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A dispute exists regarding the following text:
It is not uncommon for profiles in media reports to confuse the present incarnation [of Delmonico's] for the original; for instance Time Out New York magazine erroneously reported that it opened in 1831, [1] and ABC News reported that Lobster a la Newberg was invented at the South Williams location when it fact it was invented uptown. [2]
It is agreed that the facts cited are indeed wrong. The disagreement centers around whether citing them as such to substantiate the claim that "it is not uncommon for profiles in media reports to confuse the present incarnation [of Delmonico's] for the original" constitutes synthesis/original research. Sylvain1972 ( talk) 19:04, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Responding to a note by the other party in WikiProject Food and Drink: While Sylvain1972 is correct, and could probably say that about a lot of other revived restaurants, I think policy plainly requires that a reliable source make this statement and not a Wikipedia editor. The "position" he/she is advancing is that reviewers often are wrong on a key fact concerning this restaurant. That is undoubtedly true, but the policy does not say "advance a wrong position." Truth and falsity are frequently in dispute. I think it is an open-and-shut case of synthesis. I've removed the passage, but request that other editors keep an eye on this article and this passage. -- JohnnyB256 ( talk) 22:15, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Editors should not make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to reach conclusion C. This would be a synthesis of published material that advances a new position, and that constitutes original research.[7] "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published the same argument in relation to the topic of the article.
The cheese in a cheeseburger substantially changes its nutritional value. For example, in comparison to their standard hamburger, which only differs by the slice of cheese, a McDonald's cheeseburger has 20% more calories, 33% more fat and 25% more protein. [3] Other types of cheese would have varying effects, depending on their nutritional content.
This paragraph is from the lead of the cheeseburger article. I removed this passage as I believe it to be a violation of WP:Synth because it takes facts about a McDonald's cheeseburger and hamburger and makes a comparative analysis of the nutritional makeup of the two, which I contend is synthesized original research.
NJGW contends that is simple calculations and thus is exempt from the original research guidelines.
I would like some comments from independent contributors on the matter. -- Jeremy ( blah blah) 08:01, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
For any who care, below is the new paragraph:
The cheese in a cheeseburger substantially changes its nutritional value. For example, an ounce of low cholesterol American cheese [4] will add to large prepared hamburger [5] almost 25% more calories, about 45% more fat and over 25% more protein. Other types of cheese would have varying effects, depending on their nutritional content.
As far as I can see, it still presents problems of OR/SYN. Please discuss.—
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Contribs 19:39, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
For Weird Al's lastest song, "Skipper Dan" (which is currently listed at Internet Leaks in lieu of a full article due to lack of coverage), there's an issue in OR-ish nature. The song's lyrics, which tell of a man in charge of a jungle cruise ride, do not cite the location, though it mentions "Adventureland" and uses direct quotes from Disneyland's Jungle Cruise. The associated video for the song asserts this further; the person is seen living near the HOllywood sign, and guests on the ride are clearly wearing mouse ears, though again, no specific mention of Disneyland is named. I believe that presuming that the ride is the Jungle Cruise line at Disneyland is original research barring any source that suggests it is only that, as because plenty of other theme parks have similar rides, and such we cannot eliminate all others by process of elimination. Others suggest it's the case that it's the only obvious solution given all of the above. Now, I've been watching for sources, and plenty of blogs and sites dedicated to Disneyland state this, and certainly if a reliable source states this, then, no further questions, but until then, this is the type of SYN that we need to avoid, I believe. (It may be that I've never been to Disneyland and thus the "this is exactly how it happens" approach others suggest doesn't ring any bells with me, but I think that's a stronger point that it's not patently obvious and thus SYN.)-- MASEM ( t) 21:30, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Fields of science looks like entirely OR. Everything under the sun seems to be a field of science. And now it's being use to structure Science and the Bible, which although it has references still has a lot of OR. Dougweller ( talk) 14:25, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Question here is whether his religion is adequately sourced or is synthesis, with regard to the three sources given as sources in the second paragraph of the article, where he is referred to as "Jewish" and cites three sources. None of the three sources explicitly state his religion, and that is contradicted by a Q&A with Fuld cited in the "Personal" section, which more accurately refers to him as "half-Jewish." -- JohnnyB256 ( talk) 16:48, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Admin User:Athaenara suggested I post an inquiry here:
There has been an on-going content dispute at Criticism of the Council on American-Islamic Relations over original research, BLP violations, plagiarism, and other issues.
However, my issue revolves around original research.
User:PelleSmith reverted an edit I made claiming it was original research. User:PelleSmith and User:Commodore Sloat have been edit-warring out all my additions following a failed AFD started by Pelle.
Here is a link to the beginning dispute: Identified plagiarism.. The paragraph crafted by Pelle and Sloat was practically copy and paste from the original source. I rewrote the paragraph to better represent the source, while paraphrasing and attributing quotes accurately. Then I added a corroborating source from the SFgate to affirm what is being said. I also copy edited because the original draft linked the same source 2 or 3 times. Pelle's reversion also included minor grammar and syntax fixes in other paragraphs.
For comparison of the drafts, I summarized the issues and posted the paragraphs in a sandbox. Drafts can also be found in the talk discussion but they are accompanied by intense arguments and name-calling. This just seemed easier for the lazy: User:Wikifan12345/cair dispute
I tried other dispute resolutions such as collaborative discussions and 3OO, but the edit-warring continued and I probably won't edit the article again till there is a mutual understanding or admin intervention. Thanks. Wikifan12345 ( talk) 04:45, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
This might be more of a WP:NOTE or WP:RS issue than a WP:NOR issue but I wonder if using primary sources of criticism is in line with our various editing policies and conventions at all, especially if the specific criticisms sourced to primary sources have not been mentioned in secondary or tertiary sources. How do we decide they are notable enough if they come from a primary source? Does the publication itself establish notability (if lets say it is an editorial in the NYT), if so what about self-published sources? One might contend that unless a critic is made notable by mention in reliable secondary or tertiary sources as a critic of ... their criticisms should not be included. Perhaps it is not enough either that the critic shares the critical perspective generally mentioned in such sources. Hundreds or thousands of people might share those perspectives, but what makes them notable? Or maybe sharing a critical perspective that is notable and publishing in a reliable venue is enough? I think problems arise relating to "criticism" sections and articles because we do not have policies that are clear enough dealing directly with criticism. Instead we rely on related policies like WP:BLP, WP:NOR, WP:RS, etc. I do note that we have an essay on the topic, WP:CRIT. Please move this to a more appropriate space if it does not belong here. PelleSmith ( talk) 12:28, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Maybe this should go on the policy talk page, but I'll start here. Take this, for instance File:Aryavarta wiki.jpg which I've just found, although there are many other examples. It's clearly OR, why do we all these to be used? Dougweller ( talk) 16:39, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
I have been thinking long and hard about this issue with regards to maps illustrating the spread of swine flu (but my thinking might be useful elsewhere). I think there are three significant issues that can cause a map to violate wikipedia's principles. Firstly if we calculate our own data (even if the calculations are routine) the variable displayed needs to be notable. Some variables may not give meaningful information or can even be positively misleading. Secondly if there is any doubt that the calculation of the variable may have significant biases in it then there should be a source that performs the same calculations and displays the numbers for comparison in some form (say a table). Otherwise we are essentially choosing a methodology in not making an attempt to correct for these biases. Thirdly if there are significant concerns that the display in map form would be misleading then we should have a source which displays the variable in map form (where the map has the same projection properties).
As examples (made up) of problematic maps showing each of these three problems consider:
1) A map displaying harvested carrots in kilograms per homicide. Both data sets are available and the calculation is trivial but the map is not notable. For a less obvious example consider reported incidents of domestic violence. The makers of the British crime survey view police recorded crime as almost useless with regards to measuring domestic violence (as reporting procedures and budgets are always changing). The figure is accurate as a reported figure but the comparison of these figures is not notable (even if the figures themselves are). Placing figures such as this in a table will mislead and gives the comparison a status it does not deserve.
2) A map that displays government estimates of cohabiting gay couples. Here many countries may erroneously report no gay couples cohabit. The data may be available but the biases introduced need to be dealt with by social scientists not wikipedians (violates NOR). When the experts are happy with the quality of the data we can then display it in a more conveniant form. If they have published comparisons of the data but are unhappy with its potential biases then their concerns should be expressed alongside the map.
3) A map that displays population by country. We may have accurate data here and the figures are certainly notable but larger countries will appear to have higher population density because there is no correction for the area of the country (violates NPOV). Other problems can be caused by using map projections that distort areas.
Of course the data on which any calculations are based must be adequately sourced and those calculations must be trivial to perform. The first two points apply to tables as well in my opinion.
I hope my thoughts are helpful. Barnaby dawson ( talk) 20:39, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I made a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 about UK Privy Council Orders. I did not get everything I asked for but I did get a list of Privy Council Orders since 29 July 1994 in csv format.
I did not create the list it was created by the Privy Council Office but is essentially factual in nature.
Would it be OK to add this list to Wikipedia?
It would in principle be similar to this list List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 2008 that is already on Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by John Cross ( talk • contribs) 17:07, 18 July 2009
Thus the problem boils down to this. Can we consider information released under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as reliably published? I plead complete ignorance about the matter. If no other use (such as supporting some claim) apart from a list article is utilized then I see no problem nor do I imagine a situation where the said information would be challenged.-- LexCorp ( talk) 16:41, 18 July 2009 (UTC)Our policy: Primary sources that have been reliably published (for example, by a university press or mainstream newspaper) may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.
Hello all. I'm having a bit of a problem with matters relating to original research at Talk:British_Isles#References. The article contains a statement that certain publishers have replaced the term "British Isles" with other terms. (Background: "British Isles" is a contentious term for some Irish folks). Yet, the sources put forward in the article to verify that claim are merely front covers of atlases. Furthermore, when I did some Googling to show that these publishers still use the term, I was then told that my Googling constituted "original research". Input would be appreciated.... The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 15:41, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
The content of the article doesn't concern me. However the article-title must remain, at the very least for historic usage reasons. GoodDay ( talk) 16:28, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I noted This Entry on my watchlist. I double checked and I think the IP has a point. I suspect that the IP is a newbie and would ideally liked to have tagged the section. I would also like to know what would be the most appropriate Boilerplate/action (Sorry, this excludes reworking the references as this is not a core interest of mine). Þjóðólfr ( talk) 09:17, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
In the article school corporal punishment I added [7] a direct quote from the position paper of the Society for Adolescent Medicine. Another user affixed [8] this with a criticism of the paper's findings.
Is the second edit OR? I mean, it does quote the original source for some of its assertions, but wouldn't this kind of criticism require a specific source? Gabbe ( talk) 09:26, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
is either WP:OR or WP:SYN and needs to be substantiated by a source. -- LexCorp ( talk) 11:20, 21 July 2009 (UTC)However, the paper starts off by drawing a far wider definition for "corporal punishment" than is usually meant by the phrase in an educational context:
is mostly WP:Synthesis that cast doubts on the conclusions or applicability of the paper in the subject at hand. For all we know the authors of the paper answer all these objections in the paper or at the time of making the conclusion limit its appropriateness to a narrower set that fall into school corporal punishment. Either way it is not Wikipedia editors who should be challenging how a paper is written, nor is methodology or conclusions. That is the job of other secondary sources.-- LexCorp ( talk) 11:20, 21 July 2009 (UTC)Nearly all of those things, other than moderate spanking and paddling, have nothing to do with what U.S. educators are talking about when they refer to corporal punishment in schools, and many of them would clearly constitute unlawful assault whether or not corporal punishment proper was permitted. Also, the paper cites many research studies which in fact relate not to school corporal punishment at all but to corporal punishment in the home by parents, a quite different subject. Furthermore, cases mentioned are of paddling in the classroom, whereas most school corporal punishment in the U.S. nowadays takes place privately in the office.
For reference, the paper is available in toto here. Gabbe ( talk) 11:43, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
The Society for Adolescent Medicine's Ad Hoc Corporal Punishment Committee and the explanatory note at the top of School corporal punishment are two different issues. The former issue has now been dealt with by deleting the paragraph in question (because not WP:RS on this issue) and replacing it with a more WP:RS representative of the same point of view. As for the explanatory note at the top of the article, I believe that it does in fact represent what WP:RS on this subject would assume to be the proper definition, and I have now added WP:RS citations to it to that effect. Alarics ( talk) 20:38, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
I am conducting a straw poll on Talk:British Isles as this is the only way to get past the ridiculous deadlock there.
The problem paragraph, which I am repeating here so everyone interested can easily read it, is: A number of international publications have abandoned the term...Publishers of road atlases such as Michelin, [6] [7] SK Baker, [8] Hallwag, [9] Philip's, [10] [11] Reader's Digest [12] and The Automobile Association (AA) [13] [14] have replaced British Isles with Great Britain and Ireland or Britain and Ireland in their recent maps.
This is pure original research. The references are links to front pages of atlases. They are not references to support the claim that these publishers "have replaced British Isles with Great Britain and Ireland or Britain and Ireland in their recent maps". This is not only original research, it's wrong. Let's pick Philips. [9] The map is titled "Philip's Britain and Ireland Reference Map". Does this mean they have dropped the term? No. Further down the same page in the map description we see a reference to "British Isles". Same goes for the Rail Atlas [10].
An attempt to remove this information was met with the response "don't remove others' hard work".
The straw poll is here [11]. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 21:11, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
I would remind everyone that I have never ever made any claim other than the Bath Chronicle states "The Michelin Guide to the British Isles was published in 1911 and was relaunched as the current Great Britain and Ireland Guide in 1974" I am told regarding this verbatim use of a (secondary? source), This is a bit of a misrepresentation of the truth. Yet the Primary Source states. .."The first Michelin Guide to the British Isles (including Ireland) is published and ran for 5 editions including 1912... The current Great Britain & Ireland Guide was re-launched and has been published continuously ever since."... Wots going on ere then? Þjóðólfr ( talk) 13:55, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
Please don't carry your naming dispute over here. The issue in this section is specifically Red Hat's question re: "A number of international publications have abandoned the term ...". The only thing under discussion on this noticeboard is whether claims like that one are OR or not. -- Fullstop ( talk) 16:24, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
I am involved in a debate regarding: Catholicism and Freemasonry#Separation of church and state. We could use some third party involvement to break a stalemate. My contention is that the section under dispute relies on very outdated Catholic sources (such as the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia) to discuss this issue. More to the point, it juxtaposes these outdated sources against modern Masonic statements, as if they are connected. I think this is a WP:SYN violation... my opponent disagrees. Please read the section, the arguments on the talk page at Talk:Catholicism and Freemasonry#more on Church and State, and comment at the RFC. Thanks. Blueboar ( talk) 16:44, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
Taylor Karras ( talk · contribs) recently added the following sentence to the article Boy-Scoutz n the Hood: "The episode title is a play of the film title Boyz n the Hood." He did not provide a source to back it up so I removed it as original research. However, he then brought up some good points on my talk page, [13], that made me change my mind. So my question is, is that line really original research, or is it okay to use it in the article without citing a reliable source? Thanks, The leftorium 10:12, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
Can I get some advice on this article? See Talk:Erdős–Bacon_number#Original_research and my talk page
I removed all the examples given, one at a time, as they appeared to fail WP:NOR. The Erdos-Bacon numbers listed were calculated from supposed Erdos and Bacon numbers; in most cases, the original Erdos and Bacon numbers were not previously published, but were calculated by editors using data from IMDb, or other cast listings, or from academic papers.
None of the resulting Erdos-Bacon numbers were published in reliable sources. The article was a long list of examples of Erdos-Bacon numbers which in no way reflected the coverage of this concept in real-world sources, so breached WP:NPOV.
I took some care to review and remove these individually, but Ward3001 has restored them all without reviewing them, and isn't up for much discussion of the policies. Thanks in advance for any input. -- hippo43 ( talk) 01:03, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
I've given my 2¢ over on the talk page, I'm not convinced that a calculation is OR. Irbisgreif ( talk) 02:40, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
Leaving aside whether a list of previously unpublished Erdos-Bacon numbers is notable, my concern is that the majority of this article is based on a number of assumptions which are at best questionable, or for which there is not currently consensus:
This last point strikes me as blatant
synthesis - as the Erdos-Bacon numbers are not published anywhere, they seem to be a clear "unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material".
Moreover, I can't see that a list of previously unpublished Erdos-Bacon numbers reflects coverage in published reliable sources, per WP:NPOV. Likewise, as far as I can tell, none of these Erdos-Bacon numbers are verifiable, per WP:V ("the source cited must unambiguously support the information as it is presented in the article".)
Am I missing a compelling reason to leave this stuff in? --
hippo43 (
talk) 05:17, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
There are two factors to consider ... I would agree that simply adding up two numbers is not OR ... however (and this part is the key for me), for us to perform this calculation on Wikipedia those numbers must come from reliable, verifiable sources. In the case of Erdos-Bacon numbers it is necessary that both the Bacon and Erdos numbers are taken from reliable secondary sources. I do not see any evidence that this is the case with the examples that were removed by Hippo. Blueboar ( talk) 12:09, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
I think Hippo43 made a good summary of the necessary elements above.
I don't personally have experience with assessing the reliability of IMDB, but I figure this link is a good start toward establishing that. Additionally, having good information (where it exists) is different from being comprehensive—I don't know the degree to which IMDB has gaps in coverage. With that said, I think that we would need to have some assurance that the data is reasonably good and reasonably complete in order to use it as a source for the input information to the Bacon number calculator. (Without that assurance, it's as if we, the editors, are vouching for its completeness—IMDB explicitly does not vouch for its own accuracy, so we need another way to meet the burden of verifiability.)
The Oracle of Bacon seems to be the one doing the calculation, and would seem on its face to be acceptably reliable. So, I would think that we should cite the Oracle (source of the calculation) and IMDB (source of the input data) when publishing a Bacon number. (If it was obtained from another source, then cite that instead, but don't attempt to duplicate the Oracle's calculation—synthesis or not—because it's probably impractical to assert that in one's capacity a Wikipedia editor, one is in a position to be as thorough as the Oracle claims to be.)
There's also the issue of methodology. This isn't just calculating a standard statistic for which there is no dispute on how to make the calculation—there seems to be debate on which credits to include. That obviously complicates the matter of calculating the numbers. For example, some information can be found here regarding the reliability of certain methods of finding Erdős numbers. There's also a distinction between E#s of the 1st and 2nd kinds ( see here). I'm not clear on the calculation method that's been used for Erdős numbers in this article: is it what was described at the Oakland University Erdős number project, using their datasets? Is it using MathSciNet?
If we assume that MathSciNet and/or Oakland's datasets are comprehensive and reliable, it would still be necessary to cite them (as data and calculator, as appropriate).
Within the article, there should be a reference to some reliable source describing the particular implementation of the E-B# algorithm, in addition to the existing sources regarding notability. There should also be a statement that a valid methodology is (for example) IMDB→Oracle+MathSciNet.
I also have to disagree with the way that some of these were cited—namely by citing journal articles themselves. Without even considering the possibility of people with the same name throwing things off, all that's showing is that the E-B# ≤ x, rather than demonstrating with certainty that the number is x. (On the other hand, I think I see what was done: MathSciNet was used, and those were the results, but there was no way to directly cite MathSciNet's output, so the decision was made to cite the articles themselves.) Something needs to be done to clarify whether this is intended as a minimal number, or just an upper bound.
Finally, I'm a little concerned about the purpose of the list: what's the basis for inclusion? TheFeds 19:22, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
The real problem is that this is the wrong noticeboard. This way of combining Erdős number and Bacon number is good for a few laughs, but that's it. The huge number of individual references for either someone's Erdős number or someon's Bacon number is obscuring the fact that these numbers were only discussed in blogs and a very small number of newspaper articles that referred to these blogs. This is much clearer in the version without the borderline orginal research, which has only 5 references: 3 to blogs, a defunct one to the Daily Telegraph (updated link: [14]) and one to a BBC programme about six degrees of separation. [15]
Since there is no real information out there to base a thorough discussion on, Wikipedians have started making up their own information. Also, the references that I have seen for actors' Erdős numbers were all improper original research because There is no information to support the contention that the actor is the same person as the person of the same name, or with the actor's birth name, who wrote the paper. Even within mathematics, the MathSciNet database is, and has to be, very careful because there are many cases of different people with the same name. But for more obscure people, which probably includes many immediate collaborators of actors, errors are less likely to be found and corrected.
The right way to treat this topic is with at most a paragraph in each of the Erdős number and Six degrees of separation articles, like almost everybody else does. Or perhaps add a very short section about it to collaboration distance (which currently doesn't mention it, which is also fine), as a redirect target, and restrict mentioning it in the other two serious topics to a half-sentence or the See also section. Hans Adler 13:11, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
An editor added a section to Examination of Apollo Moon photographs based on versions of a NASA photo that were made available at a website. The WayBack website shows that different versions were uploaded over the years - no dispute about that. However the editor interprets this as NASA "doctoring" the photo. An outside editor gave a third opinion, and he agreed that the section should be removed. The editor refuses to accept this. In fact, the editor states that he is the primary source for it. Please read the comments on the talk page. Bubba73 (talk), 20:42, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
I have a problem, I am working on an article about a railroad bridge that no longer exists, and hasnt since the 1960s. Even though Wikimapia has coordinates for the bridge I can not find any source that shows those are the correct coordinates (though they are obviously very close if not correct). Now, I assume I dont need a source for something like coordinates, but my question is this- is it possible to state in the article that the bridge went from "x street across the river to y island" and use a map from the period in which the bridge existed as a source. Since there simply does not exist (at least not online) ANY source stating that the location on either side and I have looked at every hit from a search on Google and Google Books. Would it be "Original Research" to use a map in this instance. Camelbinky ( talk) 21:41, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
The topic area is afflicted with source selection and misuse problems. I am attempting to help mediate the dispute. The current phase of mediation is focused on pointing serious problems and soliciting outside input. I have invited some seasoned uninvolved editors to participate in the editorial process, hoping it will steer things back on track. However, further specialized outside input would be thankfully appreciated. If some regulars from this noticeboard could review the main Falun Gong articles for improper synthesis, source misuse, and original research, it would be very helpful. Correcting the problems and/or a report of the issues at the main article talk page are particularly desirable. Thank you! -- Vassyana ( talk) 05:11, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
There are some issues in verifying the claims on this article. Some assistance in getting it up in quality would be appreciated. Irbisgreif ( talk) 15:46, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
Please see File:Av wiki.jpg. Its creator, RussellSpence ( talk · contribs), is adding it to various articles with an edit summary stating "This is based on latest human migration data and genetics of SE Asia, sourced from Wikipedia itself. This is not fringe theory, but accepted theory,discussed & settled in Wikipedia.". What do we do about such an image? I'll revert him pointing out we don't use Wikipedia as a source, but that still leaves the image and problems if he replaces it. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 17:15, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
The map matches what is written in the articles. We hardly have any evidence of the concept of Aryans in our literature, except for maybe some fleeting glance, whereas the literature of Ancient Persia & SE Asia is replete with all the detailed Aryan concepts. In the last couple of years, lot of misconceptions have been cleared by researchers in UK, USA, and Japan regarding the IVC culture and its continuity to present times, which is quite remarkable, as it proves any Aryan migration theory was wrong and posits the Persian & SE Asian population to be Aryans themselves. Fortunately, one can read most of these updates here in Wikipedia itself, which is good. I guess Dougweller should update with the latest through a simple Google search on work done by University of Cambridge etc. And I guess we are making Wikipedia as a reliable one-stop source of information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RussellSpence ( talk • contribs)
You have to read the article "what is written" and the corresponding map. What for did you study in Yale? Just passed exams in low ranks? This Hindutva political propaganda is quite well known and is not 4 years late as you say. Its some 70-80 years old and still exists in some form or the other. This has nothing to do about any notorious "IndigenousAryans" as User:Fullstop writes. If you read the articles carefully with open eye you will see references there itself - about human migration and gentics - scientific work done in University of Cambridge and some from SE Asia with many names; not pseudo-fringe theory. Now can you check those references? Users cannot pull references for your ignorance. You are not the owner of Wikipedia to guide or scuttle any discussion. Or are you assuming this role? In fact this Camelbinky and Blueboar are reading it quite well in an academic way. Fullstop is again ignorant unaware probably just spending wasted time in Wikipedia. Most users here I can see has nothing to do with human genetics or human migration. They are pseudo-readers of philosophical fringe theories. Be scientific and read articles in detail. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RussellSpence ( talk • contribs) 14:05, 26 July 2009
Dougweller...it has nothing to do with references. All references are there in Wiki and internet as such. The map is depicting wht is already written in Wiki. As I said users dont need to pull references to prove it to you. Its a picture accompanying what is written in text in the concerned article. Wherever the picture is placed there is relevant supporting article text. Is that now clear? I am not insulting you, but your area of interest probably does not lie in this domain and you are just policing it without knowing anything about anything. Wiki policing and Wiki contributing are different things. Try to understand this simple difference. No one can fool around in Wikipedia. Everyone knows this since Wiki was born.
the image is a home-grown (idiosyncratic) illustration of the general Out of India scenario, adorned with a few home-grown (idiosyncratic) comments and clip art. A scenario that is thoroughly debunked as pseudoscientific propaganda in the dedicated article, but which is neverthless notable enough to at least be discussed in a dedicated article.
If the image was unambiguous about whose scenario it illustrates, e.g. "illustration of the Out of India scenario acccording to K. Elst (1999)", it could obviously be used to illustrate the Out of India article. As it stands, it is unencyclopedic as just some guy's attempt to draw a map about his personal understanding of the topic. The image was correctly deleted as unreferenced and unencylopedic. If the image was re-uploaded as just the map with the arrows, leaving out the naive commentary and the cheesy clip art, we could with some charity accept it as a bona fide illustration of Elst (1999) and include it in the Out of India article. As long as this editors editor insist on uploading the map "watermarked" with text making wildly inaccurate claims, there is no way this image can be put to any encyclopedic use. -- dab (𒁳) 14:16, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
I would like to find out if direct quotes can ever be original research. I can understand that someone can be quoted out of context, or that an editor can string together a series of quotes in such a way as to advocate a certain point of view. But is a direct quote from a reliable source ever in itself original research. Wapondaponda ( talk) 13:23, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
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Here are some statements and quotes that I used in the article Genetic history of Europe. They have been dismissed as original research, not neutral and unreliable by other editors on the page. statement in article
Footnotes and quotations to support this statement include:
Wapondaponda ( talk) 17:48, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
Wapondaponda ( talk) 15:38, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
Consequently, the Berbers would be improperly labeled as Sub-Saharan Africa because they currently are Saharan and super-Saharan, and from a recent ancestry perspective, their genetic markers identify them as being on paleo N. African ancestry. There are even recent papers suggesting backflow from Europe to N. Africa. Consequently the E1b1b1b migration as most recently presented in the literature is parsimonious with much older studies. These papers indicate the contribution of European markers to the N. Africans that can be dated to the Last Glacial Maximum thereofore it would have been difficult for that contribution to have occurred if this people were not in the Strait of Gibralter region and loosely stayed in that region for a duration of time.
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I will try to summarize the dispute to enable editors who are not specifically familiar with the dispute to have a better understanding. The locus of this dispute concerns a specific genetic marker. This genetic marker, called E3b, occurred as a mutation on a man living in Eastern Sub-Saharan Africa, about 22,000 years . All the descendants of this man carry this genetic marker. From East Africa, some descendants of this man stayed put, others descendants migrated south reaching south Africa and others migrated North. Our dispute concerns those who migrated Northwards. Descendants of this man migrated North along the Nile river reaching the Sudan/Egypt region by 17,000 years ago. By 13,000, migrants carried the E3b marker from Egypt into the Middle East. Between 13,000 years ago and 4,000 years ago migrants carried this lineage from the Middle East into Europe. Simplified Timeline
So depending on the timeline one chooses, one could refer to this genetic marker as Sub-Saharan, North African, Middle Eastern and European. If one takes a more comprehensive view, one could consider the marker Sub-Saharan. If one looks at more recent periods, it could be considered North African, Middle Eastern or even European. The dispute concerns when to start the clock. I have proposed to start the clock with the emergence of this marker in Sub-Saharan Africa. My opponents in this dispute prefer to start the clock when this marker is in North Africa and Middle East and would like to ignore periods before. Within the scientific community there is no set standard, some publications use the macro or comprehensive view referring to it as African or Sub-Saharan, and others use the micro views referring to the marker as having North African or Middle Eastern origins. This image from Semino et al 2004 illustrates the different subclades that appeared at different times. Fig A shows a comprehensive view of the E lineage, whereas figures B to G represent specific subclades of E that appeared at different times. Wapondaponda ( talk) 18:04, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
I was directed here when I asked a question about OR on the project talk page (original text: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia_talk:No_original_research&action=edit§ion=9) An example would be my edit to the Metal Slug 2 page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Metal_Slug_2&oldid=270194095) where I added factual trivia, but was later removed. The question still stands; should I back stuff like this up everytime with a screenshot, as I am assuming just linking to some fansite that states the same thing without evidence is not a valid source, even if many people who have played the game know it? Aren't trivia sections afterall directed mostly to people who are interested in the subject and not to just random passbyers who happen to read the article, and thus delete the sections because they have no idea that it's really true? Thank you. -- 80.223.127.229 ( talk) 04:10, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
User: Muntuwandi continues Relentlessly to add this information to the Genetic history Of Europe article were able to detect low levels of West African admixture in Europe in regions where Haplogroup E was present. ref group=""> Halder et al state. "We observed patterns of apportionment similar The source does not say where Haplogroup E was present. and he also continuously adds this low levels of African admixture (2.8–10.8%) mirroring the distribution of Y E3b haplogroups among various Eurasian populations.</ref>Auton et al detected a South-to-North cline of West African haplotypes in Europe with peak frequencies in Iberia. The authors suggest that this cline is indicative of gene flow directly from West Africa and not necessarily from North Africa ref group=""> Auton et al state."The article does not state of Y E3b haplogroups among various Eurasian populations. This is OR at its finest. This user continually adds this Original research to that article as can be seen below.
The Count of Monte Cristo. ( talk) 03:38, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
It was suggested ( here, diff to article content rv) that stating in article whether a cited source discusses an issue in detail or in passing is OR. In this case several sources are cited, mentioning the Suwałki Agreement in a passing sentence or two, that state A, and a detailed chapter in a book dedicated to the Agreement states B. I believe that it is important (and not OR in any way) to clarify this difference in the article, so that the numerical weight of sources that state A does not outweigh a work that is dedicated to the issue and concludes B. If the quality of reference is not discussed, the reader may be misled to thinking that "most scholars who studied the issue in detail think A" while in fact "authors who briefly looked at the issue think A but an expert who studied the issue and dedicated a book chapter to it thinks B". Another editor disagrees, and prefers a version that states, roughly "Numerous sources state A, historian X states B" without any mention that out of all those sources, only historian X has dedicated more then a sentence or two (an entire chapter...) to that issue. I further think that such a version removing this clarifications is misleading the reader and thus a form of weaseling. Comments appreciated, -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:06, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Actually, the whole idea that "an opinion of a scholar who has dedicated a book chapter to the subject should be given more weight then an opinion of a scholar who has dedicated a sentence to it" ( [23]) seems to be extremely dangerous if used anywhere else... For, well, the points of view are not equal in amounts of text that can be written in support of them. The "simple", "obvious", "default" position is likely to be supported by much shorter explanations than "complex" position (unless there is a need to answer some counterarguments). For example, the "simple" position that some perpetuum mobile doesn't work can be supported by one sentence - "If it would work, it would violate the first law of thermodynamics." - there isn't much else worth saying. However, the "complex" position that it does work can be supported by a whole book (explaining how a vast conspiracy has fabricated the evidence in favor of the first law of thermodynamics etc.) - and all that without making it the majority position. Of course, majority position can also be "complex", but then we would be likely to have some additional evidence and not just the amount of text written in support of it... -- Martynas Patasius ( talk) 19:02, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
Hi, I would like more input on whether or not this page is considered original research. Thanks, Triplestop x3 03:25, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
The way the section at WP:NOR now reads, if an "original research" violation occurs with regard to the construction of an illustrative image, the suggested fix to the offense is to take the image to ifd. Here's the problem. A knowledgeable Wikipedian who constructs an image is more likely to grant it to public domain or register it under a Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license on Commons. And any deletion discussion on Commons is not going to care if the image is original research.
Commons is not Wikipedia, and files uploaded here do not necessarily need to comply with the Neutral point of view and No original research requirements imposed by many of the Wikipedia sites.
Now walk through this with me. Say I am the creator of this image on Flickr. (Of course, I'm not -- just sayin for the purpose of this hypothetical that I am.) And let's say in addition that each of the images I made this composite out of are free use. And I upload it to Commons, using a license that in turn is completely free use.
Then someone uses it on some Wikipedia page, in a context where the image's aspects of "original imagery" would not be appropriate. How in the world would the following suggestion within the Original Images guideline "Any image that is found to have manipulation that materially affects its encyclopedic value should be posted to Wikipedia:Files for deletion" be of any help in this instance? In other words, should an original images be held to convey an editorial opinion inappropriate to the context in which it is used on Wikipedia, wouldn't simply not using the image be the accepted guideline? -- with such unused images deleted if they are orphaned on Wikipedia (or else simply not used on Wikipedia, in the case of images that happen to be hosted on Commons)?
Please do chime in if you've some suggestion, say, to supplement the WP:OI guideline to account for the scenario I present -- or else defend the way the section is worded now -- or whatever else you'd like to address (if anything). ↜Just M E here , now 18:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Note that what follows is what is hoped is an entirely neutrally worded notice per the guidelines at WP:CANVASSING. Hey, people, there is an actual image that happens to be on Commons right now that has, in fact, been described by some as presenting an unacceptable level of original research through its composition. This image has been nominated for deletion from Commons, with its deletion discussion here -- to which any interested editors are invited to contribute. Thanks. ↜Just M E here , now 18:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Please take a look. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 01:10, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
There are claims of OR on this featured article YellowMonkey ( cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:50, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm in the process of reviewing Clara Elsene Peck as a good article. The heavy use of primary sources is a concern for me. I don't see anything approaching original research, but the demarcation between using primary sources appropriately and making novel statements about those sources is very thin. I'm a little too close to the article as a reviewer to remain objective at this point so I would like a second opinion. On the one hand, there is very little material on the subject, and the priamry editor has used these sources to make simple observations about the subject. For example, one statement says, "She continued to work on magazine illustrations until at least 1935." I don't believe we have secondary sources that actually say that, and from what I can tell, the writer simply looked at the artist's oeuvre and made that observation. Could someone take a look at the article and remove anything egregious? I would like to finish cleaning up the prose and MOS and pass it, but I'm concerned about the use of primary sources here. Thanks. Viriditas ( talk) 14:03, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I've come across this article several times, and each time it gets worse. Almost 3/4 of the entire article is original research and written as a soapbox/diatribe against those who disagree with the editor's very supportive take on this group. It is almost entirely opinion and original research, with cites in some areas. Can anything be done? The most prevalent editor is an edit-war type. Thank you. 68.255.100.149 ( talk) 00:54, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Beatitudes ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) Radu Comanescu ( talk · contribs) has been adding OR/synthesis to Beatitudes since 2007. I happened upon these edits about four months ago and have been involved in a prolonged revert war with him ever since. I requested outside help at WT:Christianity as I'm sure they have dealt with this type of issue before, and someone from that WP agreed with my position. Over the last week or so he's been back at it, culminating in this edit, which I reverted. As before, I need an outside opinion. Thanks. KuyaBriBri Talk 16:02, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
I believe that the following statement in Chabad messianism: "According to Zalman Shmotkin, director of the non-messianist website chabad.org ...", claiming that chabad.org is non-messianist, is original research, and I've been unable to locate any sources (even from chabad.org) that support this claim. Two other editors disagree with me. Please provide input to help reach consensus. -shirulashem (talk) 17:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
would the same constitute a " hunger strike" or, not constitute a " hunger strike," per se? Can an excercise of the self-denial of substanance whose intention is one of ascetic theology rather than of worldly protest nonetheless be termed a strike? Do Gitmo prisoners doing so all "hunger strike"? or should some of these "fasters-to-the-point-of-convulsiveness-and-forced-feedings" not be termed to be doing so, depending on if they have made any overt demands?
How about the case of "the Suu Kyi swimmer," John Yettaw, or that of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints prisoner in Arizona, Warren Jeffs?
If there are competing secondary sources, is picking one or the other of them engaging in "original research"? Eg John Yettaw's lawyer says his was no "hunger strike" but a spiritual practice. But news sources are prone to call it a hunger strike. Here are various reports found from googling "hunger strike," "Yettaw".
Likewise, Warren Jeffs' doctor (among others) has said (quote) that Jeffs was "drinking some but is not eating as he is fasting for 'spiritual strength,"' according to a copy of an e-mail made part of a court document (end of quote). Yet, here is the googling of "hunger strike," "Warren Jeffs." Who should we accept as an arbiter of such terms, Jeffs himself or the New York Times? ↜Just M E here , now 13:36, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Heres an interesting quote:
I propose that what is definitive about self-starvation is the changing socio-cultural blueprint: it detemines whether fasting will be construed in religious terms as "holy anorexia," in medical terms as "chlorosis," in psychiatric terms as "anorexia nervosa," or in political terms such as "hunger strike."
Quote of some kind in a paper about Clarissa
↜Just M E here , now 14:04, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Bugs. Even if he doesn't announce his intentions, when authorities see he isn't eating, they will probably ask why. Yettaw has a history of visionary experiences, such as he's the defender of the oppressed, that sent on a journey by God to protect Suu Kyi, a premonition of his son's death, and where his estranged father lived. His fast was probably not to call attention to his case, but to receive a message to tell him what to do next. Kingturtle ( talk) 15:05, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
This AfD discussion link would greatly benefit from people able to explain out NOR policy to the author of this article, which I think is a glaring example of original synthesis. Tim Vickers ( talk) 04:08, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm engaged in a discussion over at Hendrix chord and would additional opinions as to whether or not a specific bit of text constitutes original research and should therefore be removed. The sentence in question is
When performing "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" live Hendrix later used the sharpened ninth not only on the tonic pedal, E, but also on C and D as well [15] which would total nine and imply eleven notes, almost the full chromatic scale, rather than only five.
The potential OR is the part in boldface. This clause is uncited, despite a request for a source. That the chord sequence contains nine notes and implies 11 has been suggested to be a routine calculation, but it's a considerably harder calc than the examples cited at that policy page, and requires making some assumptions about the voicings used by Hendrix. And that the chord sequence implies a chromatic scales seems to me to qualify as novel conclusion or synthesis. (And, for what's it's worth, I happen to think this conclusion is incorrect.) In short, no sources have been provided for the assertion that this chord sequence functions as is claimed in the article, therefore, in my view, it is OR and should be removed. Other opinions? Yilloslime T C 18:25, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
Is 11 most of 12? Hyacinth ( talk) 21:18, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
Right now in Quantum mysticism#Mind/body problem in Newtonian mechanics there is a hypothetical question that I believe is entirely OR. I've argued with the authoring editor to no avail furthermore the editor is not open to modification to the section and is displaying considerable ownership. Right now its a\ dead locked exchange between two editors any outside opinion that moves towards a resolution would be welcome. The current debate is located at Talk:Quantum mysticism#Picking apart this rewrite although there has been considerably more debate in the sections above.-- OMCV ( talk) 13:54, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
A few days ago, I discovered that the title "Fringe theory" was a redirect to our article on Fringe science. However, there are a lot of frigne theories that have nothing to do with Science... there are probably fringe theories in every academic discipline, and there are frigne theories that fall into the realm of pop culture (various conspiracy theories and urban legends). So I undid the redirect and started to try to write at least a stub article on the broader topic. Then I hit a snag...
I can not even find a single source that actually defines the term. It isn't in any of the standard dictionaries I have access to. The closest I can come is to combine the definitions of each word (from the same dictionary so at least I don't combine two different sources) ... for example... using Webster's definitions:
The OR issue, of course, is that I am definitely synthesizing here ... on the other hand, this does seem as simple as adding 1 + 2 and getting 3.
So... OR?... not OR?... acceptable OR? IAR? Thoughts would be appreciated Blueboar ( talk) 20:44, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Ok, here we go...I'm working on Arbor Hill, Albany, and since I have sources that state its boundaries would it be ok to use census tract or block data for the various census tracts (or blocks) that cover that area (as long as none spill out of that area) and add the data together to get information I can use for a "demographics" section in the article regarding population, gender and race percentages, etc etc. Obviously I would use the US census information as a source for the numbers and also put the source for the boundaries (which is already sourced in the article). Camelbinky ( talk) 01:42, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
The article about the " LaRouche movement" is an overview of the following of Lyndon LaRouche which comprises many active or defunct organizations. The article contains a section, added over a year ago without discussion and with no secondary sources, that claimed the movement is known for using humor. [25] It was tagged as unreferenced back in October 2008. [26] Due to the lack of secondary sources that identified the anecdotes as humor, the complete lack of any sources in some cases, I recently deleted the section as original research. But the deletion was reverted and even unsourced material was restored. It is the assertion of the LaRouche accounts that the humor sectin should be limited to those items that they find funny, with no regard for secondary sources. That argument has been used to retain some anecdotes while deleting others, even jokes clearly labeled as "humor". [27] I researched the topic and found that the LaRouche movement is not known for using humor: just the opposite. What is the proper standard for a section like this? Should it be based on editors' personal views on what is funny, or on what reliable, 3rd party sources have called "humor" or "jokes"? Will Beback talk 07:20, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm working to push Anarchy Online towards FAC, and have a questions about a possibly OR claim in the article (claim was written by me).
Three sources are given for the sentence. The first is a press release from the company claiming that they were first. The next two ( here and here) are second-party sources from around 2001, but they don't explicitly say "they were first". My reasoning here is that those two sources describe the concept of free trials in detail as if it were a new concept, instead of just saying "Anarchy Online now offers free trials". I wrote the claim in the first place because the idea of them being first has been "out there" for a while on message boards (like here) and other unreliable places (like here). A little digging through archive.org might reveal more reliable sources about this. Is the claim still OR? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sebquantic ( talk • contribs) 15:17, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
User Jimmuldrow is continually adding Original Research and Synthesis of Material to this article. The section contains several blockquoted sections with his attempt to link them together with his own research. I have told him several times to find some reliable third party sources that make the argument he is trying to prove, that McCaughey either lied or misrepresented Emanuel. As such most of this section is Original Research with the basic goal to attack Sara Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Besty McCaughey. Arzel ( talk) 14:09, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Given the timeline of McCaughey's statements:
April 29 – The Attack on Doctor’s Hippocratic Oath
May 11 – Fox Interview
July 24 – Deadly Doctors
August 27 – Obama’s Health Rationer-in-Chief
Maybe you have the unlikely concern that McCaughey remembered
the June 2008 JAMA article as the source of her concerns in the
April 29 editorial, where she quoted from it and mentioned it specifically.
Forgot where she got her ideas from during the May 11 Fox interview, as opposed to the more likely theory than nobody cites references during an interview.
Remembered the June 2008 JAMA article as the reason for her complaint in the July 24 editorial.
Remembered the JAMA article again in her August 27 editorial.
In the unlikely event that McCaughey might have had another article in mind during the Fox interview that she didn't know about before, and forgot about afterward, the article makes it clear that McCaughey did not cite references during the Fox interview. Of course, no one ever does cite references during an interview.
Your unlikely concern has been addressed. Jimmuldrow ( talk) 11:37, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
The above is cut and paste from the article page (by Jimmuldrow rather than me). - I'll agree with the reporter, it's original research and novel synthesis and should not go in until reliable sources mention it. --
Cameron Scott (
talk) 14:40, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Proxima_Centauri&diff=311793245&oldid=311566959
I deleted what looked like a formula that might be correct but was being used to support a figure that a user would have calculated or it would have been in the NASA reference that was provided, but it was not. I'm just asking for verification.
GabrielVelasquez (
talk) 07:02, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
There is an ongoing dispute at Genetic history of Europe, regarding a specific genetics publication and its [ supplementary material. I can get into the details of the dispute, but for the present I will just address a policy issue. One user, User:Small Victory has insisted on analyzing a chart from the supplementary material, and presenting the information as factual. I have disputed his interpretation because I could not find any text in the article or supplementary material that supports his analysis. I have asked him to provide direct quotes per Wikipedia:PROVEIT#cite_note-1, indicating that if he does, I will not dispute him. I am requesting input from other Wikipedians as to how much users are allowed to analyze graphs and charts in publications. Wapondaponda ( talk) 12:48, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
What's with all the edit-warring on this topic? If someone gets a semi-authoritative answer from this talk page, and then uses that as ammunition to fight an edit war, I don't think it serves the community's interests. (Also, see WP:Forum shopping.) Would anyone care to summarize what's going on here:
TheFeds 07:30, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
TheFeds, what you're describing as being acceptable practice is essentially what I did. I concluded that charts like this one produced by the STRUCTURE program show "negligible levels of sub-Saharan African admixture in Europeans", and I accompanied that with a source published by the creators of the program in which they explain how it works in detecting admixture:
We describe a model-based clustering method for using multilocus genotype data to infer population structure and assign individuals to populations. We assume a model in which there are K populations (where K may be unknown), each of which is characterized by a set of allele frequencies at each locus. Individuals in the sample are assigned (probabilistically) to populations, or jointly to two or more populations if their genotypes indicate that they are admixed. Our model does not assume a particular mutation process, and it can be applied to most of the commonly used genetic markers, provided that they are not closely linked. Applications of our method include demonstrating the presence of population structure, assigning individuals to populations, studying hybrid zones, and identifying migrants and admixed individuals. We show that the method can produce highly accurate assignments using modest numbers of loci.
--- Small Victory ( talk) 10:20, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
But if you continued and stated that...something should be concluded, you'd need to provide evidence (e.g. from a source with an explanation of how the graph works) that the conclusion still follows directly from reading the graph.
Individuals in the sample are assigned (probabilistically) to populations, or jointly to two or more populations if their genotypes indicate that they are admixed.
Some review of the concept of Statistical significance is in order to understand this debate, I think. I will say, that if you had to pick an alpha level for something, the claim is OR. Irbisgreif ( talk) 14:52, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
Consider simply quoting a p-value to show 'negligible' rather than using that term. Irbisgreif ( talk) 14:54, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
All of the people who are supposed to be settling this dispute have different opinions about the issue. Obviously, it's not as clear cut as some here seem to think. There's no policy against citing diagrams, and diagrams often lack explicit explanations, especially when they show an absence of something. This should really be discussed at a higher level so that a consensus can be reached and some kind of rule established. ---- Small Victory ( talk) 07:30, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
While the global STRUCTURE analysis reveals broad patterns of population differentiation (SupplementaryFigure S3), the method is limited to using a small fraction of the available SNPs due to high computational cost. Furthermore, as the number of specified clusters is increased, the patterns of population structure become increasingly difficult to interpret page 4
We show that the method can produce highly accurate assignments using modest numbers of loci.
← I really don't know how to explain this any more succinctly to you, SV. You are drawing conclusions from the chart, that is OR. There are no figures you can cite to support your thesis. None of what you are doing is accepted procedure on Wikipedia. — The Hand That Feeds You: Bite 17:21, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Editors should not make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to reach conclusion C. This would be a synthesis of published material that advances a new position, and that constitutes original research
In order to quantify patterns of population structure and admixture, we utilized STRUCTURE [Pritchard et al. 2000], a commonly used Bayesian clustering method. [...] Setting the number of clusters (K) to five revealed structure largely corresponding to continental regions (Figure 1A).
My Gods!! I've looked at those charts, and it would take someone knowledgeable in the subject to pick any conclusions out of it. For the unenlightened, like me, they look like something Damian Hirst would have produced, and there is no way on earth I could tell whether or not any statement about them was correct. TheFeds was surely making his remarks about charts such as this [29], where I might say "this graph shows the sharp fall in interest rates between 2008 and now", and it wouldn't need interpretive text outside of the chart title and legend. The information is obvious and the chart would be as good evidence for falling interest rates as an accompanying article. But there is no way the charts that Small Victory is attempting to present fall into this category. All but those knowledgeable in the field would need an expert text to make sense of what they are being shown. That I think is the key difference - where the chart is but a graphical representation of a simple table of figures, the chart and the table are interchangeable, and reading the data off the chart is not OR. Data that has been through the processing of the STRUCTURE program cannot be understood by the lay observer just looking at the chart, and anything said about it requires way more synthesis than just reading the chart Elen of the Roads ( talk) 20:11, 4 August 2009 (UTC) (who has an A level in Pure Maths, so is not entirely innumerate)
We utilized the unsupervised clustering algorithm implemented in STRUCTURE [12,13] to group individuals into genetic clusters in such a way that each individual is given an estimated membership coefficient for each cluster, corresponding to the fraction of his or her genome inferred to have ancestry in the cluster.
In all this talk I have lost track of the citation in question (are we still talking about "genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2009/02/12/gr.088898.108.abstract publication" and "genome.cshlp.org/content/suppl/2009/05/01/19.5.815.DC1/Supp_Figures.pdf supplementary material"? ... would someone provide a link to it here (so we can all see exactly what is being cited), and note which section/paragraph/sentence at Genetic history of Europe it is being used to support? Blueboar ( talk) 13:46, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
The results from several similar studies are being cited (i.e. global admixture proportions all calculated using the STRUCTURE program). They're supporting the statement that there are "negligible levels of sub-Saharan African admixture in Europeans".
Here's a typical example, including chart and explanation:
We utilized the unsupervised clustering algorithm implemented in STRUCTURE [12,13] to group individuals into genetic clusters in such a way that each individual is given an estimated membership coefficient for each cluster, corresponding to the fraction of his or her genome inferred to have ancestry in the cluster. [...] Each individual is represented by a thin line partitioned into K colored segments that represent the individual's estimated membership fractions in K clusters.
SOURCE: http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010070
Note also that every single one of the studies being cited, when explaining what the STRUCTURE chart shows, cites this paper published by the program's creators, in which they state the following about their method:
We describe a model-based clustering method for using multilocus genotype data to infer population structure and assign individuals to populations. We assume a model in which there are K populations (where K may be unknown), each of which is characterized by a set of allele frequencies at each locus. Individuals in the sample are assigned (probabilistically) to populations, or jointly to two or more populations if their genotypes indicate that they are admixed. Our model does not assume a particular mutation process, and it can be applied to most of the commonly used genetic markers, provided that they are not closely linked. Applications of our method include demonstrating the presence of population structure, assigning individuals to populations, studying hybrid zones, and identifying migrants and admixed individuals. We show that the method can produce highly accurate assignments using modest numbers of loci.
--- Small Victory ( talk) 13:48, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Nonetheless, the haplotype sharing between Europe and the YRI are suggestive of gene flow from Africa, albeit from West Africa and not necessarily North Africa
The first two principal components (PCs) of the combined dataset separate individuals into clusters largely determined by geographic origin (Supplementary Figure S1A), which is consistent with a previous analysis of the HGDP dataset [Li et al. 2008].
We repeated the analysis using the 'supervised' STRUCTURE mode, having pre-assigned European and East Asian individuals to their respective populations. A K = 3, we found this method to give similar results to the unsupervised mode, with a European admixture component of 35.0% (standard deviation 16.8%) in Mexican individuals. The first two principal components of the same individuals demonstrates a similar pattern (Figure 1B), with Mexican individuals forming a distinct cluster between the European and East Asian Clusters in the first principal component. However, the second PC further differentiates the Mexican individuals from the East Asian individuals without substantially increasing the separation from Europeans.
I know nothing of the article you want to use the data in. I do know that I could not interpret the charts without having the process by which they were created explained to me in sufficient depth for me to understand what I was seeing. I do believe I am a person of reasonable intelligence, and I have an A level in pure maths. Therefore, I am quite certain that your contention is not supported by WP:OR which is quite clear. Elen of the Roads ( talk) 14:28, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Irrelevant. That applies to sources that provide no explanation or analysis of any kind. But a genetic study is not like a novel that requires interpretation from an external source. It contains within itself both primary source material (data) and secondary source material (what the data means). In this case, as I've said, the data is color-coded and explained in simple English. The fact that the subject matter (population genetics) may be difficult or unfamiliar to some people has no bearing on anything. ---- Small Victory ( talk) 11:38, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
This subject came up in another discussion, and Elen of the Roads made some comments that were archived before I could respond. So I left a reply on her Talk Page, which she promptly deleted. This pretty much confirms that she knows I'm right. She couldn't refute my arguments here, and she can't refute them there either. Only there she has the power to suppress rather than simply ignore them. I think we can safely disregard her views on this issue, as even she recognizes their untenability. ---- Small Victory ( talk) 11:41, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Small Victory has continued with his analysis of STRUCTURE charts while not providing any interpretation from the articles that he has sourced the charts from. diff Wapondaponda ( talk) 14:42, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
You have not provided any quotes that directly concern African admixture in Europe. Wapondaponda ( talk) 07:04, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
And Small Victory, can I just point out that I believe that you are DEAD WRONG. GOT THAT. DO NOT assume represent that I have agreed with you or accepted your arguments when I manifestly have not. I believe you are violating policy in your attempts to add your original research interpretations of these charts, that your argument is tendentious nonsense, and that your approach to disagreement - which involves fictionalising the view of others - is disruptive to the project. I would support any legitimate action proposed which prevents your further disruption, as this is plainly not going to resolve through any form of mediation. Is that clear enough for you.
Elen of the Roads (
talk) 10:56, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
Primary sources are sources very close to an event. For example, an account of a traffic accident written by a witness is a primary source of information about the accident. Other examples include archeological artifacts; photographs; historical documents such as diaries, census results, video or transcripts of surveillance, public hearings, trials, or interviews; tabulated results of surveys or questionnaires; original philosophical works; religious scripture; published notes of laboratory and field experiments or observations written by the person(s) who conducted or observed the experiments; and artistic and fictional works such as poems, scripts, screenplays, novels, motion pictures, videos, and television programs. The key point about a primary source is that it offers an insider's view to an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on. Our policy: Primary sources that have been reliably published (for example, by a university press or mainstream newspaper) may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge.
I think that neatly disposes of the idea that "it only applies to primary sources like novels."
If what you meant was "it only applies to primary sources, this is a secondary source", then the section that refers is Secondary sources are at least one step removed from an event. They rely for their facts and opinions on primary sources, often to make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims. Our policy: Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from secondary sources. Articles may include analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims if they have been published by a reliable secondary source.
The key point to note here is that articles may include evaluative claims if they have been published by a reliable secondary source, and not otherwise.
So your choice, are your charts a primary source or a secondary one. If a primary, you cannot advance an interpretation, if secondary, you cannot advance that interpretation because the source from which the chart is taken does not support that interpretation.
Elen of the Roads ( talk) 12:03, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Perry
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).This page is an archive. Do not edit the contents of this page. Please direct any additional comments to the current main page. |
A dispute exists regarding the following text:
It is not uncommon for profiles in media reports to confuse the present incarnation [of Delmonico's] for the original; for instance Time Out New York magazine erroneously reported that it opened in 1831, [1] and ABC News reported that Lobster a la Newberg was invented at the South Williams location when it fact it was invented uptown. [2]
It is agreed that the facts cited are indeed wrong. The disagreement centers around whether citing them as such to substantiate the claim that "it is not uncommon for profiles in media reports to confuse the present incarnation [of Delmonico's] for the original" constitutes synthesis/original research. Sylvain1972 ( talk) 19:04, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Responding to a note by the other party in WikiProject Food and Drink: While Sylvain1972 is correct, and could probably say that about a lot of other revived restaurants, I think policy plainly requires that a reliable source make this statement and not a Wikipedia editor. The "position" he/she is advancing is that reviewers often are wrong on a key fact concerning this restaurant. That is undoubtedly true, but the policy does not say "advance a wrong position." Truth and falsity are frequently in dispute. I think it is an open-and-shut case of synthesis. I've removed the passage, but request that other editors keep an eye on this article and this passage. -- JohnnyB256 ( talk) 22:15, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Editors should not make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to reach conclusion C. This would be a synthesis of published material that advances a new position, and that constitutes original research.[7] "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published the same argument in relation to the topic of the article.
The cheese in a cheeseburger substantially changes its nutritional value. For example, in comparison to their standard hamburger, which only differs by the slice of cheese, a McDonald's cheeseburger has 20% more calories, 33% more fat and 25% more protein. [3] Other types of cheese would have varying effects, depending on their nutritional content.
This paragraph is from the lead of the cheeseburger article. I removed this passage as I believe it to be a violation of WP:Synth because it takes facts about a McDonald's cheeseburger and hamburger and makes a comparative analysis of the nutritional makeup of the two, which I contend is synthesized original research.
NJGW contends that is simple calculations and thus is exempt from the original research guidelines.
I would like some comments from independent contributors on the matter. -- Jeremy ( blah blah) 08:01, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
For any who care, below is the new paragraph:
The cheese in a cheeseburger substantially changes its nutritional value. For example, an ounce of low cholesterol American cheese [4] will add to large prepared hamburger [5] almost 25% more calories, about 45% more fat and over 25% more protein. Other types of cheese would have varying effects, depending on their nutritional content.
As far as I can see, it still presents problems of OR/SYN. Please discuss.—
Dæ
dαlus
Contribs 19:39, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
For Weird Al's lastest song, "Skipper Dan" (which is currently listed at Internet Leaks in lieu of a full article due to lack of coverage), there's an issue in OR-ish nature. The song's lyrics, which tell of a man in charge of a jungle cruise ride, do not cite the location, though it mentions "Adventureland" and uses direct quotes from Disneyland's Jungle Cruise. The associated video for the song asserts this further; the person is seen living near the HOllywood sign, and guests on the ride are clearly wearing mouse ears, though again, no specific mention of Disneyland is named. I believe that presuming that the ride is the Jungle Cruise line at Disneyland is original research barring any source that suggests it is only that, as because plenty of other theme parks have similar rides, and such we cannot eliminate all others by process of elimination. Others suggest it's the case that it's the only obvious solution given all of the above. Now, I've been watching for sources, and plenty of blogs and sites dedicated to Disneyland state this, and certainly if a reliable source states this, then, no further questions, but until then, this is the type of SYN that we need to avoid, I believe. (It may be that I've never been to Disneyland and thus the "this is exactly how it happens" approach others suggest doesn't ring any bells with me, but I think that's a stronger point that it's not patently obvious and thus SYN.)-- MASEM ( t) 21:30, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Fields of science looks like entirely OR. Everything under the sun seems to be a field of science. And now it's being use to structure Science and the Bible, which although it has references still has a lot of OR. Dougweller ( talk) 14:25, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Question here is whether his religion is adequately sourced or is synthesis, with regard to the three sources given as sources in the second paragraph of the article, where he is referred to as "Jewish" and cites three sources. None of the three sources explicitly state his religion, and that is contradicted by a Q&A with Fuld cited in the "Personal" section, which more accurately refers to him as "half-Jewish." -- JohnnyB256 ( talk) 16:48, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Admin User:Athaenara suggested I post an inquiry here:
There has been an on-going content dispute at Criticism of the Council on American-Islamic Relations over original research, BLP violations, plagiarism, and other issues.
However, my issue revolves around original research.
User:PelleSmith reverted an edit I made claiming it was original research. User:PelleSmith and User:Commodore Sloat have been edit-warring out all my additions following a failed AFD started by Pelle.
Here is a link to the beginning dispute: Identified plagiarism.. The paragraph crafted by Pelle and Sloat was practically copy and paste from the original source. I rewrote the paragraph to better represent the source, while paraphrasing and attributing quotes accurately. Then I added a corroborating source from the SFgate to affirm what is being said. I also copy edited because the original draft linked the same source 2 or 3 times. Pelle's reversion also included minor grammar and syntax fixes in other paragraphs.
For comparison of the drafts, I summarized the issues and posted the paragraphs in a sandbox. Drafts can also be found in the talk discussion but they are accompanied by intense arguments and name-calling. This just seemed easier for the lazy: User:Wikifan12345/cair dispute
I tried other dispute resolutions such as collaborative discussions and 3OO, but the edit-warring continued and I probably won't edit the article again till there is a mutual understanding or admin intervention. Thanks. Wikifan12345 ( talk) 04:45, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
This might be more of a WP:NOTE or WP:RS issue than a WP:NOR issue but I wonder if using primary sources of criticism is in line with our various editing policies and conventions at all, especially if the specific criticisms sourced to primary sources have not been mentioned in secondary or tertiary sources. How do we decide they are notable enough if they come from a primary source? Does the publication itself establish notability (if lets say it is an editorial in the NYT), if so what about self-published sources? One might contend that unless a critic is made notable by mention in reliable secondary or tertiary sources as a critic of ... their criticisms should not be included. Perhaps it is not enough either that the critic shares the critical perspective generally mentioned in such sources. Hundreds or thousands of people might share those perspectives, but what makes them notable? Or maybe sharing a critical perspective that is notable and publishing in a reliable venue is enough? I think problems arise relating to "criticism" sections and articles because we do not have policies that are clear enough dealing directly with criticism. Instead we rely on related policies like WP:BLP, WP:NOR, WP:RS, etc. I do note that we have an essay on the topic, WP:CRIT. Please move this to a more appropriate space if it does not belong here. PelleSmith ( talk) 12:28, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Maybe this should go on the policy talk page, but I'll start here. Take this, for instance File:Aryavarta wiki.jpg which I've just found, although there are many other examples. It's clearly OR, why do we all these to be used? Dougweller ( talk) 16:39, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
I have been thinking long and hard about this issue with regards to maps illustrating the spread of swine flu (but my thinking might be useful elsewhere). I think there are three significant issues that can cause a map to violate wikipedia's principles. Firstly if we calculate our own data (even if the calculations are routine) the variable displayed needs to be notable. Some variables may not give meaningful information or can even be positively misleading. Secondly if there is any doubt that the calculation of the variable may have significant biases in it then there should be a source that performs the same calculations and displays the numbers for comparison in some form (say a table). Otherwise we are essentially choosing a methodology in not making an attempt to correct for these biases. Thirdly if there are significant concerns that the display in map form would be misleading then we should have a source which displays the variable in map form (where the map has the same projection properties).
As examples (made up) of problematic maps showing each of these three problems consider:
1) A map displaying harvested carrots in kilograms per homicide. Both data sets are available and the calculation is trivial but the map is not notable. For a less obvious example consider reported incidents of domestic violence. The makers of the British crime survey view police recorded crime as almost useless with regards to measuring domestic violence (as reporting procedures and budgets are always changing). The figure is accurate as a reported figure but the comparison of these figures is not notable (even if the figures themselves are). Placing figures such as this in a table will mislead and gives the comparison a status it does not deserve.
2) A map that displays government estimates of cohabiting gay couples. Here many countries may erroneously report no gay couples cohabit. The data may be available but the biases introduced need to be dealt with by social scientists not wikipedians (violates NOR). When the experts are happy with the quality of the data we can then display it in a more conveniant form. If they have published comparisons of the data but are unhappy with its potential biases then their concerns should be expressed alongside the map.
3) A map that displays population by country. We may have accurate data here and the figures are certainly notable but larger countries will appear to have higher population density because there is no correction for the area of the country (violates NPOV). Other problems can be caused by using map projections that distort areas.
Of course the data on which any calculations are based must be adequately sourced and those calculations must be trivial to perform. The first two points apply to tables as well in my opinion.
I hope my thoughts are helpful. Barnaby dawson ( talk) 20:39, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I made a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 about UK Privy Council Orders. I did not get everything I asked for but I did get a list of Privy Council Orders since 29 July 1994 in csv format.
I did not create the list it was created by the Privy Council Office but is essentially factual in nature.
Would it be OK to add this list to Wikipedia?
It would in principle be similar to this list List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 2008 that is already on Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by John Cross ( talk • contribs) 17:07, 18 July 2009
Thus the problem boils down to this. Can we consider information released under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as reliably published? I plead complete ignorance about the matter. If no other use (such as supporting some claim) apart from a list article is utilized then I see no problem nor do I imagine a situation where the said information would be challenged.-- LexCorp ( talk) 16:41, 18 July 2009 (UTC)Our policy: Primary sources that have been reliably published (for example, by a university press or mainstream newspaper) may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.
Hello all. I'm having a bit of a problem with matters relating to original research at Talk:British_Isles#References. The article contains a statement that certain publishers have replaced the term "British Isles" with other terms. (Background: "British Isles" is a contentious term for some Irish folks). Yet, the sources put forward in the article to verify that claim are merely front covers of atlases. Furthermore, when I did some Googling to show that these publishers still use the term, I was then told that my Googling constituted "original research". Input would be appreciated.... The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 15:41, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
The content of the article doesn't concern me. However the article-title must remain, at the very least for historic usage reasons. GoodDay ( talk) 16:28, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I noted This Entry on my watchlist. I double checked and I think the IP has a point. I suspect that the IP is a newbie and would ideally liked to have tagged the section. I would also like to know what would be the most appropriate Boilerplate/action (Sorry, this excludes reworking the references as this is not a core interest of mine). Þjóðólfr ( talk) 09:17, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
In the article school corporal punishment I added [7] a direct quote from the position paper of the Society for Adolescent Medicine. Another user affixed [8] this with a criticism of the paper's findings.
Is the second edit OR? I mean, it does quote the original source for some of its assertions, but wouldn't this kind of criticism require a specific source? Gabbe ( talk) 09:26, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
is either WP:OR or WP:SYN and needs to be substantiated by a source. -- LexCorp ( talk) 11:20, 21 July 2009 (UTC)However, the paper starts off by drawing a far wider definition for "corporal punishment" than is usually meant by the phrase in an educational context:
is mostly WP:Synthesis that cast doubts on the conclusions or applicability of the paper in the subject at hand. For all we know the authors of the paper answer all these objections in the paper or at the time of making the conclusion limit its appropriateness to a narrower set that fall into school corporal punishment. Either way it is not Wikipedia editors who should be challenging how a paper is written, nor is methodology or conclusions. That is the job of other secondary sources.-- LexCorp ( talk) 11:20, 21 July 2009 (UTC)Nearly all of those things, other than moderate spanking and paddling, have nothing to do with what U.S. educators are talking about when they refer to corporal punishment in schools, and many of them would clearly constitute unlawful assault whether or not corporal punishment proper was permitted. Also, the paper cites many research studies which in fact relate not to school corporal punishment at all but to corporal punishment in the home by parents, a quite different subject. Furthermore, cases mentioned are of paddling in the classroom, whereas most school corporal punishment in the U.S. nowadays takes place privately in the office.
For reference, the paper is available in toto here. Gabbe ( talk) 11:43, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
The Society for Adolescent Medicine's Ad Hoc Corporal Punishment Committee and the explanatory note at the top of School corporal punishment are two different issues. The former issue has now been dealt with by deleting the paragraph in question (because not WP:RS on this issue) and replacing it with a more WP:RS representative of the same point of view. As for the explanatory note at the top of the article, I believe that it does in fact represent what WP:RS on this subject would assume to be the proper definition, and I have now added WP:RS citations to it to that effect. Alarics ( talk) 20:38, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
I am conducting a straw poll on Talk:British Isles as this is the only way to get past the ridiculous deadlock there.
The problem paragraph, which I am repeating here so everyone interested can easily read it, is: A number of international publications have abandoned the term...Publishers of road atlases such as Michelin, [6] [7] SK Baker, [8] Hallwag, [9] Philip's, [10] [11] Reader's Digest [12] and The Automobile Association (AA) [13] [14] have replaced British Isles with Great Britain and Ireland or Britain and Ireland in their recent maps.
This is pure original research. The references are links to front pages of atlases. They are not references to support the claim that these publishers "have replaced British Isles with Great Britain and Ireland or Britain and Ireland in their recent maps". This is not only original research, it's wrong. Let's pick Philips. [9] The map is titled "Philip's Britain and Ireland Reference Map". Does this mean they have dropped the term? No. Further down the same page in the map description we see a reference to "British Isles". Same goes for the Rail Atlas [10].
An attempt to remove this information was met with the response "don't remove others' hard work".
The straw poll is here [11]. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 21:11, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
I would remind everyone that I have never ever made any claim other than the Bath Chronicle states "The Michelin Guide to the British Isles was published in 1911 and was relaunched as the current Great Britain and Ireland Guide in 1974" I am told regarding this verbatim use of a (secondary? source), This is a bit of a misrepresentation of the truth. Yet the Primary Source states. .."The first Michelin Guide to the British Isles (including Ireland) is published and ran for 5 editions including 1912... The current Great Britain & Ireland Guide was re-launched and has been published continuously ever since."... Wots going on ere then? Þjóðólfr ( talk) 13:55, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
Please don't carry your naming dispute over here. The issue in this section is specifically Red Hat's question re: "A number of international publications have abandoned the term ...". The only thing under discussion on this noticeboard is whether claims like that one are OR or not. -- Fullstop ( talk) 16:24, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
I am involved in a debate regarding: Catholicism and Freemasonry#Separation of church and state. We could use some third party involvement to break a stalemate. My contention is that the section under dispute relies on very outdated Catholic sources (such as the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia) to discuss this issue. More to the point, it juxtaposes these outdated sources against modern Masonic statements, as if they are connected. I think this is a WP:SYN violation... my opponent disagrees. Please read the section, the arguments on the talk page at Talk:Catholicism and Freemasonry#more on Church and State, and comment at the RFC. Thanks. Blueboar ( talk) 16:44, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
Taylor Karras ( talk · contribs) recently added the following sentence to the article Boy-Scoutz n the Hood: "The episode title is a play of the film title Boyz n the Hood." He did not provide a source to back it up so I removed it as original research. However, he then brought up some good points on my talk page, [13], that made me change my mind. So my question is, is that line really original research, or is it okay to use it in the article without citing a reliable source? Thanks, The leftorium 10:12, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
Can I get some advice on this article? See Talk:Erdős–Bacon_number#Original_research and my talk page
I removed all the examples given, one at a time, as they appeared to fail WP:NOR. The Erdos-Bacon numbers listed were calculated from supposed Erdos and Bacon numbers; in most cases, the original Erdos and Bacon numbers were not previously published, but were calculated by editors using data from IMDb, or other cast listings, or from academic papers.
None of the resulting Erdos-Bacon numbers were published in reliable sources. The article was a long list of examples of Erdos-Bacon numbers which in no way reflected the coverage of this concept in real-world sources, so breached WP:NPOV.
I took some care to review and remove these individually, but Ward3001 has restored them all without reviewing them, and isn't up for much discussion of the policies. Thanks in advance for any input. -- hippo43 ( talk) 01:03, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
I've given my 2¢ over on the talk page, I'm not convinced that a calculation is OR. Irbisgreif ( talk) 02:40, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
Leaving aside whether a list of previously unpublished Erdos-Bacon numbers is notable, my concern is that the majority of this article is based on a number of assumptions which are at best questionable, or for which there is not currently consensus:
This last point strikes me as blatant
synthesis - as the Erdos-Bacon numbers are not published anywhere, they seem to be a clear "unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material".
Moreover, I can't see that a list of previously unpublished Erdos-Bacon numbers reflects coverage in published reliable sources, per WP:NPOV. Likewise, as far as I can tell, none of these Erdos-Bacon numbers are verifiable, per WP:V ("the source cited must unambiguously support the information as it is presented in the article".)
Am I missing a compelling reason to leave this stuff in? --
hippo43 (
talk) 05:17, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
There are two factors to consider ... I would agree that simply adding up two numbers is not OR ... however (and this part is the key for me), for us to perform this calculation on Wikipedia those numbers must come from reliable, verifiable sources. In the case of Erdos-Bacon numbers it is necessary that both the Bacon and Erdos numbers are taken from reliable secondary sources. I do not see any evidence that this is the case with the examples that were removed by Hippo. Blueboar ( talk) 12:09, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
I think Hippo43 made a good summary of the necessary elements above.
I don't personally have experience with assessing the reliability of IMDB, but I figure this link is a good start toward establishing that. Additionally, having good information (where it exists) is different from being comprehensive—I don't know the degree to which IMDB has gaps in coverage. With that said, I think that we would need to have some assurance that the data is reasonably good and reasonably complete in order to use it as a source for the input information to the Bacon number calculator. (Without that assurance, it's as if we, the editors, are vouching for its completeness—IMDB explicitly does not vouch for its own accuracy, so we need another way to meet the burden of verifiability.)
The Oracle of Bacon seems to be the one doing the calculation, and would seem on its face to be acceptably reliable. So, I would think that we should cite the Oracle (source of the calculation) and IMDB (source of the input data) when publishing a Bacon number. (If it was obtained from another source, then cite that instead, but don't attempt to duplicate the Oracle's calculation—synthesis or not—because it's probably impractical to assert that in one's capacity a Wikipedia editor, one is in a position to be as thorough as the Oracle claims to be.)
There's also the issue of methodology. This isn't just calculating a standard statistic for which there is no dispute on how to make the calculation—there seems to be debate on which credits to include. That obviously complicates the matter of calculating the numbers. For example, some information can be found here regarding the reliability of certain methods of finding Erdős numbers. There's also a distinction between E#s of the 1st and 2nd kinds ( see here). I'm not clear on the calculation method that's been used for Erdős numbers in this article: is it what was described at the Oakland University Erdős number project, using their datasets? Is it using MathSciNet?
If we assume that MathSciNet and/or Oakland's datasets are comprehensive and reliable, it would still be necessary to cite them (as data and calculator, as appropriate).
Within the article, there should be a reference to some reliable source describing the particular implementation of the E-B# algorithm, in addition to the existing sources regarding notability. There should also be a statement that a valid methodology is (for example) IMDB→Oracle+MathSciNet.
I also have to disagree with the way that some of these were cited—namely by citing journal articles themselves. Without even considering the possibility of people with the same name throwing things off, all that's showing is that the E-B# ≤ x, rather than demonstrating with certainty that the number is x. (On the other hand, I think I see what was done: MathSciNet was used, and those were the results, but there was no way to directly cite MathSciNet's output, so the decision was made to cite the articles themselves.) Something needs to be done to clarify whether this is intended as a minimal number, or just an upper bound.
Finally, I'm a little concerned about the purpose of the list: what's the basis for inclusion? TheFeds 19:22, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
The real problem is that this is the wrong noticeboard. This way of combining Erdős number and Bacon number is good for a few laughs, but that's it. The huge number of individual references for either someone's Erdős number or someon's Bacon number is obscuring the fact that these numbers were only discussed in blogs and a very small number of newspaper articles that referred to these blogs. This is much clearer in the version without the borderline orginal research, which has only 5 references: 3 to blogs, a defunct one to the Daily Telegraph (updated link: [14]) and one to a BBC programme about six degrees of separation. [15]
Since there is no real information out there to base a thorough discussion on, Wikipedians have started making up their own information. Also, the references that I have seen for actors' Erdős numbers were all improper original research because There is no information to support the contention that the actor is the same person as the person of the same name, or with the actor's birth name, who wrote the paper. Even within mathematics, the MathSciNet database is, and has to be, very careful because there are many cases of different people with the same name. But for more obscure people, which probably includes many immediate collaborators of actors, errors are less likely to be found and corrected.
The right way to treat this topic is with at most a paragraph in each of the Erdős number and Six degrees of separation articles, like almost everybody else does. Or perhaps add a very short section about it to collaboration distance (which currently doesn't mention it, which is also fine), as a redirect target, and restrict mentioning it in the other two serious topics to a half-sentence or the See also section. Hans Adler 13:11, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
An editor added a section to Examination of Apollo Moon photographs based on versions of a NASA photo that were made available at a website. The WayBack website shows that different versions were uploaded over the years - no dispute about that. However the editor interprets this as NASA "doctoring" the photo. An outside editor gave a third opinion, and he agreed that the section should be removed. The editor refuses to accept this. In fact, the editor states that he is the primary source for it. Please read the comments on the talk page. Bubba73 (talk), 20:42, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
I have a problem, I am working on an article about a railroad bridge that no longer exists, and hasnt since the 1960s. Even though Wikimapia has coordinates for the bridge I can not find any source that shows those are the correct coordinates (though they are obviously very close if not correct). Now, I assume I dont need a source for something like coordinates, but my question is this- is it possible to state in the article that the bridge went from "x street across the river to y island" and use a map from the period in which the bridge existed as a source. Since there simply does not exist (at least not online) ANY source stating that the location on either side and I have looked at every hit from a search on Google and Google Books. Would it be "Original Research" to use a map in this instance. Camelbinky ( talk) 21:41, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
The topic area is afflicted with source selection and misuse problems. I am attempting to help mediate the dispute. The current phase of mediation is focused on pointing serious problems and soliciting outside input. I have invited some seasoned uninvolved editors to participate in the editorial process, hoping it will steer things back on track. However, further specialized outside input would be thankfully appreciated. If some regulars from this noticeboard could review the main Falun Gong articles for improper synthesis, source misuse, and original research, it would be very helpful. Correcting the problems and/or a report of the issues at the main article talk page are particularly desirable. Thank you! -- Vassyana ( talk) 05:11, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
There are some issues in verifying the claims on this article. Some assistance in getting it up in quality would be appreciated. Irbisgreif ( talk) 15:46, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
Please see File:Av wiki.jpg. Its creator, RussellSpence ( talk · contribs), is adding it to various articles with an edit summary stating "This is based on latest human migration data and genetics of SE Asia, sourced from Wikipedia itself. This is not fringe theory, but accepted theory,discussed & settled in Wikipedia.". What do we do about such an image? I'll revert him pointing out we don't use Wikipedia as a source, but that still leaves the image and problems if he replaces it. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 17:15, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
The map matches what is written in the articles. We hardly have any evidence of the concept of Aryans in our literature, except for maybe some fleeting glance, whereas the literature of Ancient Persia & SE Asia is replete with all the detailed Aryan concepts. In the last couple of years, lot of misconceptions have been cleared by researchers in UK, USA, and Japan regarding the IVC culture and its continuity to present times, which is quite remarkable, as it proves any Aryan migration theory was wrong and posits the Persian & SE Asian population to be Aryans themselves. Fortunately, one can read most of these updates here in Wikipedia itself, which is good. I guess Dougweller should update with the latest through a simple Google search on work done by University of Cambridge etc. And I guess we are making Wikipedia as a reliable one-stop source of information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RussellSpence ( talk • contribs)
You have to read the article "what is written" and the corresponding map. What for did you study in Yale? Just passed exams in low ranks? This Hindutva political propaganda is quite well known and is not 4 years late as you say. Its some 70-80 years old and still exists in some form or the other. This has nothing to do about any notorious "IndigenousAryans" as User:Fullstop writes. If you read the articles carefully with open eye you will see references there itself - about human migration and gentics - scientific work done in University of Cambridge and some from SE Asia with many names; not pseudo-fringe theory. Now can you check those references? Users cannot pull references for your ignorance. You are not the owner of Wikipedia to guide or scuttle any discussion. Or are you assuming this role? In fact this Camelbinky and Blueboar are reading it quite well in an academic way. Fullstop is again ignorant unaware probably just spending wasted time in Wikipedia. Most users here I can see has nothing to do with human genetics or human migration. They are pseudo-readers of philosophical fringe theories. Be scientific and read articles in detail. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RussellSpence ( talk • contribs) 14:05, 26 July 2009
Dougweller...it has nothing to do with references. All references are there in Wiki and internet as such. The map is depicting wht is already written in Wiki. As I said users dont need to pull references to prove it to you. Its a picture accompanying what is written in text in the concerned article. Wherever the picture is placed there is relevant supporting article text. Is that now clear? I am not insulting you, but your area of interest probably does not lie in this domain and you are just policing it without knowing anything about anything. Wiki policing and Wiki contributing are different things. Try to understand this simple difference. No one can fool around in Wikipedia. Everyone knows this since Wiki was born.
the image is a home-grown (idiosyncratic) illustration of the general Out of India scenario, adorned with a few home-grown (idiosyncratic) comments and clip art. A scenario that is thoroughly debunked as pseudoscientific propaganda in the dedicated article, but which is neverthless notable enough to at least be discussed in a dedicated article.
If the image was unambiguous about whose scenario it illustrates, e.g. "illustration of the Out of India scenario acccording to K. Elst (1999)", it could obviously be used to illustrate the Out of India article. As it stands, it is unencyclopedic as just some guy's attempt to draw a map about his personal understanding of the topic. The image was correctly deleted as unreferenced and unencylopedic. If the image was re-uploaded as just the map with the arrows, leaving out the naive commentary and the cheesy clip art, we could with some charity accept it as a bona fide illustration of Elst (1999) and include it in the Out of India article. As long as this editors editor insist on uploading the map "watermarked" with text making wildly inaccurate claims, there is no way this image can be put to any encyclopedic use. -- dab (𒁳) 14:16, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
I would like to find out if direct quotes can ever be original research. I can understand that someone can be quoted out of context, or that an editor can string together a series of quotes in such a way as to advocate a certain point of view. But is a direct quote from a reliable source ever in itself original research. Wapondaponda ( talk) 13:23, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
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Here are some statements and quotes that I used in the article Genetic history of Europe. They have been dismissed as original research, not neutral and unreliable by other editors on the page. statement in article
Footnotes and quotations to support this statement include:
Wapondaponda ( talk) 17:48, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
Wapondaponda ( talk) 15:38, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
Consequently, the Berbers would be improperly labeled as Sub-Saharan Africa because they currently are Saharan and super-Saharan, and from a recent ancestry perspective, their genetic markers identify them as being on paleo N. African ancestry. There are even recent papers suggesting backflow from Europe to N. Africa. Consequently the E1b1b1b migration as most recently presented in the literature is parsimonious with much older studies. These papers indicate the contribution of European markers to the N. Africans that can be dated to the Last Glacial Maximum thereofore it would have been difficult for that contribution to have occurred if this people were not in the Strait of Gibralter region and loosely stayed in that region for a duration of time.
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I will try to summarize the dispute to enable editors who are not specifically familiar with the dispute to have a better understanding. The locus of this dispute concerns a specific genetic marker. This genetic marker, called E3b, occurred as a mutation on a man living in Eastern Sub-Saharan Africa, about 22,000 years . All the descendants of this man carry this genetic marker. From East Africa, some descendants of this man stayed put, others descendants migrated south reaching south Africa and others migrated North. Our dispute concerns those who migrated Northwards. Descendants of this man migrated North along the Nile river reaching the Sudan/Egypt region by 17,000 years ago. By 13,000, migrants carried the E3b marker from Egypt into the Middle East. Between 13,000 years ago and 4,000 years ago migrants carried this lineage from the Middle East into Europe. Simplified Timeline
So depending on the timeline one chooses, one could refer to this genetic marker as Sub-Saharan, North African, Middle Eastern and European. If one takes a more comprehensive view, one could consider the marker Sub-Saharan. If one looks at more recent periods, it could be considered North African, Middle Eastern or even European. The dispute concerns when to start the clock. I have proposed to start the clock with the emergence of this marker in Sub-Saharan Africa. My opponents in this dispute prefer to start the clock when this marker is in North Africa and Middle East and would like to ignore periods before. Within the scientific community there is no set standard, some publications use the macro or comprehensive view referring to it as African or Sub-Saharan, and others use the micro views referring to the marker as having North African or Middle Eastern origins. This image from Semino et al 2004 illustrates the different subclades that appeared at different times. Fig A shows a comprehensive view of the E lineage, whereas figures B to G represent specific subclades of E that appeared at different times. Wapondaponda ( talk) 18:04, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
I was directed here when I asked a question about OR on the project talk page (original text: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia_talk:No_original_research&action=edit§ion=9) An example would be my edit to the Metal Slug 2 page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Metal_Slug_2&oldid=270194095) where I added factual trivia, but was later removed. The question still stands; should I back stuff like this up everytime with a screenshot, as I am assuming just linking to some fansite that states the same thing without evidence is not a valid source, even if many people who have played the game know it? Aren't trivia sections afterall directed mostly to people who are interested in the subject and not to just random passbyers who happen to read the article, and thus delete the sections because they have no idea that it's really true? Thank you. -- 80.223.127.229 ( talk) 04:10, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
User: Muntuwandi continues Relentlessly to add this information to the Genetic history Of Europe article were able to detect low levels of West African admixture in Europe in regions where Haplogroup E was present. ref group=""> Halder et al state. "We observed patterns of apportionment similar The source does not say where Haplogroup E was present. and he also continuously adds this low levels of African admixture (2.8–10.8%) mirroring the distribution of Y E3b haplogroups among various Eurasian populations.</ref>Auton et al detected a South-to-North cline of West African haplotypes in Europe with peak frequencies in Iberia. The authors suggest that this cline is indicative of gene flow directly from West Africa and not necessarily from North Africa ref group=""> Auton et al state."The article does not state of Y E3b haplogroups among various Eurasian populations. This is OR at its finest. This user continually adds this Original research to that article as can be seen below.
The Count of Monte Cristo. ( talk) 03:38, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
It was suggested ( here, diff to article content rv) that stating in article whether a cited source discusses an issue in detail or in passing is OR. In this case several sources are cited, mentioning the Suwałki Agreement in a passing sentence or two, that state A, and a detailed chapter in a book dedicated to the Agreement states B. I believe that it is important (and not OR in any way) to clarify this difference in the article, so that the numerical weight of sources that state A does not outweigh a work that is dedicated to the issue and concludes B. If the quality of reference is not discussed, the reader may be misled to thinking that "most scholars who studied the issue in detail think A" while in fact "authors who briefly looked at the issue think A but an expert who studied the issue and dedicated a book chapter to it thinks B". Another editor disagrees, and prefers a version that states, roughly "Numerous sources state A, historian X states B" without any mention that out of all those sources, only historian X has dedicated more then a sentence or two (an entire chapter...) to that issue. I further think that such a version removing this clarifications is misleading the reader and thus a form of weaseling. Comments appreciated, -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:06, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Actually, the whole idea that "an opinion of a scholar who has dedicated a book chapter to the subject should be given more weight then an opinion of a scholar who has dedicated a sentence to it" ( [23]) seems to be extremely dangerous if used anywhere else... For, well, the points of view are not equal in amounts of text that can be written in support of them. The "simple", "obvious", "default" position is likely to be supported by much shorter explanations than "complex" position (unless there is a need to answer some counterarguments). For example, the "simple" position that some perpetuum mobile doesn't work can be supported by one sentence - "If it would work, it would violate the first law of thermodynamics." - there isn't much else worth saying. However, the "complex" position that it does work can be supported by a whole book (explaining how a vast conspiracy has fabricated the evidence in favor of the first law of thermodynamics etc.) - and all that without making it the majority position. Of course, majority position can also be "complex", but then we would be likely to have some additional evidence and not just the amount of text written in support of it... -- Martynas Patasius ( talk) 19:02, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
Hi, I would like more input on whether or not this page is considered original research. Thanks, Triplestop x3 03:25, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
The way the section at WP:NOR now reads, if an "original research" violation occurs with regard to the construction of an illustrative image, the suggested fix to the offense is to take the image to ifd. Here's the problem. A knowledgeable Wikipedian who constructs an image is more likely to grant it to public domain or register it under a Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license on Commons. And any deletion discussion on Commons is not going to care if the image is original research.
Commons is not Wikipedia, and files uploaded here do not necessarily need to comply with the Neutral point of view and No original research requirements imposed by many of the Wikipedia sites.
Now walk through this with me. Say I am the creator of this image on Flickr. (Of course, I'm not -- just sayin for the purpose of this hypothetical that I am.) And let's say in addition that each of the images I made this composite out of are free use. And I upload it to Commons, using a license that in turn is completely free use.
Then someone uses it on some Wikipedia page, in a context where the image's aspects of "original imagery" would not be appropriate. How in the world would the following suggestion within the Original Images guideline "Any image that is found to have manipulation that materially affects its encyclopedic value should be posted to Wikipedia:Files for deletion" be of any help in this instance? In other words, should an original images be held to convey an editorial opinion inappropriate to the context in which it is used on Wikipedia, wouldn't simply not using the image be the accepted guideline? -- with such unused images deleted if they are orphaned on Wikipedia (or else simply not used on Wikipedia, in the case of images that happen to be hosted on Commons)?
Please do chime in if you've some suggestion, say, to supplement the WP:OI guideline to account for the scenario I present -- or else defend the way the section is worded now -- or whatever else you'd like to address (if anything). ↜Just M E here , now 18:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Note that what follows is what is hoped is an entirely neutrally worded notice per the guidelines at WP:CANVASSING. Hey, people, there is an actual image that happens to be on Commons right now that has, in fact, been described by some as presenting an unacceptable level of original research through its composition. This image has been nominated for deletion from Commons, with its deletion discussion here -- to which any interested editors are invited to contribute. Thanks. ↜Just M E here , now 18:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Please take a look. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 01:10, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
There are claims of OR on this featured article YellowMonkey ( cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:50, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm in the process of reviewing Clara Elsene Peck as a good article. The heavy use of primary sources is a concern for me. I don't see anything approaching original research, but the demarcation between using primary sources appropriately and making novel statements about those sources is very thin. I'm a little too close to the article as a reviewer to remain objective at this point so I would like a second opinion. On the one hand, there is very little material on the subject, and the priamry editor has used these sources to make simple observations about the subject. For example, one statement says, "She continued to work on magazine illustrations until at least 1935." I don't believe we have secondary sources that actually say that, and from what I can tell, the writer simply looked at the artist's oeuvre and made that observation. Could someone take a look at the article and remove anything egregious? I would like to finish cleaning up the prose and MOS and pass it, but I'm concerned about the use of primary sources here. Thanks. Viriditas ( talk) 14:03, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I've come across this article several times, and each time it gets worse. Almost 3/4 of the entire article is original research and written as a soapbox/diatribe against those who disagree with the editor's very supportive take on this group. It is almost entirely opinion and original research, with cites in some areas. Can anything be done? The most prevalent editor is an edit-war type. Thank you. 68.255.100.149 ( talk) 00:54, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Beatitudes ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) Radu Comanescu ( talk · contribs) has been adding OR/synthesis to Beatitudes since 2007. I happened upon these edits about four months ago and have been involved in a prolonged revert war with him ever since. I requested outside help at WT:Christianity as I'm sure they have dealt with this type of issue before, and someone from that WP agreed with my position. Over the last week or so he's been back at it, culminating in this edit, which I reverted. As before, I need an outside opinion. Thanks. KuyaBriBri Talk 16:02, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
I believe that the following statement in Chabad messianism: "According to Zalman Shmotkin, director of the non-messianist website chabad.org ...", claiming that chabad.org is non-messianist, is original research, and I've been unable to locate any sources (even from chabad.org) that support this claim. Two other editors disagree with me. Please provide input to help reach consensus. -shirulashem (talk) 17:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
would the same constitute a " hunger strike" or, not constitute a " hunger strike," per se? Can an excercise of the self-denial of substanance whose intention is one of ascetic theology rather than of worldly protest nonetheless be termed a strike? Do Gitmo prisoners doing so all "hunger strike"? or should some of these "fasters-to-the-point-of-convulsiveness-and-forced-feedings" not be termed to be doing so, depending on if they have made any overt demands?
How about the case of "the Suu Kyi swimmer," John Yettaw, or that of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints prisoner in Arizona, Warren Jeffs?
If there are competing secondary sources, is picking one or the other of them engaging in "original research"? Eg John Yettaw's lawyer says his was no "hunger strike" but a spiritual practice. But news sources are prone to call it a hunger strike. Here are various reports found from googling "hunger strike," "Yettaw".
Likewise, Warren Jeffs' doctor (among others) has said (quote) that Jeffs was "drinking some but is not eating as he is fasting for 'spiritual strength,"' according to a copy of an e-mail made part of a court document (end of quote). Yet, here is the googling of "hunger strike," "Warren Jeffs." Who should we accept as an arbiter of such terms, Jeffs himself or the New York Times? ↜Just M E here , now 13:36, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Heres an interesting quote:
I propose that what is definitive about self-starvation is the changing socio-cultural blueprint: it detemines whether fasting will be construed in religious terms as "holy anorexia," in medical terms as "chlorosis," in psychiatric terms as "anorexia nervosa," or in political terms such as "hunger strike."
Quote of some kind in a paper about Clarissa
↜Just M E here , now 14:04, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Bugs. Even if he doesn't announce his intentions, when authorities see he isn't eating, they will probably ask why. Yettaw has a history of visionary experiences, such as he's the defender of the oppressed, that sent on a journey by God to protect Suu Kyi, a premonition of his son's death, and where his estranged father lived. His fast was probably not to call attention to his case, but to receive a message to tell him what to do next. Kingturtle ( talk) 15:05, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
This AfD discussion link would greatly benefit from people able to explain out NOR policy to the author of this article, which I think is a glaring example of original synthesis. Tim Vickers ( talk) 04:08, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm engaged in a discussion over at Hendrix chord and would additional opinions as to whether or not a specific bit of text constitutes original research and should therefore be removed. The sentence in question is
When performing "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" live Hendrix later used the sharpened ninth not only on the tonic pedal, E, but also on C and D as well [15] which would total nine and imply eleven notes, almost the full chromatic scale, rather than only five.
The potential OR is the part in boldface. This clause is uncited, despite a request for a source. That the chord sequence contains nine notes and implies 11 has been suggested to be a routine calculation, but it's a considerably harder calc than the examples cited at that policy page, and requires making some assumptions about the voicings used by Hendrix. And that the chord sequence implies a chromatic scales seems to me to qualify as novel conclusion or synthesis. (And, for what's it's worth, I happen to think this conclusion is incorrect.) In short, no sources have been provided for the assertion that this chord sequence functions as is claimed in the article, therefore, in my view, it is OR and should be removed. Other opinions? Yilloslime T C 18:25, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
Is 11 most of 12? Hyacinth ( talk) 21:18, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
Right now in Quantum mysticism#Mind/body problem in Newtonian mechanics there is a hypothetical question that I believe is entirely OR. I've argued with the authoring editor to no avail furthermore the editor is not open to modification to the section and is displaying considerable ownership. Right now its a\ dead locked exchange between two editors any outside opinion that moves towards a resolution would be welcome. The current debate is located at Talk:Quantum mysticism#Picking apart this rewrite although there has been considerably more debate in the sections above.-- OMCV ( talk) 13:54, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
A few days ago, I discovered that the title "Fringe theory" was a redirect to our article on Fringe science. However, there are a lot of frigne theories that have nothing to do with Science... there are probably fringe theories in every academic discipline, and there are frigne theories that fall into the realm of pop culture (various conspiracy theories and urban legends). So I undid the redirect and started to try to write at least a stub article on the broader topic. Then I hit a snag...
I can not even find a single source that actually defines the term. It isn't in any of the standard dictionaries I have access to. The closest I can come is to combine the definitions of each word (from the same dictionary so at least I don't combine two different sources) ... for example... using Webster's definitions:
The OR issue, of course, is that I am definitely synthesizing here ... on the other hand, this does seem as simple as adding 1 + 2 and getting 3.
So... OR?... not OR?... acceptable OR? IAR? Thoughts would be appreciated Blueboar ( talk) 20:44, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Ok, here we go...I'm working on Arbor Hill, Albany, and since I have sources that state its boundaries would it be ok to use census tract or block data for the various census tracts (or blocks) that cover that area (as long as none spill out of that area) and add the data together to get information I can use for a "demographics" section in the article regarding population, gender and race percentages, etc etc. Obviously I would use the US census information as a source for the numbers and also put the source for the boundaries (which is already sourced in the article). Camelbinky ( talk) 01:42, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
The article about the " LaRouche movement" is an overview of the following of Lyndon LaRouche which comprises many active or defunct organizations. The article contains a section, added over a year ago without discussion and with no secondary sources, that claimed the movement is known for using humor. [25] It was tagged as unreferenced back in October 2008. [26] Due to the lack of secondary sources that identified the anecdotes as humor, the complete lack of any sources in some cases, I recently deleted the section as original research. But the deletion was reverted and even unsourced material was restored. It is the assertion of the LaRouche accounts that the humor sectin should be limited to those items that they find funny, with no regard for secondary sources. That argument has been used to retain some anecdotes while deleting others, even jokes clearly labeled as "humor". [27] I researched the topic and found that the LaRouche movement is not known for using humor: just the opposite. What is the proper standard for a section like this? Should it be based on editors' personal views on what is funny, or on what reliable, 3rd party sources have called "humor" or "jokes"? Will Beback talk 07:20, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm working to push Anarchy Online towards FAC, and have a questions about a possibly OR claim in the article (claim was written by me).
Three sources are given for the sentence. The first is a press release from the company claiming that they were first. The next two ( here and here) are second-party sources from around 2001, but they don't explicitly say "they were first". My reasoning here is that those two sources describe the concept of free trials in detail as if it were a new concept, instead of just saying "Anarchy Online now offers free trials". I wrote the claim in the first place because the idea of them being first has been "out there" for a while on message boards (like here) and other unreliable places (like here). A little digging through archive.org might reveal more reliable sources about this. Is the claim still OR? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sebquantic ( talk • contribs) 15:17, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
User Jimmuldrow is continually adding Original Research and Synthesis of Material to this article. The section contains several blockquoted sections with his attempt to link them together with his own research. I have told him several times to find some reliable third party sources that make the argument he is trying to prove, that McCaughey either lied or misrepresented Emanuel. As such most of this section is Original Research with the basic goal to attack Sara Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Besty McCaughey. Arzel ( talk) 14:09, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Given the timeline of McCaughey's statements:
April 29 – The Attack on Doctor’s Hippocratic Oath
May 11 – Fox Interview
July 24 – Deadly Doctors
August 27 – Obama’s Health Rationer-in-Chief
Maybe you have the unlikely concern that McCaughey remembered
the June 2008 JAMA article as the source of her concerns in the
April 29 editorial, where she quoted from it and mentioned it specifically.
Forgot where she got her ideas from during the May 11 Fox interview, as opposed to the more likely theory than nobody cites references during an interview.
Remembered the June 2008 JAMA article as the reason for her complaint in the July 24 editorial.
Remembered the JAMA article again in her August 27 editorial.
In the unlikely event that McCaughey might have had another article in mind during the Fox interview that she didn't know about before, and forgot about afterward, the article makes it clear that McCaughey did not cite references during the Fox interview. Of course, no one ever does cite references during an interview.
Your unlikely concern has been addressed. Jimmuldrow ( talk) 11:37, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
The above is cut and paste from the article page (by Jimmuldrow rather than me). - I'll agree with the reporter, it's original research and novel synthesis and should not go in until reliable sources mention it. --
Cameron Scott (
talk) 14:40, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Proxima_Centauri&diff=311793245&oldid=311566959
I deleted what looked like a formula that might be correct but was being used to support a figure that a user would have calculated or it would have been in the NASA reference that was provided, but it was not. I'm just asking for verification.
GabrielVelasquez (
talk) 07:02, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
There is an ongoing dispute at Genetic history of Europe, regarding a specific genetics publication and its [ supplementary material. I can get into the details of the dispute, but for the present I will just address a policy issue. One user, User:Small Victory has insisted on analyzing a chart from the supplementary material, and presenting the information as factual. I have disputed his interpretation because I could not find any text in the article or supplementary material that supports his analysis. I have asked him to provide direct quotes per Wikipedia:PROVEIT#cite_note-1, indicating that if he does, I will not dispute him. I am requesting input from other Wikipedians as to how much users are allowed to analyze graphs and charts in publications. Wapondaponda ( talk) 12:48, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
What's with all the edit-warring on this topic? If someone gets a semi-authoritative answer from this talk page, and then uses that as ammunition to fight an edit war, I don't think it serves the community's interests. (Also, see WP:Forum shopping.) Would anyone care to summarize what's going on here:
TheFeds 07:30, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
TheFeds, what you're describing as being acceptable practice is essentially what I did. I concluded that charts like this one produced by the STRUCTURE program show "negligible levels of sub-Saharan African admixture in Europeans", and I accompanied that with a source published by the creators of the program in which they explain how it works in detecting admixture:
We describe a model-based clustering method for using multilocus genotype data to infer population structure and assign individuals to populations. We assume a model in which there are K populations (where K may be unknown), each of which is characterized by a set of allele frequencies at each locus. Individuals in the sample are assigned (probabilistically) to populations, or jointly to two or more populations if their genotypes indicate that they are admixed. Our model does not assume a particular mutation process, and it can be applied to most of the commonly used genetic markers, provided that they are not closely linked. Applications of our method include demonstrating the presence of population structure, assigning individuals to populations, studying hybrid zones, and identifying migrants and admixed individuals. We show that the method can produce highly accurate assignments using modest numbers of loci.
--- Small Victory ( talk) 10:20, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
But if you continued and stated that...something should be concluded, you'd need to provide evidence (e.g. from a source with an explanation of how the graph works) that the conclusion still follows directly from reading the graph.
Individuals in the sample are assigned (probabilistically) to populations, or jointly to two or more populations if their genotypes indicate that they are admixed.
Some review of the concept of Statistical significance is in order to understand this debate, I think. I will say, that if you had to pick an alpha level for something, the claim is OR. Irbisgreif ( talk) 14:52, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
Consider simply quoting a p-value to show 'negligible' rather than using that term. Irbisgreif ( talk) 14:54, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
All of the people who are supposed to be settling this dispute have different opinions about the issue. Obviously, it's not as clear cut as some here seem to think. There's no policy against citing diagrams, and diagrams often lack explicit explanations, especially when they show an absence of something. This should really be discussed at a higher level so that a consensus can be reached and some kind of rule established. ---- Small Victory ( talk) 07:30, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
While the global STRUCTURE analysis reveals broad patterns of population differentiation (SupplementaryFigure S3), the method is limited to using a small fraction of the available SNPs due to high computational cost. Furthermore, as the number of specified clusters is increased, the patterns of population structure become increasingly difficult to interpret page 4
We show that the method can produce highly accurate assignments using modest numbers of loci.
← I really don't know how to explain this any more succinctly to you, SV. You are drawing conclusions from the chart, that is OR. There are no figures you can cite to support your thesis. None of what you are doing is accepted procedure on Wikipedia. — The Hand That Feeds You: Bite 17:21, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Editors should not make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to reach conclusion C. This would be a synthesis of published material that advances a new position, and that constitutes original research
In order to quantify patterns of population structure and admixture, we utilized STRUCTURE [Pritchard et al. 2000], a commonly used Bayesian clustering method. [...] Setting the number of clusters (K) to five revealed structure largely corresponding to continental regions (Figure 1A).
My Gods!! I've looked at those charts, and it would take someone knowledgeable in the subject to pick any conclusions out of it. For the unenlightened, like me, they look like something Damian Hirst would have produced, and there is no way on earth I could tell whether or not any statement about them was correct. TheFeds was surely making his remarks about charts such as this [29], where I might say "this graph shows the sharp fall in interest rates between 2008 and now", and it wouldn't need interpretive text outside of the chart title and legend. The information is obvious and the chart would be as good evidence for falling interest rates as an accompanying article. But there is no way the charts that Small Victory is attempting to present fall into this category. All but those knowledgeable in the field would need an expert text to make sense of what they are being shown. That I think is the key difference - where the chart is but a graphical representation of a simple table of figures, the chart and the table are interchangeable, and reading the data off the chart is not OR. Data that has been through the processing of the STRUCTURE program cannot be understood by the lay observer just looking at the chart, and anything said about it requires way more synthesis than just reading the chart Elen of the Roads ( talk) 20:11, 4 August 2009 (UTC) (who has an A level in Pure Maths, so is not entirely innumerate)
We utilized the unsupervised clustering algorithm implemented in STRUCTURE [12,13] to group individuals into genetic clusters in such a way that each individual is given an estimated membership coefficient for each cluster, corresponding to the fraction of his or her genome inferred to have ancestry in the cluster.
In all this talk I have lost track of the citation in question (are we still talking about "genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2009/02/12/gr.088898.108.abstract publication" and "genome.cshlp.org/content/suppl/2009/05/01/19.5.815.DC1/Supp_Figures.pdf supplementary material"? ... would someone provide a link to it here (so we can all see exactly what is being cited), and note which section/paragraph/sentence at Genetic history of Europe it is being used to support? Blueboar ( talk) 13:46, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
The results from several similar studies are being cited (i.e. global admixture proportions all calculated using the STRUCTURE program). They're supporting the statement that there are "negligible levels of sub-Saharan African admixture in Europeans".
Here's a typical example, including chart and explanation:
We utilized the unsupervised clustering algorithm implemented in STRUCTURE [12,13] to group individuals into genetic clusters in such a way that each individual is given an estimated membership coefficient for each cluster, corresponding to the fraction of his or her genome inferred to have ancestry in the cluster. [...] Each individual is represented by a thin line partitioned into K colored segments that represent the individual's estimated membership fractions in K clusters.
SOURCE: http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0010070
Note also that every single one of the studies being cited, when explaining what the STRUCTURE chart shows, cites this paper published by the program's creators, in which they state the following about their method:
We describe a model-based clustering method for using multilocus genotype data to infer population structure and assign individuals to populations. We assume a model in which there are K populations (where K may be unknown), each of which is characterized by a set of allele frequencies at each locus. Individuals in the sample are assigned (probabilistically) to populations, or jointly to two or more populations if their genotypes indicate that they are admixed. Our model does not assume a particular mutation process, and it can be applied to most of the commonly used genetic markers, provided that they are not closely linked. Applications of our method include demonstrating the presence of population structure, assigning individuals to populations, studying hybrid zones, and identifying migrants and admixed individuals. We show that the method can produce highly accurate assignments using modest numbers of loci.
--- Small Victory ( talk) 13:48, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Nonetheless, the haplotype sharing between Europe and the YRI are suggestive of gene flow from Africa, albeit from West Africa and not necessarily North Africa
The first two principal components (PCs) of the combined dataset separate individuals into clusters largely determined by geographic origin (Supplementary Figure S1A), which is consistent with a previous analysis of the HGDP dataset [Li et al. 2008].
We repeated the analysis using the 'supervised' STRUCTURE mode, having pre-assigned European and East Asian individuals to their respective populations. A K = 3, we found this method to give similar results to the unsupervised mode, with a European admixture component of 35.0% (standard deviation 16.8%) in Mexican individuals. The first two principal components of the same individuals demonstrates a similar pattern (Figure 1B), with Mexican individuals forming a distinct cluster between the European and East Asian Clusters in the first principal component. However, the second PC further differentiates the Mexican individuals from the East Asian individuals without substantially increasing the separation from Europeans.
I know nothing of the article you want to use the data in. I do know that I could not interpret the charts without having the process by which they were created explained to me in sufficient depth for me to understand what I was seeing. I do believe I am a person of reasonable intelligence, and I have an A level in pure maths. Therefore, I am quite certain that your contention is not supported by WP:OR which is quite clear. Elen of the Roads ( talk) 14:28, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Irrelevant. That applies to sources that provide no explanation or analysis of any kind. But a genetic study is not like a novel that requires interpretation from an external source. It contains within itself both primary source material (data) and secondary source material (what the data means). In this case, as I've said, the data is color-coded and explained in simple English. The fact that the subject matter (population genetics) may be difficult or unfamiliar to some people has no bearing on anything. ---- Small Victory ( talk) 11:38, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
This subject came up in another discussion, and Elen of the Roads made some comments that were archived before I could respond. So I left a reply on her Talk Page, which she promptly deleted. This pretty much confirms that she knows I'm right. She couldn't refute my arguments here, and she can't refute them there either. Only there she has the power to suppress rather than simply ignore them. I think we can safely disregard her views on this issue, as even she recognizes their untenability. ---- Small Victory ( talk) 11:41, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Small Victory has continued with his analysis of STRUCTURE charts while not providing any interpretation from the articles that he has sourced the charts from. diff Wapondaponda ( talk) 14:42, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
You have not provided any quotes that directly concern African admixture in Europe. Wapondaponda ( talk) 07:04, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
And Small Victory, can I just point out that I believe that you are DEAD WRONG. GOT THAT. DO NOT assume represent that I have agreed with you or accepted your arguments when I manifestly have not. I believe you are violating policy in your attempts to add your original research interpretations of these charts, that your argument is tendentious nonsense, and that your approach to disagreement - which involves fictionalising the view of others - is disruptive to the project. I would support any legitimate action proposed which prevents your further disruption, as this is plainly not going to resolve through any form of mediation. Is that clear enough for you.
Elen of the Roads (
talk) 10:56, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
Primary sources are sources very close to an event. For example, an account of a traffic accident written by a witness is a primary source of information about the accident. Other examples include archeological artifacts; photographs; historical documents such as diaries, census results, video or transcripts of surveillance, public hearings, trials, or interviews; tabulated results of surveys or questionnaires; original philosophical works; religious scripture; published notes of laboratory and field experiments or observations written by the person(s) who conducted or observed the experiments; and artistic and fictional works such as poems, scripts, screenplays, novels, motion pictures, videos, and television programs. The key point about a primary source is that it offers an insider's view to an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on. Our policy: Primary sources that have been reliably published (for example, by a university press or mainstream newspaper) may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge.
I think that neatly disposes of the idea that "it only applies to primary sources like novels."
If what you meant was "it only applies to primary sources, this is a secondary source", then the section that refers is Secondary sources are at least one step removed from an event. They rely for their facts and opinions on primary sources, often to make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims. Our policy: Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from secondary sources. Articles may include analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims if they have been published by a reliable secondary source.
The key point to note here is that articles may include evaluative claims if they have been published by a reliable secondary source, and not otherwise.
So your choice, are your charts a primary source or a secondary one. If a primary, you cannot advance an interpretation, if secondary, you cannot advance that interpretation because the source from which the chart is taken does not support that interpretation.
Elen of the Roads ( talk) 12:03, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Perry
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).