad (talk) 22:10, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if there was an obvious consensus to merge, or indeed if subsequent editing had established it as a fait accompli, then that would be a valid argument. But in fact, it's fairly clear that the discussion had not reached a consensus, the merge was made without that consensus being established and there have been almost no subsequent edits since then, meaning the community has not endorsed this and the "new" status quo can't override years and years of stable content. If there really is a consensus to merge, then so be it, that will become evident here but I'm really not seeing that at the moment, and the comments of Synpath and Smokefoot rather suggest the opposite. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 23:32, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that consensus was unclear. That's why I didn't carry out the merger myself despite proposing it, as the discussion had only two commentators including me. Heck, the whole reason I restored the separate articles in the first place is because it was pretty clear that the previous merger of all the articles into fat not only had no consensus, but the discussion was against such a merger. I do think a more through discussion about scoping of articles is likely needed. oknazevad (talk) 00:05, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• I think part of the problem here is that often when quantifying the composition of fats (from what I can tell) you break them down into their fatty acids. That makes it a lot easier since you no longer have to separate structural isomers and removes other ambiguity (Is triolein a polyunsaturated fat?). Of course, that means that studies relying on those compositional analyses make conclusions about fatty acid content rather than the fats they originate from even though something like >90 % of fatty acids are from glyceride esters (Britannica). That's also probably very fair since turning fats into fatty acids is part of digestion. Then somewhere down the line of science communication the distinction between fatty acid and fat is lost. Britannica loses the distinction in its unsaturated fat entry [1] and you can see the same in the UK with NHS messaging [2].

As for how it impacts article content, I'm not sure, because you have reliable sources mixing the definition of fat and fatty acid. At the very least, I'm less opposed to the merge now, since I don't think we need to have stand-alone articles for "Triglycerides/esters containing polyunsaturated fatty acids" and "polyunsaturated fatty acids". Especially since

Polyunsaturated fatty acid is essentially just a list of PUFAs anyways. All that needs to to be done is to define fat, fatty acid and their relationship if merging. At the same time I find it inappropriate for Fatty acid article sections to link to a more general topic as the "Main article", e.g. Fatty acid#Unsaturated fatty acids links to Unsaturated fat. Probably the only real solution to this is rewriting articles covered in {{Fats}} so that they have consistent identities. ― Synpath 00:30, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

The article has stayed merged for months means there is consensus for the merge. Please arrive at the consensus if you want it unmerged. All food labels in all products sold mention polyunsaturated fat and PUFA interchangeably. Crashed greek (talk) 05:44, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Polyunsaturated fat can instead be redirected to unsaturated fat if all agree. Crashed greek (talk) 05:50, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also same case with Monounsaturated fat, where single article stays. Crashed greek (talk) 05:53, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• @Smokefoot: just FYI, I undid the merge as you had requested, but that has noww been reverted, so the two articles are merged again. As you can see, there is discussion above and - given that Synpath is now on board with the merge - perhaps a consensus that they should remain merged.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:46, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Amakuru:@Synpath:: My real world is intervening for a while so I need to step back. Just be aware that fats and fatty acids are distinct classes of chemical compounds. Fats are esters, fatty acids are carboxylic acids. If in doubt, ask around at the Chem Project where several editors understand the chemistry. Please dont guess at the chemistry. I'll be back, hopefully, Cheers, --Smokefoot (talk) 13:40, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • @
    Polyunsaturated fatty acid article. Crashed greek (talk) 06:14, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply
    ]

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Polyunsaturated fatty acid which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 08:47, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]