Source: various pages from the website of the "Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation" (BHRF, also known by its URL cyclehelmets.org).

Article: Bicycle helmets in Australia (and by extension to Bicycle helmet, but discussion below relates specifically to Bicycle helmets in Australia)

Content: Material form this organisation's web site is referenced some 13 times (as at 16 March 2013). All these references have been edited (by me) to clearly identify the source, and thus a search the article or article source for "Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation" will show the references.

The question I am seeking opinions on is whether the pages on this organisation's web site can be considered a reliable and appropriate source for the article in question?

The organisation appears to be a company registered in Anglesey, Wales, UK, to a Dr Richard Keatinge, who is the sole director listed.

The BHRF policy statement says "cyclehelmets.org is administered by the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation (BHRF), an incorporated body with an international membership, to undertake, encourage, and spread the scientific study of the use of bicycle helmets.The purpose of cyclehelmets.org is to provide a resource of best-available factual information to assist the understanding of a complex subject, and one where some of the reasoning may conflict with received opinion. In particular we seek to provide access to a wider range of information than is commonly made available by some governments and other bodies that take a strong helmet promotion stance. It is hoped that this will assist informed judgements about the pros and cons of cycle helmets."

The BHRF site claims that its material is peer-reviewed but no details are given on the process. The organisation does list its patrons and Editorial Board. Of concern is that three of the members of the Editorial Board, which it says is responsible for the content of the web site, themselves operate or are associated with organisations and/or web sites which appear to be actively lobbying against mandatory cycle helmet laws, or promote such lobbying. This is potentially problematic because a great deal of the contention in the Bicycle helmets in Australia article is about mandatory helmets laws.

• Guy Chapman appears to operate this web site: http://www.nohelmetlaw.org.uk/about-nohelmetlaw
• Bill Curnow appears to be President of the lobby organisation Cyclists Rights Action Group (CRAG).
• Chris Gillham appears to operate the web site Mandatory bicycle helmet law in Western Australia

In addition, I have been unable to find any statements, comments or publications attributable to any of the other members of the BHRF Editorial Board which are not critical of bicycle helmet laws (and in some cases, of bicycle helmets themselves). If the BHRF promoted a balanced view of bicycle helmets and helmet laws, I would have expected at least some members of its Editorial Board to have publicly voiced opinions favourable to bicycle helmets or bicycle helmet promotion campaigns and laws. Of course, my search was necessarily not exhaustive, and I may have overlooked such material somewhere on the Internet.

Opinions of the suitability of the BHRF web site as a source of authority for material in the article Bicycle helmets in Australia would be appreciated. Tim C (talk) 02:09, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Just to make it clear, complete removal of the references to the BHRF web site is not proposed, although some pruning of some of those references (and the assertions in the article that they are used to support) may be reasonable, given the heavy reliance on that web site (13 references to it in the article at last count). However, flagging of the references to the BHRF website as a potentially unreliable source may be justified and in accord with WP policies. Tim C (talk) 20:14, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

The front page of the website alone makes it pretty clear that this is an advocacy website: all the stories are about how bike helmets are a bad thing. As such, this doesn't seem to be a reliable source given that it's only presenting one side of the debate (a genuinely disinterested academic or research-type organisation wouldn't structure their website in such a way). Nick-D (talk) 23:06, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Nick-D. The other thing worth pointing out is that the vast majority of the pages on the BHRF site seem to be anonymously authored - I can't find any attribution to any named individuals except for a few pages (out of many on the site) attributed to Dorothy Robinson. Their Editorial Board page states that "The Editorial Board is responsible for the content of cyclehelmets.org" but that's not the same as putting by-lines on pages. I have never seen a peer-reviewed publication (as they claim to be) that doesn't attribute articles to the individuals who authored them. Tim C (talk) 00:21, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

The peer review process involves circulation to and comments from the editorial board (which as you'll see from my talk page includes me), with vigorous discussion as required. It's probably a rather more searching process than the usual approach.

Anonymity has nothing to do with peer review status anyway, but career/economic threat is the reason for the anonymity. We generally don't attribute articles if the author(s) don't want it done, and some of us have professional reasons for that. It's not personally relevant to me any more, because I plan to remain where I am until I retire and could do so tomorrow. I have had "helpful" remarks in the past from people in a position to influence my career, to the effect that in my own interests I'd be wise to drop the whole subject. Nobody was actually making me an offer I couldn't refuse, but there was a distinct hint of consequences I wouldn't like. Others in other professional fields have had more direct remarks and have more and ongoing reason to worry.

One sided? If we reject any sources emphasizing one side of an argument we'll be very short of any sources at all. The arguments over cycle helmets are longstanding and the tone is often sour. You may note that almost all cyclehelmets.org pages are rather well-referenced and their tone is mild. There is a widespread assumption that cycling is dangerous, helmets must be useful - my own long-ago helmet purchase followed from that attitude and the site is certainly designed to challenge it. But unreliable? I at least don't think so.

Richard Keatinge (talk) 19:03, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

It is possible that the content can be included as verified opinion if properly attributed, but the question is, if it were to be used in that manner, is whether the originator of the opinion notable enough to have weight that their opinion would contribute to the balance/neutrality of the article, and thus improve its quality?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:23, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

A good question. Modesty forbids me to give a direct answer, but from alexa.com I find: Site Information for cyclehelmets.org ... Alexa Traffic Rank: 1,774,468 No regional data link-icon Sites Linking In: 404 ... cyclehelmets.org cyclehelmets.org is not in the top 100,000 sites Rank:1,774,468 Category: Sports > Cycling Keywords: cycle helmets, bicycle helmet, bike helmet 2 years, ski helmet, bike helmet

For a site entirely about a subject quite peripheral to the concerns of most people that seems a fairly high ranking. Opinions? Richard Keatinge (talk) 08:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

That's the nub of the problem: the BHRF site is about a single subject. The Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation would have a lot more credibility if it were an organisation concerned with all aspects of cycling safety, or an organisation interested in the biomechanical and engineering aspects of all types of helmets. But it is only about bicycle helmets, and furthermore, it seems to be exclusively concerned with what it holds to be the negative aspects of bicycle helmets. Yes, the site does have a page titled "Published evidence supportive of helmet effectiveness or promotion", but nearly every study listed on that page links to a sub-page on cyclehelmets.org which presents a critique of the study which concludes that the study is invalid or fatally flawed. All studies have flaws, but the critiques appear to be relentlessly negative. There's also a page titled "Published evidence sceptical of helmet effectiveness or promotion", but the links on that page don't lead to critiques of these papers, they mostly point to full-text copies of these papers or to their PubMed records.

Of even greater concern is that some of the critiques on the BHRF cyclehelmets.org site appear to attack and impugn the professional integrity of researchers. For example, the site has this to say about one particular study: "Despite attempts to manipulate the results, one of the largest reviews of the evidence has not been able to find any reliable evidence that helmets have benefited cyclists". Further accusations of dishonest and unethical behaviour are made against the authors of that study on this page (see the section labelled "Ethics"). Those are not the sort of words one expects to find in a balanced, unbiased and professional publication. Tim C (talk) 09:44, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Anonymity of the articles on the BHRF site is one of the main problems I have with it being considered a reliable source. No other peer-reviewed publication that I am aware of permits anonymous articles. The issue is one of potential undue weight. Articles published in peer-reviewed journals by Bill Curnow and Dorothy Robinson, are already cited 4 and 22 times respectively in the WP article in question. Both Bill Curnow and Dorothy Robinson are listed as members of the BHRF editorial board. BHRF web pages are referenced 13 times in the article - 3 references to a BHRF page attributed to Dorothy Robinson, and 10 references to anonymously-authored BHRF pages. It is important for WP readers to be able to know who is responsible for those anonymous web pages, which are used as authorities for statements in the article - particularly when three members of the BHRF editorial board, including Curnow, appear to be running lobby organisations and/or campaigns opposing mandatory bicycle helmet laws, as noted above. Tim C (talk) 20:43, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

With respect to Richard and his colleagues, I don't think that an "editorial board" for a website which clearly exists to promote one point of view meets Wikipedia's standards for establishing this website as a reliable source. Nick-D (talk) 07:54, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

It exists to promote a scientific point of view. On the whole, I think it does that quite well. As has been pointed out, we also link to papers that present other points of view, so as to avoid any hint that we're misrepresenting them. Richard Keatinge (talk) 17:08, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Here is another example of the problems posed by the anonymous and undated (and unversioned) nature of most of the articles/pages on the BHRF web site: two graphs of Australian Census data were added some time ago to the Bicycle usage section of the article by a pseudonymous WP editor who has contributed a great deal of material and made many edits to the article. Although the graphs are based on Australian Bureau of Statistics Census data, they combine and present that data in a particular manner and are thus a synthesis, or possibly original research, and as such they are required to be referenced to an external source. The source files for these graphs are in WikiMedia Commons and are listed there as that pseudonymous editor's own work. I added citation needed tags to these graphs, and the editor was asked via the Talk page for the article to supply suitable external references for the graphs. This was done: the references given are to an anonymous and undated BHRF web page, where copies of these graphs now appear. Thus it would appear that there is some connection between the pseudonymous user in question and the BHRF organisation. This is potentially problematic given that most of the BHRF web pages are anonymously authored, including the one given as the external reference for these two graphs. Tim C (talk) 07:21, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Readers of Talk:Bicycle helmets in Australia will know that I personally used the census data (available on the BHRF website) on numbers cycling to work, and total numbers of people who travelled to work on census day by state, to calculate the percentage of single-mode journeys by bike for a) individual states, b) capital cities and regional areas according to whether there was an enforced helmet law at the time of the census. There was a consensus on the talk page that the current version of the page had developed problems, and that we should revert to a previous version, but include the graph of cycling to work in individual states. This was put into effect. At the time, there was no suggestion that drawing a graph of previously-published data was against Wiki rules.

Later, Tim objected to these graphs because I put vertical lines to indicate the separation between data points with and without enforced laws. To avoid any interpretation of the vertical lines as dates of legislation, I therefore replaced the vertical lines with dotted lines. Tim then objected because he considered drawing graphs from published data was 'original research', so I asked the BHRF to include them on their page of census data. The data cover censuses in 1976, 81, 86, 91, 96, 01, 06, and 11 in 8 different states & territories - Vic, NSW, Tas, SA, WA, ACT, Qld and the NT - so 64 individual documents or downloads were needed to compile the data. I downloaded them all and found only one discrepancy compared to the previously-published data on the BHRF website. I contacted the ABS and they confirmed it was their mistake - the scan for one state included a page on cycling to work for another state. The document on the ABS website has now been corrected.

Even peer-reviewed literature contains inaccuracies and silly mistakes. For example, one of the early papers Cameron, MH; Vulcan AP; Finch CF; Newstead SV (June 1994). "Mandatory bicycle helmet use following a decade of helmet promotion in Victoria, Australia--an evaluation.". Accident Analysis & Prevention 6 (3): 325–337. reports that Melbourne, with a population of 3 million, averaged about 60 million hours of cycling per week (see Fig 7) - an average of 20 hours per week for every many, woman and child in the city! As far as I can determine, the journal has never published a correction to this clearly ludicrous information. If Tim have ever seen equally incorrect information on the BHRF website, I expect he would have complained about it immediately.

Tim also objects to citing Sue Abbott's blog about her, and her family's, experiences, fighting helmet laws, as a result of which she had her driving licence cancelled, and her property confiscated. Despite being self-reported, there is no doubt about the accuracy - Sue has appeared on TV, and provided photos of her cancelled driving licence etc. Do Wiki editors believe that verifiable information "from the horse's mouth" is any less accurate than a newspaper report of the same event? Newspapers usually do nor more than interview the person in question, so are more likely to contain inaccuracies than first hand reports of the incident.

There is an interesting web page http://www.cbdbug.org.au/2011/06/helmet-research-paper-released/ that provides documents obtained under right to information legislation illustrating the process of government oversight into the commissioning of bicycle helmet research in Australia. Some questions remain about earlier research. For example, a study of the first 3 years of legislation in Victoria found that head injury rates were no different to pre-law trends. The following year, the researchers used a new model to show a decline in the number of head injuries, while admitting that this models cannot distinguish between reductions in head injury because of reduced cycling and reductions because of increased helmet wearing. Research reports provide details of numbers of both adult and child cyclists in 1990, 1991 and 1992 at the same 64 sites and observation periods used to estimate the change in children's cycle use. Indeed, for children, the changes in cycle use are pretty similar to the changes in numbers counted. Yet, instead of using the numbers of adults counted (or estimating cycle use from the highly correlated measure of numbers counted) the published paper by Cameron et al. (1994) claimed that "adults were not included in the 1990 surveys". This sort of inaccuracy can escape peer review - the original research reports were not readily available at the time - so the reviewers would have no reason to know that adults had, indeed, been counted in the 1990 surveys.

Tim is clearly in favour of helmet laws. He was co-author of a paper (partially funded by Government agencies including the Roads and Traffic Authority and the Motor Accidents Authority) that found a small reduction in the ratio of head to arm injuries, while noting that "the contribution of factors such as risk compensation and safety in numbers has not been incorporated in this study." Despite the lack of information on whether risk compensation or reduced safety in numbers increased injury rates per cycle-km, or any economic comparison of head injury losses (that might be prevented by helmets)compared with the lost health and environmental benefits of cycling, the paper nonetheless concluded '...repealing the law cannot be justified." Personally, I'm at a loss to understand some of his edits, for example he "Corrected reference to Hoye and Elvik (not Erke and Elvik as stated)" I clicked on the link to the reference, a pdf file which lists the authors as Alena Erke and Rune Elvik on the front page.

The above details have been provided as background to the debate about whether the BHRF is a reliable source for the Bicycle Helmets in Australia page.

Bicycle Helmets in Australia currently has 126 references, of which 6 cite BHRF pages.

Reference 30 is that "while in the NT since March 1994 there is an exemption for adults cycling along footpaths or on cycle path."

Reference 41 is an article by D L Robinson, author of several peer-reviewed journal articles on bicycle helmet laws.

References 42 and 44 are cited using the text: "Several précis of and commentaries on these surveys have appeared on websites and blogs.4243444546"

Reference 81 is the article on census data with tables and graphs of Australian Bureau of Stats data.

Reference 101 is cited as evidence that "Nonetheless, this is still low by international standards at 0.4 trips per bike per day in July and 0.8 trips per bike per day in January,102" The BHRF webpage provides a convenient summary of information on usage rates.

I would suggest that the BHRF it is probably one of the most reliable authoritive sources for the information cited above. Their editorial board contains many prominent cyclists, e.g. John Franklin, author of 'Cyclecraft' - http://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Cyclecraft and many others with links to cyclists organisations such as the CTC and the ECF. The BHRF provides links to original papers and sources, where available on the web, so in order to maintain its reputation, has to be very careful about ensuring the information provides is as accurate as possible.

A NPOV cannot be achieved without presenting both sides of the argument. Deleting references to BHRF pages, would result in Bicycle Helmets in Australia being dominated by research funded and sponsored by Australian government agencies. The 6 citations to BHRF pages improve this article. I cannot see why anyone would want to argue against the use of graphs produced from data that can be downloaded and verified from the ABS website. Their removal would represent a considerable loss, given that census data on cycling to work is one of the most longest reliable and consistent data series that covers a 35 year period that can illustrate long-term trends before and after helmet laws were introduced. Dorre (talk) 03:14, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Here is another example of the selectivity of the information offered on the BHRF cyclehelmets.org site: there is a link titled "Cutting through the controversy about helmet effectiveness" at the very top of the cyclehelmets.org home page, leading to this page: http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1249.html which is about the de Jong cost-benefit model of hypothetical all-age mandatory helmet laws. The reference for this study is: de Jong, Piet (May 2012). "The Health Impact of Mandatory Bicycle Helmet Laws". Risk Analysis 32 (5): pp782–790. Fine, but there is no mention whatsoever of the response to the de Jong model by Newbold, which was published on the very next page of the same issue of the same journal (Newbold, Stephen C. (May 2012). "Examining the Health-Risk Tradeoffs of Mandatory Bicycle Helmet Laws". Risk Analysis 32 (5): pp791–798.). Newbold critically examined the de Jong model, and far from dismissing it, he suggested various improvements to it and identified parameters in it which require further research in order to quantify accurately (such as exercise type substitution behaviour). Newbold used published US data in his refined version of the de Jong model and found that mandatory bicycle helmet laws would seem to have positive net public health benefits in the US, although he warned that results from both his model and that of de Jong needed to be treated as very provisional due to uncertainty around values of key parameters to them. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any reference to Newbold's paper at all on the BHRF cyclehelmets.org web site. It is this sort of selectivity in the evidence presented that calls the reliability of the BHRF as a source for WP articles into question. Tim C (talk) 01:33, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Tim Churches has previously pointed out that the studies that appear on the BHRF web site as supportive of helmet effectiveness or promotion are accompanied by critiques claiming that the study is invalid or fatally flawed, but that the studies listed as being sceptical of helmet effectiveness of promotion are not accompanied by negative critiques. I too had noticed this lack of balance when I first stumbled on the site a couple of years ago, and have consequently not spent a lot of time on the site, but have encountered much evidence of inaccuracy or unreliability in the information presented.

The 'Published evidence sceptical of helmet effectiveness or promotion' page (http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1146.html), contains 2 articles that most certainly do NOT 'cast doubt on the effectiveness of cycle helmets in reducing head injuries (at least serious head injuries), or on the wisdom of helmet promotion or laws', and one article (critical of the helmet law) that was retracted more than a year ago.

With respect to an article by Elvik (Accident Analysis & Prevention, 2011;43(3):1245-1251. 2011), the page states that 'Attewell et al influenced by publication and time-trend biases. When controlled for, the protective effects of helmets are smaller. Adding new studies, no overall benefit of helmets found.' Elvik noted that 'the re-analysis shows smaller safety benefits associated with the use of bicycle helmets than the original study', and reported the following odds ratios for fatal, brain and head injuries - fatal injury 0.27 in Attewell's original study, 0.23 in Elvik's re-analysis - brain injury 0.42 in the original study, 0.47 in the re-analysis - head injury 0.40 in the original study, 0.58 in the re-analysis Re head injuries, Elvik wrote: 'Do bicycle helmets reduce the risk of injury to the head, face or neck? With respect to head injury, the answer is clearly yes, and the re-analysis of the meta-analysis reported by Attewell et al.(2001) in this paper has not changed this answer.'

As already noted by Tim Churches, an article by Voukelatos and Rissel (Australasian College of Road Safety, ACRS 2010;21(3):50-55. 2010.) that was retracted in early 2011 is still listed on the page. The page described the study that was retracted 2 years ago as showing that 'Helmets were not the main reason for the drop in head injuries in Australia since helmet laws were introduced. General improvement in road safety from random breath testing and other measures were probably the cause.'. Many studies published after the retraction have been added to the page (7 in 2012 alone), yet this study has still not been removed from the page.

In describing an AIHW article (Serious injury due to land transport accidents, Australia, 2003-04), the page states that 'Wearing a helmet seems to have no discernible impact on the risk of head injury'. The AIHW report does not even mention bicycle helmets.

I have scanned only a few other pages on the BHRF site, and would not consider any of them to be reliable . . .

'Changes in cycle use in Australia' (http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1194.html) cites an SA study as showing a reduction in cycling to school, notes that the study 'likely' under-estimated that actual decline, and fails to note that the decline in cycling to school in the SA study was very similar to the declines in cycling to school in NSW and Victoria. The article also fails to note that the SA study found that there was no (statistically significant) evidence of a reduction in adult cycling, that prior to the helmet law cycling to school comprised about 20% of cycling in that age group, and that after the helmet law there was an increase in cycling to/around other venues of similar magnitude to the drop in cycling to school.

'Helmet laws: Northern Territory' (http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1114.html) claims that 'Helmet use is now low in the NT . . . Estimates in 2004 suggested that 15% - 20% of cyclists continue to wear helmets, mostly "serious" cyclists'. I live in Darwin and have been cycling almost every day (commuter and utility) for about 10 years. The helmet wearing rate is much higher than the 15-20% alleged, probably at least 80%, ie. it the number of cyclists NOT wearing helmets would be at most 15%-20%.

'Head Injuries and Helmet Laws in Australia and New Zealand' (http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1241.html) contains numerous examples of 'overlooking' evidence that runs counter to the claim that the helmet law was/is a bad thing. With respect to the most obvious examples, the article

• Claims that the Melbourne surveys were done 'in similar weather'. The authors of the study in which the data was collected noted differences in weather conditions, and concluded that after taking those differences into account, there was no reduction in adult cycling as a result of the helmet law.
• Notes downward trends in injuries for all road users; that in Victoria, head injuries fell almost as much as non-head injuries; and suggests that the reductions were due to 'large reductions' in cycling. The article fails to note that the injury data in the Victorian study showed that pedestrian head injuries dropped by about 20%, cyclist non-head injuries dropped by about 25%, and serious and severe cyclist head/brain injuries dropped by 40%.
• Cites injury data from an SA study, yet fails to note that the SA study also found that there was no decrease in overall cycling as a result of the helmet law.
• Claims that there was 'no obvious effect' of the law in SA with respect to reduced cyclist head injuries, yet fails to note that the injury data in the study also showed that

• cyclist concussion admissions dropped by 54%, and that admissions for all other causes of concussion dropped by 27%
• preventable injuries other than concussion reduced by 41%

Linda.m.ward (talk) 06:39, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Both User:Richard Keatinge and User:Dorre have defended the reliability of the BHRF web site cyclehelmets.org above. User:Dorre stated:

I would suggest that the BHRF it is probably one of the most reliable authoritive sources for the information cited above. Their editorial board contains many prominent cyclists, e.g. John Franklin, author of 'Cyclecraft' - http://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Cyclecraft and many others with links to cyclists organisations such as the CTC and the ECF. The BHRF provides links to original papers and sources, where available on the web, so in order to maintain its reputation, has to be very careful about ensuring the information provides is as accurate as possible.

Now, the relationship of User:Richard Keatinge to the BHRF is transparent (he is the sole listed director of the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation company that publishes the cyclehelmets.org web site). Such transparency is to be applauded. User:Dorre noted (above) that "I Dorre asked the BHRF to include them graphs of Census data by Dorre on their page of census data". Without asking User:Dorre to in any way compromise his/her pseudonymity, would it be possible, in the interests of transparency, for User:Dorre to declare the nature of his/her association with the BHRF organisation? Such a declaration is required in order to weigh-up the opinions of WP editors given in response to this RfC. Tim C (talk) 01:52, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I am also a member of the BHRF editorial board. But this argument is obviously about the use of census data, which is freely available on the ABS website as 64 different files, but which were compiled and made available on the BHRF website for everyone to see and verify its accuracy. You complain about transparency, but what could be more transparent that making the data available for everyone to inspect? The ABS website is not all that easy to navigate, especially for the point of enumeration data, and for the historical data. Removing or discrediting a convenient source of data represent a substantial loss of information to the average person interested in this topic.

The Bicycle helmets in Australia has a total of 126 references. You argue that there are 13 references to the BHRF website, but omit to say that 8 of those references are to census data, that you know perfectly well are 100% accurate. Two others are listed as 'opinions and blogs', which presumably don't need any comments about reliability. The remaining 3 citations are 1) a reference to the date of the partial repeal of the helmet law in the NT, an article with a named author (that apparently you are not arguing against) and a comparison of the public bike schemes in the Melbourne and Dublin. Based on the above, you ask if the BHRF it is a suitable authority for the relevant assertions which cite it in this article. I would hope other readers are asking if this is this a joke.

The BHRF's policy statement is: "The purpose of cyclehelmets.org is to provide a resource of best-available factual information to assist the understanding of a complex subject, and one where some of the reasoning may conflict with received opinion. In particular we seek to provide access to a wider range of information than is commonly made available by some governments and other bodies that take a strong helmet promotion stance. It is hoped that this will assist informed judgements about the pros and cons of cycle helmets." For a group of unfunded volunteers, most of whom have full-time jobs, it does pretty well, though you can't expect it to match the effort of a group like yours, which is funded by the Roads and Traffic Authority and the Motor Accidents Authority.

Let me repeat again, the graphs of the census data are pretty simple and transparent. What could be simpler than aggregating the data by capital cities and other areas according to whether the police were handing out tickets for not wearing a helmet? This treatment is so simple and so basic and so transparent that anyone who argues against it would appear to have an ulterior motive like wanting to suppress information that doesn't fit a pet theory. But it will be up to other Wiki editors to form their own opinions. Dorre (talk) 04:55, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I will ignore the speculation about ulterior motives. The problem with the Census data is that the following BHRF cyclehelmets.org web page titled "Changes in cycle use in Australia" is cited 8 times in the WP article in support of various statements (and graphs) about the Census data: http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1194.html So let's examine that anonymous, undated web page. Here is what it says at the very top of the page, in the introduction:

The enactment of helmet laws in Australia in the early 1990s had a major impact on cycle use. Whereas cycle use prior to the laws had been generally increasing, as soon as laws were passed and enforced cycle use fell sharply. There were early signs that helmet compulsion might cause some people to give up cycling, such as when many students at schools in Victoria chose to give up cycling when they were required to wear helmets pre-law (AHoR, 1985b). It would therefore have been sensible for governments to ensure that the effect of compulsory wearing on numbers of cyclists was monitored accurately. This was not done, but some measurements of numbers were made, most being incidental to surveys of helmet wearing.

In other words, a priori the author of the web page is presenting their conclusion that helmets laws had a major impact on cycling, before any data has even been presented. The page is supposed to be about changes in cycling levels in Australia, but the very first thing mentioned in the author's view of what is responsible for any downward changes, before the changes are even described. Such a web page cannot be regarded as an impartial or reliable source of information. Later in the page, the NSW helmet surveys are discussed, and results from the surveys for child cyclists are given. But there is no mention of the fact that the surveys also counted adult cyclists, and there is no presentation of the numbers for adults, which actually went up after the laws came into force. Not to mention these facts is an indication of the selectivity of the information presented on the BHRF web site. Of course, the BHRF is free to publish whatever it likes on its own web site, and it can be as selective as it wishes. The question here is whether such a web site can be regarded as a reliable source for the purpose of WP articles about bicycle helmets. Tim C (talk) 07:32, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Um, not a terribly strong argument, unless you expect every reliable author to leave comments out of the headline. A conclusion in the summary is often quite a good way to write an article and certainly doesn't indicate that the author made up their mind before examining the facts. Reliability is not limited to opinions which either of us happen to agree with or like and this page is not for discussion of such issues. The fact remains that cyclehelmets.org is peer-reviewed and reliable for our purposes. How and how far we use it is a matter to be decided based on any contribution it may make to a high quality encyclopedic article. Richard Keatinge (talk) 16:25, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Richard, your fellow BHRF/cyclehelmets.org Editorial Board member User:Dorre states (above) that "...this argument is obviously about the use of census data, which is freely available on the ABS website as 64 different files, but which were compiled and made available on the BHRF website for everyone to see and verify its accuracy. You complain about transparency, but what could be more transparent that making the data available for everyone to inspect?" My argument is that the BHRF/cyclehelmets.org compilation of the data comes with what I regard as distinctly biased commentary, as noted above. If it were just the collated ABS data, then I might be OK with it, but it is selected ABS data embedded in a mass of biased commentary, which starts, a priori, with the assertion that helmets had a major impact on cycling. Now the BHRF is at complete liberty to present such views on pages of their web site, but presentation of those views also rule out those pages as reliable sources for WP. Tim C (talk) 21:41, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Now let me see, a peer-reviewed MUARC paper reported that: "bicycle use among teenagers had decreased by 43% by 1991 and by 46% by 1992, relative to (the pre-law count in) 1990". Which is more biased, the BHRF for describing this as a "major impact on cycle use", or the person who singles this out as a biased commentary?

The BHRF commentary that it would "have been sensible for governments to ensure that the effect of compulsory wearing on numbers of cyclists was monitored accurately" is also singled out above by Tim a biased statement. Yet consider the consequences of not counting adult cyclists in NSW at the same time of year. Tim goes on to say above: "Later in the page, the NSW helmet surveys are discussed, and results from the surveys for child cyclists are given. But there is no mention of the fact that the surveys also counted adult cyclists, and there is no presentation of the numbers for adults, which actually went up after the laws came into force." Suppose the pre-law survey had been from midnight to 1 am and the post-law survey from 8 to 9 am. If the post-law survey, in peak hours, had counted more cyclists, would Tim still argue that cycling had increased? One of the most fundamental principles of designing good surveys of cycling to make sure they are conducted at the sites, observation times and time of year. Yet according to Tim, the BHRF is "biased" because 1) it points out the problems of not monitoring cycle use accurately and 2) does not try and make invalid comparisons from surveys at different times of year.

I can't help feeling that Tim's complaint about bias reveals more about the bias of the complainant than the BHRF web page that reports the census data. Dorre (talk) 09:29, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

This site is used for a number of claims in the article. In general, it is not reliable for the topics that this article covers. For any medical claims and claims about cycle helmet safety, WP:MEDRS applies. For statements about prevalence of cycling, this is a poor or insufficient source (and that topic should be covered in Cycling in Australia, not this article). It is probably reliable for statements about the organisations involved in the debate. Bias is not the issue. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:20, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I've been watching this debate for a while but holding off commenting till the to and fro-ing died down.I agree with Itsmejudith above Medical Claims should be peer reviewed in medical journals, materials engineering/failure analysis claims should be peer reviewed in appropriate engineering journals. Peer review should be more than having an editorial board check over your work, but should be an opening up of the work to complete scrutiny by correctly disciplined experts. Although not the work of a single person, I see clear comparisons with our policy on Self Published Sources that this is essentially a groups presenting themselves as an expert organisation when that is by no means proven. The fact that a number of members of the BHRF are editing this article is worrying they should familiarise themselves with our conflict of interest policy particularly the section on self-citing, and as per the last statement consider discussing any future inclusion of a BHRF link or reference on the talkpage over boldly proceeding. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 14:11, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation seems to be a special interests web site. Wikipedia prefers third-party reliable sources. There does appear to be some evidence that their views are notable.1011121314 However, third-party sources are preferred. IOW, if the Guardian or Scientific American (for example), publish their opinion, there's a valid case for including it in Wikipedia. But if third-party sources don't publish their opinions, it's best left out of Wikipedia. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:28, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm on the editorial board as well, though not much active at the moment. BHRF's opinion is republished y others, including Which? and the Guardian. But let me ask you this: given that a fractured bicycle helmet has failed, and that polystyrene absorbs very little energy in brittle fracture, both well known facts, which other sites discuss this issue other than by trying to excuse the failures?

BHRF was set up as a place to publish a large amount of data gathered by the Cyclists' Touring Club and by expert John Franklin (author of Cyclecraft, the source text for the UK's national cycle training standards). It looks like an advocacy site mainly because it's not: virtually all other helmet information sites are actually promoting helmet use and usually also helmet laws. We believe the data show pretty clearly that helmet laws don't work. Er're also convinced that helmets are largely irrelevant as a road safety measure, compared with things like maintenance and roadcraft. From the discussions I've seen, Tim also has a dog in this fight, so I'd be wary of taking his word at face value. What can be sais with fair confidence is that BHRF has a very large library of source material, and most of its commentary on that source material is well referenced and reviewed by people who have a history of publishing in the literature on this subject (including Dorothy Robinson and Malcolm Wardlaw). You won't find what you would perceive as a neutral site on helmets, because there is a false neutrality in the debate. People seem to think that helmet wearing is a default or neutral position. It's not. The Netherlands is the safest country in the world for cycling and helmet use there is negligible (something which is routinely deplored in letters and papers, despite the manifest lack of any evidence of a problem needing to be solved). In my view the worst thing about "liddites" is that they talk up the danger of cycling in order to promote their "solution" to it. Cycling is pretty safe, and whatever makes it safer, it doesn't seem to be helmets. I know one of the BHRF board is a lot firmer than that but most seem to me to be of the same view as me on that. They are probably good at preventing minor injuries, which is clearly what they are specified for - the test is a drop from normal standing height - and yet they are portrayed as some kind of magic talisman. 50% of cyclist deaths in London are due to crushing by goods vehicles at junctions, cause of death being abdominal trauma. That is pretty much 100% fixable, and helmets have nothing to do with it. The obsessive focus on helmets is an impediment to any debate about cycle safety, RoSPA put it last on the list of potential safety interventions when they reviewed it in the 90s, and helmet laws are the reason Australian cycle hire schemes are failing while the schemes in London and Paris thrive.

Yes, several of us operate websites that discuss cycling advocacy and helmet use. Why would that be a surprise? You'll note that none of us are one-trick ponies, we all support much a wider cycle safety agenda. Helmet are only one facet of the issue, and one we increasingly see as occupying far more attention than they should. Tim Churches seems to have an agenda against Dorothy Robinson which he has brought here from outside, which is a bit naughty. In his talk about the balance of evidence, he also falls into the classic trap of counting. There are a lot of papers saying helmets save lives, based on observational studies, and all are identically subject to bias. Most of them, especially the earliest and most widely cited (Thompson, Rivara and Thompson) turn out to be policy-based evidence making. It's a bit like the homeopaths who conduct a never ending series of observational studies intending to prove homeopathy without ever addressing the core issue of mechanism. How does a relatively thin layer of rather brittle foam "save lives"? It's a rather extraordinary claim which, on inspection, seems to be based on comparing different groups of cyclists and attributing all the difference in injury patterns to one thing. As the Australian and New Zealand experience shows, forcing people to wear helmets does not turn them ito the sort of cyclists who wear helmets voluntarily. I would also point out that I wrote this: http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A694596 and I think you will agree that such a substantial change of opinion in response to evidence is not the mark of a zealot. I have yet to see any compulsionist modify their views in response to any form of evidence. Guy (Help!) 08:41, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Guy suggests above that I have some form of conflict of interest with respect to the WP bicycle helmet articles. This is untrue. The relevant aspects of my background with respect to my current activity as a WP editor are clearly laid in full on my user page at User:Tim.churches. Guy also suggests that "..he seems to have an agenda against Dorothy Robinson which he has brought here from outside, which is a bit naughty." This is also untrue. I have no agenda against Dorothy Robinson (nor anyone else). I have never met her, spoken to her nor exchanged any email or other correspondence with her. As an epidemiologist with an interest in cycling injuries, I have certainly examined her articles published in the peer-reviewed literature with a critical eye (and the work of others on bicycle helmets) - such is the nature of the scientific process - but I completely understand that any discourse about her work and the work of others must occur in the scientific literature, not in WP. None of my WP edits or Talk page posts have attacked or impugned her in any way. I am concerned that her published work (and therefore her views, because several of her published papers are in fact commentaries or reviews rather than original research) are over-represented in the WP articles on bicycle helmets (a glance at the reference lists will confirm this), and I have taken pains to ensure that wherever appropriate, she is clearly identified as the source both in the text and in the reference, simply because her work is mentioned so many times in the articles, and readers need to be aware of that. Nor do I have any agenda against the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation - the organisation has a perfect right to exist and publish whatever it likes on its own web site. The only question I have, which I think is a reasonable one, is whether anonymously-authored and undated pages on the BHRF cyclehelmets.org web site are suitable authorities for statements and assertions made in WP articles. Tim C (talk) 21:01, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Guy - could you please provide a reference for '50% of cyclist deaths in London are due to crushing by goods vehicles at junctions, cause of death being abdominal trauma', according to http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/adviceandinformation/cycling/facts-figures.aspx

• About 75% of cyclists killed have major head injuries.
• Chest and abdomen injuries occur much less frequently (5%), but are often serious. When they do occur they are often accompanied by head injuries.
• A study by the Transport Research Laboratory found that over 70% of the cyclist fatalities in London had moderate or serious head injuries, and over 80% of cyclists killed in collisions on rural roads had moderate or serious head injuries.

In claiming that helmets 'are probably good at preventing minor injuries', Guy (a member of the BHRF editorial board) appears to have overlooked the studies by Carr (1995), Attewell (2001), Elvik (2011/2012) and Bambach (2013).

The Carr and Bambach studies showed that helmets are good at preventing serious and severe cyclist head/brain injuries in collisions with motor vehicles. The Carr study is referenced by at least 5 articles on the BHRF site, but the none of the articles mention the 46% reduction in the proportion of serious and severe cyclist head/brain injuries in collisions with motor vehicles.

The 2011 Elvik meta-analysis is listed on the BHRF 'Published evidence sceptical of helmet effectiveness or promotion' page (http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1146.html), with the comment 'Attewell et al influenced by publication and time-trend biases. When controlled for, the protective effects of helmets are smaller. Adding new studies, no overall benefit of helmets found'.

The Attewell meta-analysis of (16) case-control studies reported ORs of

• 0.27 for fatal injury
• 0.42 for brain injury
• 0.40 for head injury

The ORs reported for the fixed-effects model in Elvik's 2011 re-analysis of the studies in the Attewell meta-analysis were

• fatal injury 0.22, 0.23 after adjusting for publication bias
• brain injury 0.42 , before and after adjusting for publication bias
• head injury 0.42, 0.43 after adjusting for publication bias

The link accompanying the study (http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1251.html) states that 'the best estimate is for helmets to reduce injury to the head, face or neck by 15%', and does not mention the much bigger reductions for the more serious fatal, brain, and head injuries. There is no way that the average visitor to these BHRF pages would know that both the Attewell and Elvik meta-analyses actually found that helmets provide a lot more than 15% protection against fatal, brain, and head injuries, ie.

• for brain injury, the OR was the same in 2011 Elvik meta-analysis as it was in the Attewell meta-analysis, both analyses found that unhelemeted cyclists are 2.4 more likely than helmeted cyclists to sustain a brain injury
• for fatal injury, the protective effect was larger in the 2011 Elvik analysis than in the Attewell analysis, the 2011 Elvik analysis found that unhelmeted cyclists are 4.3 times more likely to sustain a fatal injury
• for head injury, the Attewell analysis found that unhelmeted cyclists are 2.5 times more likely to sustain a head injury, the 2011 Elvik analysis found that unhelmeted cyclists are 2.3 times more likely to sustain a head injury

The ORs reported for the fixed-effects model in the 2012 Elvik corrigendum were

• fatal injury 0.23, 0.32 after adjusting for publication bias
• brain injury 0.40, before and adjusting for publication bias
• head injury 0.42, 0.43 after adjusting for publication bias

Linda.m.ward (talk) 08:05, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Like Stuart I have been watching this debate from the sidelines having been alerted to its existence. As I enter to make this comment I'm donning my flame retardant suit ;-) Let's get the disclaimer over with: I am an academic, but in an unrelated field, and am on the BHRF Editorial Board. I personally would argue that the weight of evidence and opinion worldwide shows that bicycle helmet laws are a massive political success and a failure in every other respect from basic rights and legal issues through to health and safety. Of course Wikipedia is not a place to make my argument, and I've no intention of doing so. But Wikipedia is a place for articles which report in a clear NPOV way, without editorial, the evidence, arguments and opinion made elsewhere.

Bicycle helmet legislation is a controversial topic leading to much debate. The people most knowledgable about the subject, and hence potentially good editors of a Wikipedia article, are most probably going to be from one of the factions. Both factions have respected figures in them, looking just at Australia there are at least two respected senior Professors from different major Australian universities in opposing factions. Richard and Dorre, mentioned here and both with edits on the article, are on one side, Tim and Jake, both involved in recent editing, on the other. All these folk are well known outside of Wikipedia and debate the issue elsewhere, see for example Putting a lid on the debate: mandatory helmet laws reduce head injuries.

The article has undergone significant changes recently, with much back and forth - one faction deletes, the other adds it back - and it is hard to see all this as NPOV. Indeed the history shows arguments over NPOV by one side and the apparent acceptance of the other side of the fact. I'm afraid the arguments put forward here by Tim do come across as attempting to shift the NPOV stance of the article, however unintended that is.

I'll throw in a quick defence of Richard Keatinge here as some of the above comes across as suggested criticism of him; I know Richard, though we've never met in the physical world, and that he had edited multiple pages on WP in multiple subjects, for which he has a barnstar. From my experience, when it comes to WP Richard is a stickler for NPOV, he is more than willing to correct folk whom he might personally agree with if they stray off NPOV.

I'm somewhat baffled by Tim's statement: I have been unable to find any statements, comments or publications attributable to any of the other members of the BHRF Editorial Board which are not critical of bicycle helmet laws (and in some cases, of bicycle helmets themselves). If the BHRF promoted a balanced view of bicycle helmets and helmet laws, I would have expected at least some members of its Editorial Board to have publicly voiced opinions favourable to bicycle helmets or bicycle helmet promotion campaigns and laws. Using myself as an example there are certainly many statements, comments and publications of mine which are not critical of bicycle helmet laws; after all I am an academic in an unconnected field; so he cannot be referring to any statement, just those related to bicycle helmet laws. Now why would I, as an academic who has studied bicycle helmet laws and concluded they are fundamentally flawed publish something supporting them? Tim has a number of publications in this area and they are all supportive of bicycle helmet laws; and it is not as though those publications have not been the subject of controversy, see the previously referenced The Conversation discussion for one example. I don't see that as a problem and call for the removal of all references to his work, to do so would be bizarre! (I do note Stuart mentioned WP self-citing rules and that the history page of the article contains an exchange where text by Tim was deleted on this basis and then re-added by Tim. Not having studied the rule I've no idea whether Tim has accidentally fallen afoul of it.)

Is BHRF a reliable source? In the publication Cycling & Health - What's The Evidence, Nick Cavill & Dr Adrian Davis, Cycling England, 2009 we find Finally, there has been much debate about the value of cycle helmets. ... This issue is not reviewed here but there are a number of reference sources available for example see www.cyclehelmets.org. It seems the UK Government's national cycling body finds the BHRF worthy of being the sole reference to discover material from both sides of the debate.

Tim also references the Wikipedia article Bicycle helmets in questioning whether the BHRF can be referenced as a reliable source. In that article one of the most quoted sources for pro-law information is referenced, the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute (BHSI), and that is not marked as an unreliable source nor as Tim argued that it should be. The site itself appears to be driven by a single individual and claims to be the helmet advocacy program of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, yet a look at Bicyclists Oppose Mandatory Helmet Bill shows the Washington Area Bicyclist Association opposing helmet laws. Sauce for the goose? I'm personally of the opinion that BHSI is as unreliable as you can get, but in an article which strives to present to opposing POVs in a NPOV manner references to it are not out of place - it is a most reliable source for their very unreliable POV!

There is much comment on anonymity of some references from the BHRF. I am the co-author/editor of an annotated ISO International Standard published by Elsevier. Many of the annotations in the that book are anonymous for various reasons, but in all cases the editors can be held responsible for their content, and the three of us are certainly named (one wants ones royalties ;-)). Why should the content of the BHRF be seen differently? There are also comments on the nature of the reviewing by the editorial board. I've declared I'm an academic, it should come as little surprise I've peer-reviewed papers for journals and conferences. If the process used by the BHRF differs in any significant way for the norm then it may be in the level of debate that occurs between the reviewers; it is hard to see that as a negative.

I could go on, but time to conclude. The article in question presents two opposing POVs in a NPOV manner, as an encyclopaedia article should. It references sources for those POVs, as it should. The BHRF site contains references to material from both sides of the debate, discusses them, and argues its case; just as other referenced publications present information, argue their case, and come to opposing conclusions - including publications by Tim. The BHRF is an acknowledged source of information on this topic and used as a reliable source by others. What we have here is an accidental case of the pot calling the kettle black, when in fact neither is black. It would be wrong, editorialising, and throw off the NPOV of the article to brand the BHRF references as unreliable. Nigel Perry (talk) 00:43, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Although I disagree with much of what Nigel says above, I am not going to respond point-by-point: I've had my say here, as have several members of the BHRF Editorial Board, and the real purpose is elicit opinions form other WP editors (of which we have had several). However, I will say that I agree completely that references to pages on the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute (BHSI) web site should be treated in identical manner to BHRF web pages. The BHSI is clearly a single-purpose organisation with a clear agenda, and therefore whether it can be considered a reliable source for the purposes of WP articles is immediately called into question. Tim C (talk) 06:15, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Tim, I think you miss the point. Can you point to the section of Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources that supports the assertion that the BHSI being a single-purpose organisation with a clear agenda automatically calls into question whether it can be considered a reliable source for the purposes of WP articles? It seems to me that page actually states the opposite in many ways. For example the statement Sometimes 'non-neutral' sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. and the BHSI is certainly non-neutral (Mr Swart would probably be insulted if anyone suggested otherwise) and a good source for a viewpoint on bicycle helmet legislation. I see on the page Child poverty that Save The Children Fund is referenced. That charity is a single-purpose organisation with a clear agenda, and thousands of children are undoubtedly alive today because of that. Are they an unreliable source by the WP definition? Of course not. Nigel Perry (talk) 09:44, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree that point-by-point argumentation is futile. It may help to remind ourselves of the Wikipedia policies that should guide us: WP:MEDRS, WP:IRS, and, though it may not all apply in its strictest sense to the central issue here, WP:SELFPUBLISH. Main points identifying a reliable source include:

"* It has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.

• It is published by a reputable publishing house, rather than by the author(s).
• It is "appropriate for the material in question", i.e., the source is directly about the subject, rather than mentioning something unrelated in passing.
• It is a third-party or independent source.
• It has a professional structure in place for deciding whether to publish something, such as editorial oversight or peer review processes.

A self-published source can have all of these qualities except for the second one." Whether BHRF's editorial board meets these criteria is a matter for other editors to decide; I have already given my opinion that it clearly does.

WP:SELFPUBLISH is at least relevant because we have editors who have published strong points of view in various forms and have used their own blogs as sources. Per WP:SELFPUBLISH "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." This suggests to me that Tim Churches and other editors who have indeed published in indisputably-reliable third party publications may legitimately - with suitable care and as advised by others - use their own self-published work as references. If cyclehelmets.org is taken (counterfactually I suggest) to be self-published, presumably the same would apply to its use.

I do not think that a good encyclopaedic article will ever include all the detailed argumentation that the article has now accumulated. I am mulling over a considerable abbreviation in which most of these references will appear somewhat as "X has been asserted.(multiple references including to self-published sources) This evidence has been disputed.(more multiple references) Not-X has also been asserted.(more multiple references) This evidence is disputed in turn.(more multiple references) I suggest that for such an approach, self-published sources certainly demonstrate the existence of disagreement and may be appropriately used.

Finally, it may be convenient to present major official data series in accessible graphical or tabular form (per SYNTH is not summary). An issue has been raised over whether the image details should refer these to the original sources (which may involve a very large number of pages), or whether a reference to a recension and presentation on cyclehelmets.org is sufficient.

I'd welcome comments on all the above, but I'd like to remind everyone on this page to stick to the issue of reliability of sources. Richard Keatinge (talk) 12:08, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Dorre has commented that the BHRF editorial board 'contains many prominent cyclists, e.g. John Franklin, author of 'Cyclecraft' -http://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Cyclecraft and many others with links to cyclists organisations such as the CTC and the ECF'.

The ECF is 'against mandatory helmet laws and shock-horror helmet promotions' (http://www.ecf.com/advocary/road-safety/helmets-and-reflective-vests/). The CTC 'has long campaigned against mandatory helmet use' (http://www.ctc.org.uk/campaign/no-mandatory-helmets).

Thirteen of the 14 members of the BHRF editorial board appear to oppose helmets and/or the helmet law and/or the promotion of helmets.

Articles by Burdett, Curnow, Gillham, Keatinge, Robinson, Walker, Ward and Wardlaw are listed on the under 'Published evidence sceptical of helmet effectiveness or promotion' on the BHRF site. Chapman appears to be critical of helmets (http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk?pojem=cycle_helmet/). The Chapmancentral site contains references to articles by Robinson and Curnow that are critical of helmets and the helmet law, but does not include any references to studies by Walter and Bambach which found helmets to be beneficial. Foran is anti-helmet: "the BHRF have released detailed rebuttals of the claims made by the NSC. ( http://www.cyclehelmets.org/mainframes.html#1092.html ) The claims for every one of the NSC's supporting documents have now been either discredited or rejected as irrelevant to the debate. The fact that most Irish people, whether children or adults, don't use helmets is actually something to be deeply proud of." (http://www.irishhealth.com/poll.html?pollid=202). Franklin is critical of helmets, claiming that there is 'no evidence that increased helmet wearing has reduced the actual risk of serious or fatal injury across cyclists as a whole' (http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1126.html). Geary is critical of helmets: 'helmeted cyclists are still managing to get themselves killed at roughly similar rates to their formerly unhelmeted counterparts' (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1432177/). Perry is critical of the helmet law: 'mandatory cycle helmet introductions in New Zealand and Australia had no observable effect on cyclists head injuries when (in the case of Australia - a case conveniently ignored by helmet advocates)' (http://archived.ccc.govt.nz/recreation/cycling/conference/2001/HeadsandHardSurfacesPresentation_Perry.pdf).

Some days ago I documented numerous (about 10) examples of unreliability or inaccuracy, most were examples of 'overlooking' evidence that runs counter to the claim that the helmet law was/is a bad thing. Given the that 13 of the 14 BHRF editorial board members oppose helmets and/or the helmet law and/or the promotion of helmets, the apparently high prevalence of 'overlooking' evidence that runs counter to the claim that the helmet was/is a bad thing is not surprising.

Nick-D commented that 'The front page of the website alone makes it pretty clear that this is an advocacy website: all the stories are about how bike helmets are a bad thing. As such, this doesn't seem to be a reliable source given that it's only presenting one side of the debate (a genuinely disinterested academic or research-type organisation wouldn't structure their website in such a way)'

Itsmejudith commented that 'This site is used for a number of claims in the article. In general, it is not reliable for the topics that this article covers. For any medical claims and claims about cycle helmet safety, WP:MEDRS applies. For statements about prevalence of cycling, this is a poor or insufficient source (and that topic should be covered in Cycling in Australia, not this article)'. WP:MEDRS states that 'it is vital that the biomedical information in all types of articles be based on reliable, third-party, published sources and accurately reflect current medical knowledge . . . Ideal sources for such content includes general or systematic reviews published in reputable medical journals, academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant field and from a respected publisher, and medical guidelines or position statements from nationally or internationally recognised expert bodies.'

Stuart.Jamieson commented that 'I agree with Itsmejudith above Medical Claims should be peer reviewed in medical journals, materials engineering/failure analysis claims should be peer reviewed in appropriate engineering journals. Peer review should be more than having an editorial board check over your work, but should be an opening up of the work to complete scrutiny by correctly disciplined experts. Although not the work of a single person, I see clear comparisons with our policy on Self Published Sources that this is essentially a groups presenting themselves as an expert organisation when that is by no means proven. The fact that a number of members of the BHRF are editing this article is worrying they should familiarise themselves with our conflict of interest policy particularly the section on self-citing, and as per the last statement consider discussing any future inclusion of a BHRF link or reference on the talkpage over boldly proceeding'.

It is quite acceptable for BHRF editorial board members to hold and express whatever views they choose. However, there is no way that the 'average consumer' would know that evidence contrary to the view that the helmet law was/is a bad thing has been omitted. Readers should be warned that the BHRF in not a reliable source.Linda.m.ward (talk) 01:37, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Linda, you actually found one of my very few papers in the field of this article! You did a good job of research there (seriously).

It is clear that your and my understanding of Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources do not tally.

I see "reliable authors", "Context matters", etc. and believe it is appropriate for references to: BHSI, ECF, CTC, Save The Children Fund, Tim Churches' & co-authors primary research, the BHRF, etc.; in the appropriate context.

You appear to reject them all: BHSI/Save The Children Fund - single purpose/minded organisations, ECF/CTC - major cycle organisations who've expressed disagreement with helmet legislation, Tim Churches' & co-authors papers - primary research and the authors have expressed strong agreement with helmet legislation, BHRF - single purpose organisation with an editorial board containing many "reliable authors" (authors of peer-reviewed papers in recognised publications) unfortunately acting as a peer-review group so becoming unreliable.

However you don't appear to reference clauses of Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources to support your case, you just end with a personal opinion (which might well be right). It would be helpful, at least to my understanding, if you could identify the violated clauses.

I really do hope your interpretation is wrong; it would be pretty well damn any article on WP where there are opinions to report to being unreliable (in the general, not WP, sense) if they comply with WP guidelines. However I'm enough of a fatalist to accept you might well be correct. And if you are correct, c'est la vie, and at least both of the articles Bicycle helmet and Bicycle helmets in Australia should be deleted in total as they can't be written in an NPOV way within WP guidelines. Nigel Perry (talk) 04:54, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Nigel - Linda.m.ward's point is completely valid here. The primary focus of these groups is advocacy which include anti- and pro-helmet views. The focus should be on actual evidence presented in peer-reviewed journals. There may some argument for a summary of peer-reviewed work, but even that is debatable. The BHSI and BHRF websites are probably the biggest for their respective camps, but can they really be trusted to give a neutral viewpoint? They both contain commentary for and against helmets, but should they be relied upon in lieu of peer-reviewed research? I find it very unfortunate that any of those websites sway the opinions of policy makers.

By the way, Linda apparently missed a reference to another BHRF editorial member who states "all our experience and the information collected by TfL , DfT and other agencies across the world shows that the risk of injury arising from every day cycling is very small and that widespread helmet wearing does not reduce these risks" (http://lydall.standard.co.uk/2010/10/cycling-campaigner-rebukes-politician-for-pro-cycle-helmet-stance.html, http://anmblog.typepad.com/files/charlie-lloyd-helmet-email.docx). I believe that makes 14/14 BHRF board members with clear anti-helmet views and therefore brings into question the neutrality of any commentary on that site. The same could probably be said for BHSI.

I find it much easier to trust well-established publishers/journals that abide by high scientific standards and oversight than a website with an "editorial board" with members with a clear viewpoint about a heavily debated topic. As insinuated by Linda.m.ward, a systematic review of the BHRF content would not hold up to scrutiny anyway. A question I have then is would any journal care enough to publish such a review? I don't think editors at reputable journals would care of the results one way or the other.JakeOlivier (talk) 05:49, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Jake, thank you for your opinion, but how does it mesh with Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources? You state "can they really be trusted to give a neutral viewpoint" and yet the guidelines clearly state "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective" - so it would appear you cannot brand the BHSI et al as unreliable because you see them as non-neutral. The point surely is that the article must not editorialise and must be NPOV; it can, and I would argue in a field which is driven by opinion, probably must, refer to sources with a POV. The field in question is not a straight forward one with a simple answer - or there would be (at least majority among experts) consensus - there is not (despite the claims of some, which just reinforces the point!). I would no more expect to see a paper from you that concluded helmet legislation was wrong than I would expect to see papers from some other authors conclude that it was right. This is because different experts approach the issue very differently, they weigh different aspects differently, it is an area where viewpoints play a major role. It may be that the articles in question, Bicycle helmet and Bicycle helmets in Australia, fail to distinguish properly between primary, secondary, POV, etc. sources; if so that should be fixed. But that does not, according to the guidelines, make any of those primary, secondary, POV, etc. sources unreliable.

Frankly if the "Wiki gods", if they exist, took a look at the history of edits to these two articles I would not be surprised if they concluded that two very POV groups are battling over it tooth and nail - one deletes a reference to refereed paper, the other puts it back, etc.; this thread took on the BHRF but omitted the BHSI, etc. - and that an NPOV article in these circumstances is impossible. This battle is a disservice to readers and damaging to WP. If I were them I'd delete them both right now, or replace them with the simple (non-editable!) statement "This is a much debated issue with no consensus, for WP to attempt to summarise would risk doing the arguments of one side or other a disservice, and thus the reader a disservice. Interested readers should research the issue themselves.". I say that because of the nature of WP, it is freely editable so on any debated subject folk with strong POVs will keep editing articles and fighting over them. A non-collaborative encyclopaedia could appoint a neutral party and have them summarise the arguments of both sides.

I have referenced Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources a number of times. I again ask those who disagree with my understanding of these rules, and I of course may be wrong, to argue with reference to them why I am wrong. I also ask those arguing that the BHSI, CTC, ECF, BHRF etc., etc. are unreliable to do so with reference to those rules, as it is by those rules that a decision must be made. Nigel Perry (talk) 09:25, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Nigel -- I find your statement that "I would no more expect to see a paper from you that concluded helmet legislation was wrong..." offensive. I am a researcher who routinely weighs evidence for or against helmets or helmet legislation (among many other research topics in which I'm involved). Your comment speaks to the ignorance I've seen written about myself and colleagues on anti-helmet websites (including comments by those on the WP websites). I have no agenda nor do I get paid to work on this topic. I'm not in the back pocket of the government or the helmet manufacturers. I've tried pointing that out to authors of anti-helmet blogs, but that doesn't seem to fit the story they wish to tell. I only care about finding out the truth using the most objective and rigorous methodology possible. My main criticism of those with anti-helmet views is the lack of scientific rigor that pervades much of their arguments. I don't understand how pointing those things out and properly analyzing data labels me "pro-helmet".

I do not understand your comment that I "cannot brand the BHSI et al as unreliable because you see them as non-neutral." I specifically pointed to BHSI and BHRF as websites with a clear agenda -- be it pro- or anti-helmet. In light of emotive responses to this topic, why should anyone trust such websites? If you want to cling to such websites (or which you and others commenting on here are members), then go ahead but the views expressed are not NPOV and should be listed as such on WP (possibly with the unreliable resource tag as suggested by someone). BTW, the BHSI is only referenced once and their research page is given as an external link. How many times has the BHRF been referenced? Getting rid of the BHSI references wouldn't appear to be the real issue here anyway.

There is pretty universal agreement regarding helmets being overall beneficial among experts in that field (meta-analyses, Cochrane reviews, etc.). The criticisms primarily come from those outside. From what I've gathered from members of BHRF, none of them are actually researchers in this or related areas. Am I wrong? Have I missed someone? Therefore, with regards to you constantly pointing to the WP reliable resources policies which I feel I and others keep answering your question with a loud NO, the BHRF can be used to voice an opinion, but only if that individual has sufficient weight in this area. This cannot really be judged due to the anonymity of many of the articles and, judging by the lack of expertise in this area by BHRF members, I doubt that is possible. This has been pointed out many times before. I'm not sure why you keep asking the same question.JakeOlivier (talk) 03:59, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

According to my counts, since Feb 23, Tim has made 62 edits to Bicycle helmet and his co-author Jake, 1 edit. Other users have made a total of 8 edits. Perhaps this is an illustration of Tim's passion for the views he holds - not that being passionate about something is necessarily a bad thing.

So let's argue about the rules, which state: "a review article, monograph, or textbook is better than a primary research paper". This would appear to contradict Tim's co-author, Jake, who argues that "The focus should be on actual evidence presented in peer-reviewed journals. There may some argument for a summary of peer-reviewed work, but even that is debatable."

The Wiki rules also state: "The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is an appropriate source for that content." The main citations to the BHRF website are for census data. Tim cannot argue about the unreliability of the census data presented, so instead argues that somehow it is affected by a commentary pointing out the reduction in cycling. The Wiki rules do not appear to support Tim's POV - reliable data can be cited. The normal peer review process for journal papers also follows this convention. I know of no cases where a peer-reviewer would consider this a problem as long there is sound evidence that the information being cited is correct.

Curiously, the most recent reference to the BHRF website was added by Tim Churches at 10:55, 26 March 2013. Tim claims he doesn't the BHRF is reliable, but has no qualms about citing it himself. Dorre (talk) 00:35, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Once again I will ignore the gratuitous comments by User:Dorre about my WP editing activities and his/her speculations (which happen to be incorrect) about my reasons for contributing to WP. However, I actually agree that whether a source can be considered reliable for WP purposes is context-specific, and in some contexts, BHRF web pages can be considered reliable. The instance given by User:Dorre of me adding a reference to a BHRF web pages on 26 March 2013 was as follows: I changed the text "Curnow 2008 concluded: 'Compulsion to wear a bicycle helmet is detrimental to public health in Australia...'" to "A 2008 review by Bill Curnow (president of the Cyclists Rights Action Group which opposes compulsory helmets¹) concluded: 'Compulsion to wear a bicycle helmet is detrimental to public health in Australia...'" Given that Bill Curnow is a member of the Editorial Board of BHRF, I thought the BHRF could be considered a reliable source for this important detail about Mr Curnow (given the nature of his assertion that was being quoted in the article). However, in other contexts, I do not think BHRF can be considered reliable for WP purposes. The circumstances that motivated my raising the issue of BHRF reliability on this noticeboard are set out above, which I'll repeat here for the sake of readability:

Here is another example of the problems posed by the anonymous and undated (and unversioned) nature of most of the articles/pages on the BHRF web site: two graphs of Australian Census data were added some time ago to the Bicycle usage section of the article by a pseudonymous WP editor (User:Dorre)who has contributed a great deal of material and made many edits to the article. Although the graphs are based on Australian Bureau of Statistics Census data, they combine and present that data in a particular manner and are thus a synthesis, or possibly original research, and as such they are required to be referenced to an external source. The source files for these graphs are in WikiMedia Commons and are listed there as that pseudonymous editor's own work. I added citation needed tags to these graphs, and the editor was asked via the Talk page for the article to supply suitable external references for the graphs. This was done: the references given are to an anonymous and undated BHRF web page, where copies of these graphs now appear. Thus it would appear that there is some connection between the pseudonymous user in question and the BHRF organisation (User:Dorre has subsequently declared him/herself to be a member of the BHRF Editoial Board). This is potentially problematic given that most of the BHRF web pages are anonymously authored, including the one given as the external reference for these two graphs.

The problem with the Census data is that the following BHRF cyclehelmets.org web page titled "Changes in cycle use in Australia" is cited 8 times in the WP article in support of various statements (and graphs) about the Census data: http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1194.html So let's examine that anonymous, undated web page. Here is what it says at the very top of the page, in the introduction:

The enactment of helmet laws in Australia in the early 1990s had a major impact on cycle use. Whereas cycle use prior to the laws had been generally increasing, as soon as laws were passed and enforced cycle use fell sharply. There were early signs that helmet compulsion might cause some people to give up cycling, such as when many students at schools in Victoria chose to give up cycling when they were required to wear helmets pre-law (AHoR, 1985b). It would therefore have been sensible for governments to ensure that the effect of compulsory wearing on numbers of cyclists was monitored accurately. This was not done, but some measurements of numbers were made, most being incidental to surveys of helmet wearing.

In other words, a priori the author of the web page is presenting their conclusion that helmets laws had a major impact on cycling, before any data has even been presented. The page is supposed to be about changes in cycling levels in Australia, but the very first thing mentioned in the author's view of what is responsible for any downward changes, before the changes are even described. Such a web page cannot be regarded as an impartial or reliable source of information. Later in the page, the NSW helmet surveys are discussed, and results from the surveys for child cyclists are given. But there is no mention of the fact that the surveys also counted adult cyclists, and there is no presentation of the numbers for adults, which actually went up after the laws came into force. Not to mention these facts is an indication of the selectivity of the information presented on the BHRF web site. Of course, the BHRF is free to publish whatever it likes on its own web site, and it can be as selective as it wishes. The question here is whether such a web site can be regarded as a reliable source for the purpose of WP articles about bicycle helmets.

I'll also re-iterate what I said near the beginning of this now very long discussion: "Just to make it clear, complete removal of the references to the BHRF web site is not proposed, although some pruning of some of those references (and the assertions in the article that they are used to support) may be reasonable, given the heavy reliance on that web site (13 references to it in the article at last count). However, flagging of the references to the BHRF website as a potentially unreliable source may be justified and in accord with WP policies." Tim C (talk) 04:50, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I've previously suggested that a look at the editing history of the two articles in question does not reflect well on WP, sadly I think this thread is trying hard to join them.

I quickly pulled up two papers (co)authored by Tim to see if his papers differ from the norm. In the first ² I read in the first paragraph:

This additional benefit was attributed to compulsory helmet legislation. Despite numerous data limitations, we identified evidence of a positive effect of compulsory cycle helmet legislation on cyclist head injuries at a population level such that repealing the law cannot be justified.

In the second ³ I read in the second paragraph and an introductory one containing no data:

The paper ⁴ as published contains serious arithmetic and data plotting errors.

In other words:

a priori the author is presenting their conclusion, before any data has even been presented.

It is common practice for documents to contain abstracts, summaries, introductions etc. at the start which reflect the content of what is to come. This is not a fault, an indicator of bias, or proof of unreliability!

And so we look at the page Tim is critiquing, and sure enough his extract comes from the Introduction.

Next I check the talk page for Bicycle helmets in Australia and see that Jake, Tim's co-author on a number of papers, previously removed the census data from the article; and above Dorre has explained the origin of the page on the BHRF website, that it contains the full data in a convenient form, and that an error in the ABS transcription of data was uncovered and corrected.

Tim & Jake, however well motivated you are, you are coming across as trying to prevent the presentation of census data on this page. You removed the data, participated in talk about that, and have now moved the issue to this forum to have the references to it mark as unreliable. It is hard to see the census data as anything other than NPOV - if the data shows an increase or decrease in cycling then that is presumably what happened. Maybe you know Australian census data is general highly suspect, if so you need to show that by citing reliable sources.

Nigel -- Perhaps you should actually read over all of my comments regarding the census data and cycling mode in Australia, in general. Briefly, I've pointed to the Paul Mees report which states "Cycling is of negligible importance as a travel mode for work trips in all cities except Canberra." (http://mams.rmit.edu.au/ov14prh13lps1.pdf) I have pointed out several times that what is being reported as "trends" is misleading as the proportions over time are indistinguishable from a horizontal line. For example, SA's share is about 2.4%, 2.2% and 2.0% for 1981, 1986 and 1991 respectively, which has been synthesized as a "trend". However, no statistical analysis has been performed here and, as a statistician, I would never get excited about a pairwise difference of 2/1000. And, yes, there are issues with how the census data is presented. From the Mees report "Most importantly, until 1991 ABS reported the ‘main mode’ used to travel to work (e.g. a person who drove a car to the station then caught a train is counted as ‘train’), but subsequent censuses have reported multi-mode journeys separately." So, there was a change in how the census data was reported around the time most of Australia introduced helmet laws.

Additionally, I've been informed over and over that the increase in adult helmet wearing from around 20% to 50% in Queensland is inconsequential. There appears to be a huge disconnect with statistical reality here.

The current flat levels of cycling become exceptionally apparent when the long term trends in cycling mode are viewed from 1900 to the present. Cycling peaked around WWII with about a 9% share and has steadily declined since. (http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/infrastructure/mcu/urbanpolicy/files/ACTIVE_TRAVEL_DISCUSSION.pdf) Why are these reports being ignored on the WP website?JakeOlivier (talk) 04:30, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Tim above you detail concerns over the presentation of Piet de Jong's work on the BHRF site. Let's take a look at that. You remark:

Fine, but there is no mention whatsoever of the response to the de Jong model by Newbold, which was published on the very next page of the same issue of the same journal (Newbold, Stephen C. (May 2012).

As an aside, as one of curious mind I must admit I first wonder how a research paper commenting on previously published research was actually published so fast it appeared at the same time as the latter. Could be quite innocent, or maybe the author has a time machine, I just wonder... Anyway let's continue.

Let's now look at the history of edits to Bicycle helmets in Australia, in chronological order we see:

1. You delete reference to de Jong's work on the basis it does not apply to Australia. Sounds reasonable until...

2. Reference to de Jong's work is put back as apparently the paper's author applied their results to "jurisdictions", and it seems Australia is indeed a jurisdiction. The research was also carried out by an Australian academic, in Australia, and does reference Australian data. None of this apparently concerned the peer reviewers for the reputable journal it appear in, but is does concern you...

3. You then edit the description of de Jong's work to emphasise details you've extracted from the body of the paper on the source of data, which clearly comes across, intentionally or otherwise, as editorial/original research aimed at contradicting the "jurisdictions" of the author's conclusions. You also add in reference to Newbold's work, despite that being clearly labelled as applicable to the US only having earlier tried to removed de Jong's as it didn't apply to Australia...

4. Finally, after someone else makes some changes, you delete the whole section again and replace it with a reference to text in Bicycle helmet written by yourself - which does appear, especially in the light of the above, to somewhat editorialise on the content of the de Jong paper...

I guess Tim achieved his goal in the end. But did the process reflect well on WP, does it come across as earnestly striving for an NPOV approach? Sadly I think not.

Reading all of this I despair. If a subsequent posting claims the all Australian census data must be classed as unreliable as by Dorre's report above an "error" in it has been "corrected", and Dorre is clearly someone who has a POV, and so the census data is now tainted - I'll be totally unsurprised.

Tim you have a strongly held POV, which is apparent from your publications (you've been critical of at least de Jong, Rissel, Elvik - all papers where research has not supported helmet legislation; I've seen no commentary from you on Macpherson whose pro-law results have been bought into question ⁵ and incidentally a case where the BHRF is credited) and comments on forums such as The Conversation. You are absolutely entitled to your POV, and such a strongly held opinion does not exclude you from editing WP.

However, consider what you are now writing - you've just made a claim that a statement in an introduction is an indication of bias/pre-determination! Take a deep breath, that is clearly nonsense and NOT something somebody like you would normally write. And that claim comes at the end of a thread which appears as ever more desperate attempts to get a website, which just happens not to support your POV, marked as unreliable. Take a deep breath, go for a bike ride or whatever relaxes you.

The arguments made to mark the BHRF have descended from possibly plausible, but answered and unproven, to the absurd. The editing history of the two articles shows they have descended into near farce. Time to put this to bed before the reputation of WP is irrevocably harmed. Nigel Perry (talk) 03:57, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Just to clarify the issue of the ABS Census data - the mistake was on the ABS website. Once it had been drawn to their attention, the ABS checked and fixed the problem within a couple of days. I did not "correct" any census data - the data on the BHRF website were already correct and agree 100% with the data now available on the ABS website. Dorre (talk) 05:27, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I am loathe to respond to the remarks by User:Nigel Perry above, because the intent of posting the question on this noticeboard was to seek opinion from experienced but disinterested WP editors, not to enter into a debate with members of the Editorial Board of BHRF/cyclehelmets.org. But I feel that I must set a few things straight.

The first paragraphs in the papers to which you (User:Nigel Perry) refer to above are called "abstracts", and they contain a brief description of the rationale for, methods, results and conclusions of a scientific study. That's why you were able to find conclusions in those paragraphs. Also, I am pretty sure that the second and third papers which you mention are not cited in either the main Bicycle helmet article nor the Bicycle helmets in Australia article. They appear on my WP profile page, which is not part of the encyclopaedia. They were listed there for the purpose of transparency, so that anyone looking at the edits I have made can readily see what I have written on the subject of bicycle helmet research.

Regarding the Census data, I agree that, of itself, it is a totally reliable and NPOV source. However, I don't agree that the graphs of the Census data drawn by User:Dorre which were contributed to Wikimedia Commons but then appeared on the BHRF web site represent a NPOV - they are a particular synthesis of the Census data, done in a way to make a particular point: the colour coding and dotting of lines of each time series in the first graph and the grouping of States and Territories in the second graph are clearly intended to convey the impression that mandatory helmet laws had a major impact on cycle commuting (as opposed to weather on Census day, changes in motor vehicle traffic levels, public transport changes, longer commuting distances due to suburban sprawl etc). These are graphs with an agenda. Furthermore, the authority for these graphs was then given as an anonymously-authored and undated BHRF/cyclehelmets.org web page: http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1194.html Yes, that page does contain selected Census data, but as already discussed, the same page also contains a great deal of non-Census data, and a great deal of discussion, all of which appears to be directed at convincing the reader that helmet laws caused a collapse in cycling participation in Australia. Now, it is perfectly OK for the BHRF to draw such conclusions and to try to convince others of their validity, via that BHRF web page, but it is not OK to use that same web page as a source and authority for User: Dorre's graphs of Census data in WP. But that is the current state of affairs - hence my question on this Noticeboard.

Neither I nor any of my colleagues are in any way trying to suppress the Census data on cycle commuting. In fact, we are keen that the data are more readily available for scrutiny in the context of changes in all modes of travel to work. Unfortunately it costs over $2000 to obtain a complete historical set of Mode of Travel to Work Census data - the alternative is several days copying data from microfiche records in teh ABS library in Canberra. There are also issues to do with the changes in the way the mode of Travel to Work data was collected before and after 1991. We are working with ABS to try to understand these issues, and hopefully collate the data in a way that maximises the comparability of the data between Censuses. Unfortunately, we don't know whether User:Dorre took these issues into account in her Census graphs, nor whether BHRF took them into account when compiling the Census data on its web page which is used as the reference for Dorre's graphs. That's the problem.

Regarding the de Jong paper, references to it and the Newbold paper were removed from the Australian bicycle helmets page at the suggestion of another WP editor responding to my question on the article Talk page about whether they belonged in the Australian article. And I am afraid that just because de Jong works at an Australian university does not mean that his paper applies to Australia. Yes, he proposes a model to evaluate the health-benefit of mandatory helmet laws for particular jurisdictions, but Australia is not one of them. Austria is included, but not Australia. It is absurd to claim that the de Jong results apply to Australia as well just because Australia is also a jurisdiction. As for my summaries of the de Jong and Newbold papers, I regard them as accurate and of NPOV. If you disagree, please state why on the Talk page of the article and/or edit the text as you see fit. But do please read both papers thoroughly first. Finally, and once again, I will not be responding to the inappropriate personal commentary about me, nor the gratuitous advice. Tim C (talk) 05:47, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

If the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation wants to be seen as a reliable, scientific, objective source it should stop using such a deceptive name. I would suggest the Anti-Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation. HiLo48 (talk) 06:28, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Tim, sorry User:Tim C, in response to (emphasis added):

It is common practice for documents to contain abstracts, summaries, introductions etc. at the start which reflect the content of what is to come. This is not a fault, an indicator of bias, or proof of unreliability!

You respond with:

The first paragraphs in the papers to which you (User:Nigel Perry) refer to above are called "abstracts", and they contain a brief description of the rationale for, methods, results and conclusions of a scientific study.

Your original claim was without foundation, and I stated was not something I would expect from somebody of your standing. You respond with an attempted play on one word, with what seems like an air of condescension? For some reason I find myself humming - I think I need to take a deep breath ;-) But maybe what follows reveals what is really going on. You also seem to have missed (emphasis added):

however well motivated you are, you are coming across as trying to prevent the presentation of census data on this page

It is about the impression you are giving. Though it does now appear you do have concerns with the use of census data and are "working with the ABS" to "hopefully collate the data in a way that maximises the comparability of the data between Censuses"...

Is this the nub of the issue here?

You have now clearly stated that you are concerned that other qualified researchers may not be able to understand census data correctly as you know something they might not. However you haven't yet published this and its not available for scrutiny. Maybe you can revisit the issue here when that work is published as a reliable source?

There is certainly no grounds to mark a source as unreliable because Tim has an unpublished theory that other researchers may not be able to understand census data.

You invite me to read de Jong:

7. CONCLUSIONS

Using elementary mathematical modeling and parameter estimates from previous studies, leads to reasonable bounds for the net health impact of a mandatory bicycle helmet law.

My version seems to be missing "except mandatory bicycle helmet laws in Australia". Are you pulling my leg, is there a revised version, or are you editorialising?

Yes I admit I'm getting a little light hearted here. Apologies if needed, no offence intended. Sometimes humour helps and makes us take a fresh look. Have a nice day. Nigel Perry (talk) 07:23, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

This thread is becoming impossible to follow and its clear the wider issues need more drastic dispute resolution or arbitration. The comments of neutral parties are being lost in the morass of ideological interpretations. The last response directed at me was Quest for Knowledge, and while I welcome his comment - I would add the following Caveats to it he talks of several sources that have mentioned the BHRF - the problem I see with these is that most make minor mention of the BHRF and then go on to discuss the data as it has been presented in other areas, even worse it they often then tend to criticise the BHRF's reading of the underlying data which just as further doubts as to its reliability. I would advise editors involved to avoid some of the comments about each other (I see for instance a complaint about Tim's 60+ edits to an article, but the history of the article shows over 360+ edits by BHRF editorial members and 260+ by one of them.) and seek further dialogue in one of the above arenas. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 18:21, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

This debate appears to have started because I drew a graph of publicly-available data from the Australian census on cycling to work by year a) for each individual state and also aggregated by by states with and without helmet laws. There are many graphs on Wikipedia that appear to be drawn by editors (to avoid copyright issues relating to the originals) and I personally find them very useful in helping me understand the subjects and issue. I was not aware of Tim's contention that drawing a graph from published data constitutes 'original research', and that all graphs used in Wiki must be published elsewhere in exactly the same format. Does that mean that all graphs redrawn from published data have to be removed?

Tim also argues that if the graph appears in a publication that contains a commentary, it can't be used either, because anyone who goes to the source of the data might be tempted to read the commentary.

Perhaps we could have some clarification of the above rules?

Previously, Tim threatened to delete all references to self-reported cases of people who had gone to jail or suffered penalties because of refusals to comply with helmet laws. That dispute was settled by citing the WP rules that clearly state such reports are OK for this purpose.

It may be that the rules are not as strict as the above interpretation, based on Tim's comments. Another editor divided one number by another - that was also deleted by Tim as 'original research'. Is simple arithmetic based on numbers already reported in a WP article allowed or is it 'original research' that has to be deleted from WP?

Re the multiple edits, I raised the issue because of a comment on the the talk page (27 Feb) about the recent string of revisions happening too fast. Most editors make a few small changes to key points and then wait for a response by other users. That hasn't happened on the Bicycle Helmets page. Since Feb 23 - roughly the past 5 weeks, Tim has made 87% of the 71 edits to the page - that doesn't leave other editors a lot of time to respond or keep up. Dorre (talk) 00:48, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

These points are outside the scope of this board, whose purpose is to determine the reliability of the BHRF as a source. There are other boards to discuss what is/isn't original research, including graphs and calculations (WP:ORN), or whether including quotes supporting one side of the debate but not equally including quotes supporting the other side of the debate is neutral(WP:NPOVN). But as I've said before these issues cover nearly every policy Wikipedia has and a central discussion with a neutral chairperson is better than taking these different issues to one or more different boards.

As for multiple edits, there is no speed limits as far as I know on Wikipedia - the point appears to be that it didn't matter what speed you operated at before as the majority of edits were all made by aligned editors with only minor tweaks; yet now there are complaints that the editing is too fast because the edits are not aligned. The solution for this is exactly the same get someone from the dispute resolution project to oversee all the edits as a neutral. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 11:30, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

• It is long past time for this debate to move from RSN to some other dispute resolution forum. The purpose of this noticeboard is to get input from uninvolved, experienced editors on the reliability of sources. Instead, we have what is now over 17,000 words and 34 printed pages of back-and-forth argument and exposition over the course of two weeks, among involved editors, many with an admitted COI with respect to the source. That's not the function or purpose of RSN and hijacking this board to that end is an abuse of this board. It is time to shut this discussion down and take it elsewhere. Fladrif (talk) 15:17, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I agree completely: time to close this debate. Many thanks to the several uninvolved, experienced WP editors who provided valuable input and advice. Time to get the dispute resolution project involved, if possible. Tim C (talk) 07:04, 2 April 2013 (UTC)