[WikiEN-l] In the news: Leprosy

[stevertigo]

[[T:ITN]] : "The discovery of a 4,000-year-old skeleton showing the earliest
known evidence of *leprosy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprosy>* *(example
pictured)* in the Indian <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India>
state<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_and_territories_of_India>of
Rajasthan <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajasthan> is announced."

Interesting that an article about an ancient disease, just now on its way
out (763K new cases in 2002 \\ 400K in 2004) can make ITN, even with a
minimal-importance update. I think its great, especially when it links to a
great article. (Even linking to a bad article is great too, if it gets that
article attention and development).

My issues particular to the leprosy article (relevant, I think, as its a
front-page link. Will deal with there directly) are:
1) Ugly hatnote..
  "For the malady found in the Hebrew Bible, see
Tzaraath<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzaraath>.
For the
   album by the band Death, see Leprosy
(album)<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprosy_%28album%29>
."
...instead of a plain {{otheruses}} disambiguation note. Hatnotes to
hair/death/whatever "metal" bands on legitimate topic article, trivialize
wikipedia's coverage and are teh suck.

2) (Less important): The hatnote on [[leprosy]] references [[tzaraath]] as
"the malady found in the Hebrew Bible" rather than something more accurate
like "the original Hebrew Bible term for leprosy." The tzaraath article
claims that "some scholars suggest that any connection between tzaraath and
leprosy is altogether erroneous," though no actual citation or treatment of
this direct criticism is evident in the article aside from some necessary
treament of the conceptual variance in an old term. Thus the distinction is
terminological, not in the domain of medicine as implied by the term
"malady."

-Steven