Should we change our name: 'ME/CFS Skeptic'?

Yes, it needs to be plural if there are two of you.

 

Not necessarily if this is intended as a 'mouthpiece'.

As in:
'Practical Boat Owner'
or
'Elle'
or
'The Observer'.
or even
'The Vatican'
or
"Pseud's Corner'

There are lots of different ways in which the rules can get broken.

 

I haven’t read the thread but skimming I saw the suggestion “Skeptic with ME/CFS” and it seems to deal with the issue without being a huge change. It also highlights that just being a skeptic doesn’t protect you from getting ME/CFS.

 

page (sorry, can’t remember whom):
Skeptics with ME/CFS
?
Skeptic is a great word to have in the title. Your blogs are brilliant because they consistently challenge the status quo with brilliant analysis and explanations of biopsychosocial and biomedical research. I believe that mediocre research, and lauding of findings from questionable research, are a big impediment to making real progress in understanding the illness and finding effective treatments.

Whatever you do, please keep up with the blogs

 

I'd be interested to know the reason for the question. I definitely wouldn't change it, but @ME/CFS Skeptic might have reasons I haven't thought of.

 

Some posts on the Facebook post showing how people were confused:
e.g.
The word skeptic it makes it sound like you're skeptical about the disease. Also misunderstood it at first.
--
I don't have a fitting name for you.
But I have to admit that I didn't read your texts at first because of said confusion. I think it was a disclaimer by Tom Kindlon's ME CFS & related page: News, Research and more that cleared it up for me.
--
I initially misunderstood your stance due to the name. It's hard to see the tag line in the profile picture. A name change could be beneficial
--
I originally thought that this was a side with a psychosomatic view, so yes, I think a name change may be in order.
--
Definitely! I thought it meant you were a member of the BPS brigade!
--
Yes, a name change would be good!
the name is confusing for me as well
Maybe something with 'in depth' in it

 

Sorry not up to reading the thread so perhaps this been said already.

When i first came across you & yr blogs I steered clear because i thought you were someone who was skeptical OF ME/CFS. Then I kept seeing yoU & was curious. Soooo glad i investigated!

But it really depends on who you care about missing yr work the most (if any), because that ambiguity could be a positive thing... ie someone who is skeptical of ME i think wouldd be attracted dueto the name and have their preconceptions bout our illness challenged.

So I voted to keep it, but perhaps "A Skeptic with ME/CFS" might workto reduce ambiguity. No t as short & catchy though.

 

I’m like others here who posted that they thought the title meant you were skeptical of the biomedical basis of ME/CFS.

Once I read the content of the blog, I thought it was a suitable name, for reasons @Simon M summed up above. “Skeptic” is a perfect descriptive that would be hard to match with a substitute word.

My only thought is that something like “ME/CFS Research Skeptic” might make it a little bit more clear that you are skeptical of claims made in the field rather than the disease itself.

 

I have voted to change your name. I have never really understood your handle though I like it, it is good to be sceptical about everything especially in this field. I know you (or youse, if there are more than one of you) provide great analysis of the literature and are presuming you wish to get more people reading your outputs on social media. So my suggestion is ME/CFS Research Critical Review

 

would it suit all purposes to keep the name as is but add a question mark or two at the end

would a question mark reassure someone enough when avoiding the trash-talk altogether ?

maybe leaving one space between the last word and the mark, if easier to unscramble and separate each out

if two Q marks maybe add another space between, or not

some people like to add other characters like stars and exclamation marks - maybe denoting consternation or a grizzle or something, for me thats an eye-sore, also it would lower the professional tone, but a single question mark has enough ton, maybe two but not usually using 2 in the professions)

Maybe the Q mark takes the embuiguity away or makes the ambiguity go more ways than one so it might invite all sides of the divides further in, whether to agree or put you straight

some suspicious wanna-be behaviouralists might be running around grabbing for more grist to mill, and seeking swing-converts, thinking you need to be saved, but then i shrink back from this derision and audience manipulation

i like the skeptic spelling because it looks classic original Greek so more rooted, not the average sceptic claim - always reminded me of an aesklepius, aha looked that up its a hero medicine man, father of a panacea, aesop and aeschylus are the other ae names stuck out at me

within limits i think you can expect people to absorb words and gather flavour whether or not they recognise the word +/- know what it means, and how else learn new words, but there are limits for an easy read and i need more practise for that

i think ME/CF Skeptic has long said it all to suffice to date, question marks would maybe overcome prohibitive suspicion,

to me a Q mark on a name is in common use already understood to signify uncertainty which is a pertinent signifcance here and enhances the meaning of Skeptic - also anticipates and heralds the end of an uncertain tunnel, or does true skepticism survive a scientific proof ?

 

As I mention up thread, I do very much think it’s likely to be most common for people to assume the skepticism is of people with ME or of the possibility of the illness existing as a biomedical condition, rather than of the industry around it. As others above have said, due to the word order as is in the title. I thought that myself and didn’t wanna spend precious energy to confirm or deny that impression. I started reading the blog when it was endorsed by someone else with ME. So maybe you just need to recruit some extra people with ME to endorse and promote the project!

I think the replacement titles suggested above (though I have probably missed some) would likely significantly weaken your punch. Because these would present your content more similarly to other works in the area, and therefore you might get lost in the mix. David Tuller has Trial by Error, and without this story telling handle for his work it could well fall into the content abyss making it more difficult to find and quote.

If you did ever decide to go ahead and change the title, you’d have to spend a good bit of time considering a suitable alternative that might sum up your specific angle, as given the exact content the current one is hard to match.


If you did change it though I think your readership among people with ME/CFS and long Covid and their supporters has the potential to increase by quite a lot.

I would certainly avoid making a change to ‘skeptic with ME/CFS’ as centering your own illness experience would only make you appear as less reliable as a source in the eyes of the public. Thanks to decades of malicious propaganda against people with ME.

Maybe some kind of a sub heading as people suggest could work…

 

This seems a good simple suggestion that removes the ambiguity while keeping a short and snappy title.

And I’ve Struggled to come up with anything better that removes the ambiguity and is also catchy.

added:
“ME/CFS research under the microscope”
might be more accessible, but lacks bite.

 

This still contains an ambiguity, does it mean ‘a skeptical analysis of current research’ or does it mean ‘skepticism that scientific research can tell us anything about ME/CFS and that we need another means of insight’ in the sense that Freud could have been described as ‘a science skeptic’?

Indeed people like Paul Garner are essentially pulling ‘a Freud’ elevating their direct personal or clinical experience over objective scientific methodology.

 

New year, new blog title?…

For me - absolutely you should change the name, and I’m excited you’ve opened up this conversation.

The current name lands with a relatively small number of thoughtful, curious people who are focused enough on ME that we have taken the time to get to know your ideas, and we are all big fans of yours already. We will follow you no matter what you call yourselves.

Your work is too important to be known only to a few. For me, you should have a name which sounds more like a blog/magazine and less like an individual. Although a singular noun in a publication title can represent all readers or writers (The Observer etc), firstly that’s usually prefaced with the definite article, and secondly although permissible, it’s not the most obvious meaning, especially on social media.

I also think the current title is unnecessarily argumentative. ME research is remarkably poor - whether by BPSers or by too many of those doing biomedical investigation - and is very much in need of sceptical review. But for me the current name blunts the critique by implying you may be more sceptical than would be implied by other words implying critical analysis - perhaps unduly sceptical. You are not sceptical for the fun of it; you’re sceptical because scepticism is the correct attitude to evaluating scientific research.

For me you should call yourselves something which much more readily communicates to casual readers what you are about: e.g. drawing on your subtitle, ME/CFS Research Critiques (or Analysis/ Analyses). You’ve got a strong body of work behind you which justifies such a weighty name.

Whatever you decide to call yourselves, thank you for everything you do.

 

I also think you should change it.
If you do a search on 'another word for sceptic' it really shows how people might misunderstand.......
eg

eta: a modern term that you could use is 'Deep dive' but not sure how to put it as a name.
eta 2: AI came up with The ME/CFS Investigator, ME/CFS Truth Seeker,ME/CFS Myth Buster, ME/CFS Evidence Explorer, ME/CFS Research Reviewer,ME/CFS Research Watchdog,The ME/CFS Examiner,ME/CFS Research Scrutiny,Challenging ME/CFS Studies, The ME/CFS Research Dissector

 

How many of those words really equate to sceptic, though? I mean to a human being, not a computer.

Not that many.

I don't think changing the name would encourage anyone with different views to accept them or even carry on reading about them. They'd see immediately that the science under the spotlight is theirs, and most people are far too lazy to use an alternative viewpoint to reassess their own argument.

Exactly so, and a good reason to keep it. There's no point wrapping it up; the authors have a straightforward and occasionally bracing approach and might as well say so on the label.

I'm not sure we tell people to eff off nearly as often as they deserve, to be honest.

 

I hadn't been aware that you had a blog but now that I've seen it, I've voted to change the name because it would have put me off - I wouldn't have thought too hard about it and would have assumed that you had a sort of blanket cynicism about everything or didn't believe ME/CFS was real.

I wish I could think of a better name, though!

'ME/CFS Research Review'?

 

Am thinking of changing my vote from "change" to "keep" after reading the comments. I found the name confusing when I first saw it but to be honest that's what attracted me. I do like "Skeptic with ME" though so will leave my vote as it is.