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I have been asked to mention this discussion here. - Samsara ( talk • contribs) 18:21, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
If my interpretation is correct (and I believe that it is, judging from the spirit of the rule as it has been applied in existing articles), the name of this policy may be misleading. I suggest that mention may be added to the policy page of the distinction between what is commonly considered research and the term "research" as it is used by the policy.
Hypothetical example: Historical Individual was tried in 1763, and a large quantity of commentary exists in the form of contemporary primary documents indicating that this happened on May 3, 1763 in Specific Place. This information is available to Editor and is non-controversial in that it is not disputed among secondary sources. Editor sees that the article on Historical Individual does not mention the date or place, or does so incorrectly. Perhaps Editor even brings this to the talk page to verify, if indeed the information is incorrect. Is Editor permitted to make the addition of this information if it is not available in any known secondary sources?
The answer would seem to me an obvious "yes", but I really can't say whether this qualifies as original research as per the WP standard any more than does "researching" secondary sources. This seems to me an ambiguity, and I think it should be clarified in the policy article. Because the policy is so established (and because it would be impractical), I don't recommend a name change (such as to "original data or analysis"), but I think some visible, official clarification would do the job just as well. Fearwig 06:24, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
I feel that the Wikipedia should include the facts of Individual experience, of understanding, of "original research," thereof. Referenced material is merely of a consensus and we all know (or should know...) that that has been refuted (by referenced material...) time and time again as a fact of science, "inductive" science, thereof. Sure, it may be bulky, even messy, the facts, but where does it say science is beautiful, and/or of a referenced consensus? See Consensus science (vs. conclusive [compelling? ...] science). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Individual1 ( talk • contribs) 06:03, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
Science is more fundamentally of the senses, of the experience and conscience of the feelings, of understanding, as of the individual, thereof, of that and only that which is capable of understanding. Science starts with the individual, thereof, and need go no further than that except of opinion, (and to limit science to a manageable artform?) which in and of itself would not be scientific, I feel, as understand, as a fact, of the facts, thereof. 1 05:16, 26 June 2006 (UTC) [Originally, as with the above paragraph, of approx. June 23rd, or so, 2006]
I was discussing with Shawnc a photo he had altered ( Image:395px-Keratoconus1-800-edit.png) when he called my attention to an altered photo and a "synthetic animation" that have been promoted to Featured quality:
As stated here at WP:NOR, altered photos are not to be used to illustrate the main Wikipedia namespace, as they are essentially original research. These two examples are both extremely beautiful, but they should not have been promoted to Featured quality for this reason. They should also not be used to illustrate Wikipedia articles.
The reason for the rule is that an altered photo purports to illustrate something that is not true. It captures a moment in time that never occurred. It is false. When the photo retoucher performs his work, he is creating a fact, by himself. This is a clear violation of what the NOR rule is supposed to prevent.
The debate over altered photos is of course not original to Wikipedia; altered photos have been an interesting topic in journalism ethics classes for several decades; see the article "Faking images in photojournalism" from 1988. I will expand the rule here on NOR to try to explain 'why' but it sounds like word of the rule needs to be spread to the people who frequent the featured photos discussion. Tempshill 06:39, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I think you're a bit too obsessed with the idea of Wikipedia as a compendium of all knowledge of all events that ever occurred. If you are simply trying to avoid a slippery slope that would lead to something like the National Geographic cover you mentioned, don't worry. Everything is fine in small doses, and that is true of altering images; all images can be altered within reason. Whether the alteration of an image is unreasonable will be determined one-image-at-a-time, not by executing an overly-restrictive policy of not altering any images.... — BRIAN 0918 • 2006-06-21 16:52
Will evidence of innacuracy or problems be shown in place of edited material? Call someone a liar or disprove a fact then another fact has to replace it.
-- G-Spot 17:30, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
This policy must be destroyed, and have its rotten corpse dragged through the dirty streets, for the good of Wikipedia.
Where do I sign? I'm almost sure that there is a "destroy the WP:NOR policy" committee already. If not, I sign here.
It's not a gray area - WP:NOR is very clear on the matter:
And that is technically exactly what "circumcision = surgery and surgery = a cause of this problem, then circumcision = a cause of this problem" is. There is nothing gray or shady about it. And there is no reason to believe that this simple, logical thinking would be false - it simply violates WP:NOR. Now of course one begins to wonder, what the hell are you supposed to write in wikipedia then if you may not even draw the most obvious conclusions from given, verifiable data? When you are forbidden from stating the obvious? I told you: Carbon copies of US government statements in the public domain. Dabljuh 19:35, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
"If it is obvious, the connection will have been made before." Not necessarily. The big, big advantage Wikipedia has over classical paper encyclopedias is that it is most up to date. This is one big reason why Wikipedia is successful. The threat of MRSA in this example is a very new one - and despite its obvious ramifications with circumcision, it may take months or years until someone writes a paper detailing circumcision risks of MRSA. I mean, if I'd ask a doctor, any doctor, if he'd write a paper detailing MRSA and neonate circumcision, it'd be something like "Hey, yeah, circumcision facilitates MRSA infection" - That is not really anything new. We knew that already. Because it is so obvious. The time of doctors is limited and when things are very obvious, there is just no incentive at all to release a paper that states the obvious, unless one wants to assault his peers with boredom. Lets make a different, fictious example. "Marilyn Monroe was a white woman". Original research! Can't say that unless you find me a *medical* peer reviewed journal that says so. Yeah, there's her picture and all that and she's very obviously white (although not necessarily blonde) but looking at the picture and drawing the conclusion that she must have been white is original research by the very meaning of the policy. Even more, even though we could presume that if she was white, her birthparents must have been white too, that's original research. The policy commands pure madness and does nothing to improve the objective and subjective quality of wikipedia articles. Drawing conclusions is one of the most important jobs of a journalist, judging sources, weighting different sources against each other, and making sense of all the gibberish. This is even more important for an encyclopedia. Mind you, it'd be perfectly ok to state something like "Pluto is Mickey Mouse's dog. Pluto is Donald Duck's dog" when we could find WP:RS for both. It doesn't make sense - contradictions like that leave the reader confused, making the article, and Wikipedia less useful. The objective assessment "Pluto is a character in the Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse series comics" would first have to found in a reliable source that explicitely and decisively states so - without any room for interpretation. And that doesn't happen a lot I tell you. An article on Wikipedia or any real encyclopedia absolutely MUST be more than just randomly gathered sentence fragments or carbon copied public domain material. But exactly this is the result of WP:NOR. Now I want to throw a challenge: Give me a hypothetical or real example where WP:NOR would actually improve the quality of Wikipedia, that is, where _no_ other policies and guidelines are sufficient to avoid compromising the quality of Wikipedia as a whole. Dabljuh 20:46, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Hallucinations! Fever dreams! WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NPOV, WP:NOT and all those other fun policies are still in effect. You have yet to give me one example where those other policies would not be sufficient to keep "questionable" content out. Dabljuh 19:01, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Use some common sense whoever is writing this policy. Nick carson 06:11, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
I hate this policy and I also think it should be destroyed. I think wikipedia would be better if we were allowed to do original research. People would be able to get their own information instead of finding it off the internet or from a book-- Taida 01:20, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
There's some discussion already at Village Pump. Consider an example where someone is described as female and a lawyer, but the source doesn't explicitly say "female lawyer". Is it OR to call them a female lawyer?
Of course, you might argue that you should be able to find a source which says "female lawyer" explicitly, but you probably won't find a source which says "... is a female lawyer who is born in 1965, lives in Pleasantville, New Jersey and has been involved in so-and-so case...." At some point, you're going to have to take two statements about the person, and deduce from "this person is A" and "this person is B" that "this person is A and B".
Figuring out that the person is "A and B" involves making a deduction, just like going from "all infant surgery has this problem" and "circumcision is infant surgery" to "circumcision has this problem". Only a rule of logic is used to get from the premises to the conclusion. It seems ludicrous that such things are banned, and even more ludicrous when the decision about which to ban is purely arbitrary. Ken Arromdee 16:29, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
"If it bleeds, it leads" is the philosophy of the media. They're not interested in telling uninteresting stories, so if the truth is dull and uninteresting (which it often is), it often never sees print or airing, and thus becomes uncitable. Too often, it thus becomes unavailble to WP, according to WP:NOR. That's a problem.
WP:NOR, as you all know, essentially demands that something be printed or published somewhere else, before being put in WP. Original research or personal facts can be included, to be sure, but only if they're seen print somewhere else first. But getting the boring truth printed is not easy. Publication costs money. That money comes from somewhere. This causes bias. WP:NOR inevitably causes WP to follow that systemic bias.
That problem will continue so long as this policy is in place. The reason is that one can always get a reference for "man bites dog" because it's news and somebody will have printed it. But if you want a print reference for "dog bites man" you may well be in trouble, even if you're the man the dog bit. And if you want one for "dog didn't bite man", forget it. Again, even if you're the man the dog was erroneously supposed to have bit. Nobody will be interested. It doesn't sell papers. It doesn't attract advertising dollars.
WP, the FREEEEE encylopedia, consisting only of factoids originally printed because somebody wanted to sell a book, a journal, a story, a newspaper, or some kind of advertising. And untroubled by skepicism of same, because its editors must maintain a NPOV about this stuff, and cannot question it on their own. No matter how wacky it is, if it's in print, it's citable, and if the obvious problems with it are not in print, too bad. Sbharris 21:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
That's what I am talking about. The obvious, even if without a doubt true, must not necessarily be found in WP:RS - especially with recent developements. Should Wikipedia state the obvious? I'd say, tongue-in-cheek, that stating the obvious is the only real task of any general encyclopedia. Dabljuh 21:45, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
If this policy 'allows' sensationalist publishing (which I don't believe is the case) then removing the policy would do nothing to disallow it. DJ Clayworth 15:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I've been reading the debate and would like to focus on one basic question:
Are there any cases where WP:NOR is needed to prevent the insertion of text that doesn't belong, and the other rules do not suffice? Al 01:43, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Basically, our goal is to prevent editors from making shakey connections and questionable inferences. Unfortunately, it's being used to silence obvious and solid syllogisms. In the example you link to above, there links made were sketchy, so I can see why there's a problem. Even there, the solution is to either find attribution or tone down the strength of the alleged links, not to remove the entire section. WP:NPOV and WP:V would suffice to prevent this sort of thing, without any need for a specific WP:OR rule.
How can WP:NOR be abused? Let me quote myself from a recent RFM that went nowhere:
See what I mean? Al 04:36, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
No. When the BMJ states that the moon is made of earwax, we don't have to say the same thing or treat it as truth, when we believe it to be obvious nonsense. It would be irresponsible to simply spread outrageous claims from any source without cross-checking.
What we always can do, regardless of truth value, is to quote them directly. We can state "in a 2004 published statement, the BMJ explained that the moon was made from earwax" rather than "the moon is made from earwax". There is a very distinctive difference there - We, Wikipedia, treat the latter statement (*X is*) as objective truth, and we post it because (we believe in good faith) we can verify it with reliable sources. The premier one (*Y say X*) is merely a quote - we do not treat it as the objective truth, but merely as the (noteworthy - subjective judgement) opinion of a group. It doesn't matter if it's right or not - we can quote them in a manner that does not infer either, and the only thing that decides whether that quote can go into the article is whether we find it notable enough or not. The problem is that articles full of "These say this" "those say that" quickly becomes incomprehensible to a reader that just wants clear information. Thus, overuse of this technique is rightfully discouraged, and conflicts between sources is what WP:NPOV is all about - We have to separate mainstream and fringe views and indicate which is which and give them their due respect.
In the example with the Circumcision-MRSA link, it would have been perfectly appropriate to state something like this:
We state the surgical danger of MRSA endangers children. This is, objectively and verifiably the truth, or at least what we should note as truth. We furthermore quote and relativate DOC, not saying necessarily anything about the truth value of their statement (although in this particular case it would be obvious). Yes, opposition to such an addition to the article does not contribute to wikipedia, it prevents the article from getting better, and is the sad work and harrassment of POV warriors.
The question is, iff there was NO notable source reporting the latter jump to conclusion, should we, or should we not, be able to state this rather obvious (and notable) conclusion because of the sheer obviousness? Mind you, this IS an obvious example. I would not bring it up if anyone could raise serious doubts about the validity of the conclusion. Yes this is a subjective matter - But we make subjective judgements already when we decide over what constitutes a reliable source for example. There is simply no way to remove subjective judgements from the editing process. The idea is, that we work out our differences - Consensus is found in debate and thus again, subjective judgement. I have already explained that we must judge all the time, and that we have a ethical duty as editors to keep our articles as accurate and good as we can possibly make them. WP:NOR deliberately keeps us from doing so, while doing nothing to help us other than redundantly reminding us that Wikipedia wants verifiable sources and therefore doesn't like unpublished original research.
Alienus and I have now both asked for a concrete, specific example of a situation where a malicious disruptive addition could not be kept out from Wikipedia by WP:V and WP:NPOV alone. That is, a specific incident where only WP:NOR - and no other policy - could have been used. Simply stating that there would be thousands of incidents, yet then not detailing a single one of them, does not sound very convincing to me. Dabljuh 09:59, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure that this revert was an improvement. RJII's phrasing was easier reading, and we should probably not have incoherent arguments that are WP:NOR either. Jkelly 04:30, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
The point behind my edit was that new syntheses of concepts to advance an argument is original research. But, so is new syntheses of concepts NOT used to advance an argument. The sentence seemed to restrict original research to only those new syntheses or novel interpretation which are used to advance an argument. I don't even know if I fixed it. It's an awkward couple of sentences. RJII 04:42, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Just to place this in some context, it turns out that User:RJII has a pretty obvious motive for modifying WP:NOR. You see, he's engaged in an ongoing battle to get his favorite writer listed as a "major philosopher" on List of philosophers. When his efforts failed, he tried to get the article deleted. That's not working, so now he's trying to modify WP:NOR to shift the balance towards his goals. In short, anything he does here should be evaluated in the context of these goals, and reacted to appropriately. Al 05:08, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
As I pointed out in my edit comment, WP:AGF is not a suicide pact. Al 05:17, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
But, what about "new interpretation, analysis, or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts" that DON'T appear to advance a position? That would be original research as well. RJII 20:50, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
I've removed the following section as some of it seems unclear and may even encourage OR:
The point of the policy is that all of the above are fine iff they have been published by a reliable source, so it might be confusing to list them as though they're special cases. Also, it's not clear what "citing viewpoints that violate Occam's Razor ..." refers to. Of course it's fine to publish views that violate Occam's Razor, iff they've been published by a reliable source. (What's special about Occam's Razor?) SlimVirgin (talk) 17:52, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
The apparent purpose of this section is to allow important histories of false theories. Cold fusion and Phlogiston are discredited theories, so they do not belong in scientific articles about Nuclear fusion or Combustion but nevertheless they are sufficiently major parts of history that they warrant their own articles. Still, a list like this, and unclear as it is, should not be in the policy. — Centrx→ talk • 02:42, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
For those who have missed this: The WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:V policies are now officially non-negotiable. This took effect on 7 February 2006 when this edit to WP:NPOV went through without significant discussion or opposition.
According to Francis Schonken, "a basic problem is that too many people tried to *negotiate* the content of the policy page. Better keep it clear: there's no such procedure as changing wikipedia's NPOV policy by negotiation. As said, there's no separation between the NPOV policy and the way it is formulated on the NPOV policy page, or, if there would be, that separation would be different per person, so that's not a workable distinction." [2]
It is probably too early to tell whether or not the change is an improvement and will stand the test of time (assuming it can be reverted subject to consensus which seems self-contradictory). However, it does not seem too far-fetched to suppose it can (and should) be used as implied by Francis: to cut off attempts to negotiate the content of policy pages as redundant and, indeed, disruptive. AvB ÷ talk 14:36, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes. We're a bad ass and serious encyclopedia and all that shit. But the policy essentially says you can't say 2+2=4 if you don't find a source that says that. However, you can say 2+2=5 if you find a source that satisfies WP:RS - you can't say its wrong, however, since that would be OR again. That is not serious encyclopedia-making. That isn't even uncyclopedia-making. That is just lunacy and a violation of all that is good and holy and sexy about Wikipedia. We, as editors, need be given our RIGHT back, to point out the obvious - if necessary. "True" original research, like the policy originally intended to keep out, is already prevented by WP:V. WP:NOR is just the result of the overreaction of one man who was fed up dealing with physics cranks. Worse even, every article on Wikipedia that is not a 1:1 carbon copy of a Britannica 1911 article, is a synthetic product that may or may not advance a point, and thus violates NOR policy. What is more important, this policy, or the absolute sum of everything that is Wikipedia? I say we take this policy behind the barn with a shotgun and blow the mother away. Dabljuh 18:32, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I find WP:NOT extremely sufficient. This policy has ramifications that make it harmful to the entire encyclopedia, overruling any WP:SENSE, making it only useful to trolls, pov-pushers, wikilayers and stealth vandals. Dabljuh 18:39, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Consensus at this time is that this policy should be removed. If you are of a different opinion, then you are simply not up to date with the discussion. But because you are lazy, and I am such a nice person, I will give you a short summary right here:
If you want to know more, scroll up and read up.
You can disagree with those two simple points all you want if you want yourself to look foolish. Its not a matter of opinion. The policies themselves are extremely clear, explicit, and not a matter of interpretation on that matter.
If the policy is displayed as in effect right now, that means someone who couldn't be arsed to look up the talk pages is acting against the consensus and reverted against someone who took the policy out of effect. Remove the policy now, for the good of Wikipedia. Dabljuh 16:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Dab does have a point here. The way to show consensus would be to demonstrate that the people on one side have any argument at all. Inability to do this is tantamount to a concession. Al 16:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
This is one of Wikipedia's three core policies, and is not subject to being overturned by consensus. There are many sites on the web through which one can publish one's own research. One may also exercise one's m:Right to fork and create a new project that allows it. Jkelly 16:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, very strange. One of Wikipedia's problems is letting people know about important discussions. I've been visiting this site most days for a long time and this is the first time I've seen any discussion of this issue.
Since we seem to be talking about this, here are some cases where NOR helps us:
DJ Clayworth 16:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Dammit, Alienus beat me to it - but only because I got wrongly blocked again -_-
So.
Pleased to help out ;) Dabljuh 17:39, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Much obliged for your help, Dabljuh. However I think it's wrong. In 1 the theory is only verifiable because professor A has created his own off-Wikipedia reference to it. The theory exists, and the reference verifies it. However the theory doesn't deserve an article, and Wikipedia would be a better place without it. It passes verifiability but fails NOR. Your interpretation that NOR keeps us from adding the comment about nobody believes the theory is just wrong. That is not what NOR means.
Example 2: "Wikipedia is not a place to publish his personal theories". Well that's just a restatement of NOR. Sure we could make everything a subset of WP:NOT ("Wikipedia is not a place for non-neutral points of view":"Wikipedia is not a place for unverifiable things") but what's the point? Let's make it explicit. The same comment applies to Example 3.
As an aside, even if it were true that NOR was already prohibited by other rules, then what would be the disadvantage of keeping the rule? It makes an important piece of policy very clear, rather than letting people deduce it from other readings, and saves them time they might waste misunderstanding Wikipedia. DJ Clayworth 18:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
A last way to state it:
No, there is not consensus to remove NOR. Yes, I have been reading the talk pages. Five recent posts by a single contributor desperate to eradicate NOR supplemented by pages of dissent doesn't look like any kind of consensus to me. I congratulate you on your ability to provoke discussion however. Deco 19:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
The policy is not carved in stone, evident by the fact that the page is not protected, the most basic way on Wikipedia to prevent alteration. Also, note how sbharris points out that the policies fail themselves - they are not verifiable, have no reliable (external, unalterable) sources, and are certainly original research. They are intentionally kept that way, so as for us editors, when we find them to no longer serve the goals of Wikipedia, to alter them or remove them, if necessary. And this necessity to remove WP:NOR is evident. Dabljuh 20:34, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I suspect that Dabljuh will be responding in about three days. Al 03:37, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
(Removed troll comment)
I am beginning to think that it might be worth making explicit in this policy something that I have always assumed was obvious, and that I have always assumed other Wikipedians will find obvious: that is, that the drawing of simple logical inferences from sources is permissible, and does not count as original research. It seems from some of the examples given above (and my own experience on Adolf Hitler) that this needs to be made explicit. DJ Clayworth 13:40, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
(Removed troll comment)
(Removed my own reply to the troll comments, which look pretty silly without them. DJ Clayworth 19:05, 13 June 2006 (UTC) )
With all due respect, adding a "don't serve to advance a position" proviso totally undermines our ability to make reasonable inferences, and is itself unreasonable. Consider the case of circumcision, where one source speaks of the risk of CA-MRSA for all infant surgery without specifying circumcision. A reasonable inference is that, as circumcision of infants is obviously a type of infant surgery, the CA-MRSA risk applies. However, some people might decide that this advances the anti-circumcision position (by showing another risk to the procedure) and therefore try to block it using your version of WP:NOR. This is NOT a hypothetical example! Al 20:58, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Actually, it's the best reason to change them. When a policy has a weakness that allows abuse of a particular sort, that's a hint that we should fix the policy so that this sort of abuse is harder to accomplish. Al 22:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I can only agree with your intentions, but I must sadly report that, in actually, things are not as you describe. Articles on controversial topics, such as circumcision, have been turned into battlegrounds, where rules are routinely abused in the support of partisanism. While all rules are subject to some abuse, and it would not be a good idea to try to anticipate all possibilities, I would have to say that it is a bad idea to fail to react to actualities. Al 22:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
The attempt to include "reasonable inference" will only open the floodgates for unlimited original research. What is "reasonable", after all? Everyone will conclude that their own inferences are, of course, "reasonable". There's no point in including this kind of wording, since its primary use will be for abrogating the policy. Jayjg (talk) 22:03, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
The terminology "reasonable inference" may have some problems. Without clarification, "reasonable" could be interpreted as the common, weak merely sensible or not absurd, when instead it should mean the much stronger logical. Similarly with "inference", it could be interpreted as a subtle signification or indirect assumed result, when instead what is meant is a necessary logical consequence. The policy needs to allow straightforward descriptions and summaries of sources, tautologies, and logical inferences of the kind in the question below about mathematical proofs, not sensible assumptions that involve new, hidden premisses. — Centrx→ talk • 02:36, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
This is all fine and good, but look at the example in the policy. "This is a definition of plagiarism, which requires doing these acts. Person X has not committed these acts. (Implied:) By this definition the person is not a plagiarist."
That's a reasonable inference, but it's banned.
(Of course, if the inference is not qualified with "by this definition", then there's a hidden premise that the definition is useful, making the inference not reasonable. But since the inference isn't stated outright, I think we should assume that the intended inference is the reasonable one.) Ken Arromdee 19:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
One thing that occurred to me recently was to look at US censuses (which I have access to via a subscription service) to establish the addresses and birthplaces of people who are the subject of biographies. Look at Talk:John W. Campbell#Census information for some notes I made on this data, for example. Is this original research? I think it's not, since the source is available and the inferences are not analysis or synthesis, but I'd like to hear opinions from more experienced Wikipedians. I am well aware that identifying particular people in a census is a process that has many pitfalls, but it is also true that it is often very clear that the right person has been identified (as in the John W. Campbell case). Any thoughts on this data? And incidentally, if I'm going to cite the census, is there a cite template for it? I can build a cite format from the forms used by genealogists, if not. Mike Christie 16:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
JA: I want to discuss a certain type of (DIYD)2 phenomenon that I frequently encounter out there in the process of writing articles. As a responsible scholar by nature and nurture, I always give complete literature citations, very often give verbatim quotations, and doing that in the case of a complex argument in the source often necessitates the use of blockquotes. This is very common in books and journals that demand exacting analysis of primary source materials. This meets with more diehard resistance in WP than I ever would have dreamed or nightmared possible. Now, you obviously can't write a decent article in the form of a string of blockquotes, and I have never tried doing that, so you have to put in transitions of various types, very often stating in more casual or contemporary terms what a primary source, that may be from another clime or another time, is about to say, or has just said. And there you get the other half of the condemnation that you are inserting Orginal Research for interpreting what the primary sources said. You must understand that this mostly occurs in the case of very contentious articles where just about any addition of information, now matter how well sourced, will be disputed, so there is no rational evaluation of whether the necessary interpolations are in fact no-brainer interpretations or not. But this seems to happen more and more of late, and people who no more read the whole of the WP:NOR page than they read the whole of anything else are very fond of citing it in defense of their desire to remain innocent of any "new" idea, even if, or especially if, it's a "new" idea from Plato or Lao Tzu. So I think that something in the very first boxed paragraph of this article needs to clarify that issue in a manner both clear and firm. Jon Awbrey 14:48, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
I'll try to be brief.
As is well-known, mathematics is a deductive science. This means, before anything else, that the conclusions of mathematics are numerous, and the ways in which they can be presented are ten-fold as numerous. If you start with a different set of assumptions, or the same set of assumptions in a different form, you can build modern mathematics in an entirely different language.
Because this encyclopedia is to be a reference, there is every sense in maintaining the modern academic standards, and in refraining from introducing nonstandard expression. But that is only half the journey. Even if we accept the same fundamental assumptions, and agree to express ourselves more or less cohesively (that is, with internal consistency, motivated by convention, which in any case is nine out of ten times simple common sense), we are still confronted by derivatives. That is to say, short of copying proofs verbatim from authors of books -- proofs which will vary widely, because while the conventions of mathematics are widely standardized among mathematicians, the procedures and means of reasoning is not. So if John writes down an author's proof and Michael writes down another's, who is to decide between them? And who is to stop Harry from barging in with his own proof, which adheres to all the conventions of the language, as set forth in the preceding text -- and which is correct, maybe more correct than either John's or Michael's. but for which Harry won't come up with a source. What to do then?
The policy on Wikipedia so far has been de facto different for mathematics articles. That is to say, like all mathematicians, the mathematicians who write here judge substantive additions to articles on their correctness first, and then by everything else. But this leaves one important question open: where do we draw the line? What kind of deduction in mathematics articles can be seen transparent, so that it doesn't need verification? -- VKokielov 05:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
I can't wait to see the Wikipedia policy called "First-order logic: An exception to OR". — Centrx→ talk • 02:03, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
JA: There are two ways of grounding statements: (1) common sense (2) prior publication. The reason why math articles don't contain a lot of citations, except for breaking news items, is that a lot of math content is really founded on (1), and in two senses: (1a) the extreme stability of math knowledge and the uniformity of math training means that a lot of things are common knowledge, folklore, learned in the process of doing some textboook exercise that may have never been considered worth publishing in its own right, or whose original source is all but lost to memory, (1b) in principle, any person, given enough time and diligence, should be able to understand any proof. Jon Awbrey 06:28, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
The example link under why no original content is broken, I would fix it but I don't know where it is supposed to point to.
-- 24cell 21:31, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I have corrected the link, which before pointed to section "Example of a new synthesis of published material serving to advance a position", to point to section " Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position". — Centrx→ talk • 01:59, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
Is manual translation OR? It would seem to be, wouldn't it? A contributor's personal translation is neither WP:RS or WP:V and since it is a determination made by the contributor as an interpretation of a source, it's OR isn't it?
But if it is, and by all characteristics it would appear to be, then how can we have WP:TIE encouraging people to perform manual translations to create articles?
Please advise; the matter of contributor manual translation as valid article content is being called into question in an article dispute.
- Keith D. Tyler ¶ ( AMA) 07:14, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
I would appreciate everyone here to look at and oppose Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups/Rules for lists of X-Americans. User:Arniep seems to be saying that "Common sense" can override this policy when it comes to listing "X-Americans". It is very clear from the policy that all the "X-American" labels can only be applied by Wikipedia to a person if applied elsewhere already, even if the definition for X-American matches that person, just as is the case with the plagarism example on this page - we can not say what is or is not plagarism pending a source that labels that subject as exactly that. The "Common sense" that Arniep is proposing, besides being incredibly editor-subjective, seems to be a stark violation of the policy. Cheers... Mad Jack 17:11, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
I believe, and it's reflected in the discussions here, that common sense really should override Wikipedia rules. This is reflected in Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. DJ Clayworth 18:57, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
The X-American discussion seems to be very confused between the issues of "it's a questionable deduction" and "it's a deduction".
I think a case can be made that deducing that someone is Irish-American is wrong because the deduction is questionable--for instance, the definition may not be quite right, given how some people define themselves. I *don't* think the deduction is wrong *merely because it's a deduction*. The discussion there is confusing these two issues. Ken Arromdee 21:06, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
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I have been asked to mention this discussion here. - Samsara ( talk • contribs) 18:21, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
If my interpretation is correct (and I believe that it is, judging from the spirit of the rule as it has been applied in existing articles), the name of this policy may be misleading. I suggest that mention may be added to the policy page of the distinction between what is commonly considered research and the term "research" as it is used by the policy.
Hypothetical example: Historical Individual was tried in 1763, and a large quantity of commentary exists in the form of contemporary primary documents indicating that this happened on May 3, 1763 in Specific Place. This information is available to Editor and is non-controversial in that it is not disputed among secondary sources. Editor sees that the article on Historical Individual does not mention the date or place, or does so incorrectly. Perhaps Editor even brings this to the talk page to verify, if indeed the information is incorrect. Is Editor permitted to make the addition of this information if it is not available in any known secondary sources?
The answer would seem to me an obvious "yes", but I really can't say whether this qualifies as original research as per the WP standard any more than does "researching" secondary sources. This seems to me an ambiguity, and I think it should be clarified in the policy article. Because the policy is so established (and because it would be impractical), I don't recommend a name change (such as to "original data or analysis"), but I think some visible, official clarification would do the job just as well. Fearwig 06:24, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
I feel that the Wikipedia should include the facts of Individual experience, of understanding, of "original research," thereof. Referenced material is merely of a consensus and we all know (or should know...) that that has been refuted (by referenced material...) time and time again as a fact of science, "inductive" science, thereof. Sure, it may be bulky, even messy, the facts, but where does it say science is beautiful, and/or of a referenced consensus? See Consensus science (vs. conclusive [compelling? ...] science). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Individual1 ( talk • contribs) 06:03, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
Science is more fundamentally of the senses, of the experience and conscience of the feelings, of understanding, as of the individual, thereof, of that and only that which is capable of understanding. Science starts with the individual, thereof, and need go no further than that except of opinion, (and to limit science to a manageable artform?) which in and of itself would not be scientific, I feel, as understand, as a fact, of the facts, thereof. 1 05:16, 26 June 2006 (UTC) [Originally, as with the above paragraph, of approx. June 23rd, or so, 2006]
I was discussing with Shawnc a photo he had altered ( Image:395px-Keratoconus1-800-edit.png) when he called my attention to an altered photo and a "synthetic animation" that have been promoted to Featured quality:
As stated here at WP:NOR, altered photos are not to be used to illustrate the main Wikipedia namespace, as they are essentially original research. These two examples are both extremely beautiful, but they should not have been promoted to Featured quality for this reason. They should also not be used to illustrate Wikipedia articles.
The reason for the rule is that an altered photo purports to illustrate something that is not true. It captures a moment in time that never occurred. It is false. When the photo retoucher performs his work, he is creating a fact, by himself. This is a clear violation of what the NOR rule is supposed to prevent.
The debate over altered photos is of course not original to Wikipedia; altered photos have been an interesting topic in journalism ethics classes for several decades; see the article "Faking images in photojournalism" from 1988. I will expand the rule here on NOR to try to explain 'why' but it sounds like word of the rule needs to be spread to the people who frequent the featured photos discussion. Tempshill 06:39, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I think you're a bit too obsessed with the idea of Wikipedia as a compendium of all knowledge of all events that ever occurred. If you are simply trying to avoid a slippery slope that would lead to something like the National Geographic cover you mentioned, don't worry. Everything is fine in small doses, and that is true of altering images; all images can be altered within reason. Whether the alteration of an image is unreasonable will be determined one-image-at-a-time, not by executing an overly-restrictive policy of not altering any images.... — BRIAN 0918 • 2006-06-21 16:52
Will evidence of innacuracy or problems be shown in place of edited material? Call someone a liar or disprove a fact then another fact has to replace it.
-- G-Spot 17:30, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
This policy must be destroyed, and have its rotten corpse dragged through the dirty streets, for the good of Wikipedia.
Where do I sign? I'm almost sure that there is a "destroy the WP:NOR policy" committee already. If not, I sign here.
It's not a gray area - WP:NOR is very clear on the matter:
And that is technically exactly what "circumcision = surgery and surgery = a cause of this problem, then circumcision = a cause of this problem" is. There is nothing gray or shady about it. And there is no reason to believe that this simple, logical thinking would be false - it simply violates WP:NOR. Now of course one begins to wonder, what the hell are you supposed to write in wikipedia then if you may not even draw the most obvious conclusions from given, verifiable data? When you are forbidden from stating the obvious? I told you: Carbon copies of US government statements in the public domain. Dabljuh 19:35, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
"If it is obvious, the connection will have been made before." Not necessarily. The big, big advantage Wikipedia has over classical paper encyclopedias is that it is most up to date. This is one big reason why Wikipedia is successful. The threat of MRSA in this example is a very new one - and despite its obvious ramifications with circumcision, it may take months or years until someone writes a paper detailing circumcision risks of MRSA. I mean, if I'd ask a doctor, any doctor, if he'd write a paper detailing MRSA and neonate circumcision, it'd be something like "Hey, yeah, circumcision facilitates MRSA infection" - That is not really anything new. We knew that already. Because it is so obvious. The time of doctors is limited and when things are very obvious, there is just no incentive at all to release a paper that states the obvious, unless one wants to assault his peers with boredom. Lets make a different, fictious example. "Marilyn Monroe was a white woman". Original research! Can't say that unless you find me a *medical* peer reviewed journal that says so. Yeah, there's her picture and all that and she's very obviously white (although not necessarily blonde) but looking at the picture and drawing the conclusion that she must have been white is original research by the very meaning of the policy. Even more, even though we could presume that if she was white, her birthparents must have been white too, that's original research. The policy commands pure madness and does nothing to improve the objective and subjective quality of wikipedia articles. Drawing conclusions is one of the most important jobs of a journalist, judging sources, weighting different sources against each other, and making sense of all the gibberish. This is even more important for an encyclopedia. Mind you, it'd be perfectly ok to state something like "Pluto is Mickey Mouse's dog. Pluto is Donald Duck's dog" when we could find WP:RS for both. It doesn't make sense - contradictions like that leave the reader confused, making the article, and Wikipedia less useful. The objective assessment "Pluto is a character in the Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse series comics" would first have to found in a reliable source that explicitely and decisively states so - without any room for interpretation. And that doesn't happen a lot I tell you. An article on Wikipedia or any real encyclopedia absolutely MUST be more than just randomly gathered sentence fragments or carbon copied public domain material. But exactly this is the result of WP:NOR. Now I want to throw a challenge: Give me a hypothetical or real example where WP:NOR would actually improve the quality of Wikipedia, that is, where _no_ other policies and guidelines are sufficient to avoid compromising the quality of Wikipedia as a whole. Dabljuh 20:46, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Hallucinations! Fever dreams! WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NPOV, WP:NOT and all those other fun policies are still in effect. You have yet to give me one example where those other policies would not be sufficient to keep "questionable" content out. Dabljuh 19:01, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Use some common sense whoever is writing this policy. Nick carson 06:11, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
I hate this policy and I also think it should be destroyed. I think wikipedia would be better if we were allowed to do original research. People would be able to get their own information instead of finding it off the internet or from a book-- Taida 01:20, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
There's some discussion already at Village Pump. Consider an example where someone is described as female and a lawyer, but the source doesn't explicitly say "female lawyer". Is it OR to call them a female lawyer?
Of course, you might argue that you should be able to find a source which says "female lawyer" explicitly, but you probably won't find a source which says "... is a female lawyer who is born in 1965, lives in Pleasantville, New Jersey and has been involved in so-and-so case...." At some point, you're going to have to take two statements about the person, and deduce from "this person is A" and "this person is B" that "this person is A and B".
Figuring out that the person is "A and B" involves making a deduction, just like going from "all infant surgery has this problem" and "circumcision is infant surgery" to "circumcision has this problem". Only a rule of logic is used to get from the premises to the conclusion. It seems ludicrous that such things are banned, and even more ludicrous when the decision about which to ban is purely arbitrary. Ken Arromdee 16:29, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
"If it bleeds, it leads" is the philosophy of the media. They're not interested in telling uninteresting stories, so if the truth is dull and uninteresting (which it often is), it often never sees print or airing, and thus becomes uncitable. Too often, it thus becomes unavailble to WP, according to WP:NOR. That's a problem.
WP:NOR, as you all know, essentially demands that something be printed or published somewhere else, before being put in WP. Original research or personal facts can be included, to be sure, but only if they're seen print somewhere else first. But getting the boring truth printed is not easy. Publication costs money. That money comes from somewhere. This causes bias. WP:NOR inevitably causes WP to follow that systemic bias.
That problem will continue so long as this policy is in place. The reason is that one can always get a reference for "man bites dog" because it's news and somebody will have printed it. But if you want a print reference for "dog bites man" you may well be in trouble, even if you're the man the dog bit. And if you want one for "dog didn't bite man", forget it. Again, even if you're the man the dog was erroneously supposed to have bit. Nobody will be interested. It doesn't sell papers. It doesn't attract advertising dollars.
WP, the FREEEEE encylopedia, consisting only of factoids originally printed because somebody wanted to sell a book, a journal, a story, a newspaper, or some kind of advertising. And untroubled by skepicism of same, because its editors must maintain a NPOV about this stuff, and cannot question it on their own. No matter how wacky it is, if it's in print, it's citable, and if the obvious problems with it are not in print, too bad. Sbharris 21:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
That's what I am talking about. The obvious, even if without a doubt true, must not necessarily be found in WP:RS - especially with recent developements. Should Wikipedia state the obvious? I'd say, tongue-in-cheek, that stating the obvious is the only real task of any general encyclopedia. Dabljuh 21:45, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
If this policy 'allows' sensationalist publishing (which I don't believe is the case) then removing the policy would do nothing to disallow it. DJ Clayworth 15:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I've been reading the debate and would like to focus on one basic question:
Are there any cases where WP:NOR is needed to prevent the insertion of text that doesn't belong, and the other rules do not suffice? Al 01:43, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Basically, our goal is to prevent editors from making shakey connections and questionable inferences. Unfortunately, it's being used to silence obvious and solid syllogisms. In the example you link to above, there links made were sketchy, so I can see why there's a problem. Even there, the solution is to either find attribution or tone down the strength of the alleged links, not to remove the entire section. WP:NPOV and WP:V would suffice to prevent this sort of thing, without any need for a specific WP:OR rule.
How can WP:NOR be abused? Let me quote myself from a recent RFM that went nowhere:
See what I mean? Al 04:36, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
No. When the BMJ states that the moon is made of earwax, we don't have to say the same thing or treat it as truth, when we believe it to be obvious nonsense. It would be irresponsible to simply spread outrageous claims from any source without cross-checking.
What we always can do, regardless of truth value, is to quote them directly. We can state "in a 2004 published statement, the BMJ explained that the moon was made from earwax" rather than "the moon is made from earwax". There is a very distinctive difference there - We, Wikipedia, treat the latter statement (*X is*) as objective truth, and we post it because (we believe in good faith) we can verify it with reliable sources. The premier one (*Y say X*) is merely a quote - we do not treat it as the objective truth, but merely as the (noteworthy - subjective judgement) opinion of a group. It doesn't matter if it's right or not - we can quote them in a manner that does not infer either, and the only thing that decides whether that quote can go into the article is whether we find it notable enough or not. The problem is that articles full of "These say this" "those say that" quickly becomes incomprehensible to a reader that just wants clear information. Thus, overuse of this technique is rightfully discouraged, and conflicts between sources is what WP:NPOV is all about - We have to separate mainstream and fringe views and indicate which is which and give them their due respect.
In the example with the Circumcision-MRSA link, it would have been perfectly appropriate to state something like this:
We state the surgical danger of MRSA endangers children. This is, objectively and verifiably the truth, or at least what we should note as truth. We furthermore quote and relativate DOC, not saying necessarily anything about the truth value of their statement (although in this particular case it would be obvious). Yes, opposition to such an addition to the article does not contribute to wikipedia, it prevents the article from getting better, and is the sad work and harrassment of POV warriors.
The question is, iff there was NO notable source reporting the latter jump to conclusion, should we, or should we not, be able to state this rather obvious (and notable) conclusion because of the sheer obviousness? Mind you, this IS an obvious example. I would not bring it up if anyone could raise serious doubts about the validity of the conclusion. Yes this is a subjective matter - But we make subjective judgements already when we decide over what constitutes a reliable source for example. There is simply no way to remove subjective judgements from the editing process. The idea is, that we work out our differences - Consensus is found in debate and thus again, subjective judgement. I have already explained that we must judge all the time, and that we have a ethical duty as editors to keep our articles as accurate and good as we can possibly make them. WP:NOR deliberately keeps us from doing so, while doing nothing to help us other than redundantly reminding us that Wikipedia wants verifiable sources and therefore doesn't like unpublished original research.
Alienus and I have now both asked for a concrete, specific example of a situation where a malicious disruptive addition could not be kept out from Wikipedia by WP:V and WP:NPOV alone. That is, a specific incident where only WP:NOR - and no other policy - could have been used. Simply stating that there would be thousands of incidents, yet then not detailing a single one of them, does not sound very convincing to me. Dabljuh 09:59, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure that this revert was an improvement. RJII's phrasing was easier reading, and we should probably not have incoherent arguments that are WP:NOR either. Jkelly 04:30, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
The point behind my edit was that new syntheses of concepts to advance an argument is original research. But, so is new syntheses of concepts NOT used to advance an argument. The sentence seemed to restrict original research to only those new syntheses or novel interpretation which are used to advance an argument. I don't even know if I fixed it. It's an awkward couple of sentences. RJII 04:42, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Just to place this in some context, it turns out that User:RJII has a pretty obvious motive for modifying WP:NOR. You see, he's engaged in an ongoing battle to get his favorite writer listed as a "major philosopher" on List of philosophers. When his efforts failed, he tried to get the article deleted. That's not working, so now he's trying to modify WP:NOR to shift the balance towards his goals. In short, anything he does here should be evaluated in the context of these goals, and reacted to appropriately. Al 05:08, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
As I pointed out in my edit comment, WP:AGF is not a suicide pact. Al 05:17, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
But, what about "new interpretation, analysis, or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts" that DON'T appear to advance a position? That would be original research as well. RJII 20:50, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
I've removed the following section as some of it seems unclear and may even encourage OR:
The point of the policy is that all of the above are fine iff they have been published by a reliable source, so it might be confusing to list them as though they're special cases. Also, it's not clear what "citing viewpoints that violate Occam's Razor ..." refers to. Of course it's fine to publish views that violate Occam's Razor, iff they've been published by a reliable source. (What's special about Occam's Razor?) SlimVirgin (talk) 17:52, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
The apparent purpose of this section is to allow important histories of false theories. Cold fusion and Phlogiston are discredited theories, so they do not belong in scientific articles about Nuclear fusion or Combustion but nevertheless they are sufficiently major parts of history that they warrant their own articles. Still, a list like this, and unclear as it is, should not be in the policy. — Centrx→ talk • 02:42, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
For those who have missed this: The WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:V policies are now officially non-negotiable. This took effect on 7 February 2006 when this edit to WP:NPOV went through without significant discussion or opposition.
According to Francis Schonken, "a basic problem is that too many people tried to *negotiate* the content of the policy page. Better keep it clear: there's no such procedure as changing wikipedia's NPOV policy by negotiation. As said, there's no separation between the NPOV policy and the way it is formulated on the NPOV policy page, or, if there would be, that separation would be different per person, so that's not a workable distinction." [2]
It is probably too early to tell whether or not the change is an improvement and will stand the test of time (assuming it can be reverted subject to consensus which seems self-contradictory). However, it does not seem too far-fetched to suppose it can (and should) be used as implied by Francis: to cut off attempts to negotiate the content of policy pages as redundant and, indeed, disruptive. AvB ÷ talk 14:36, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes. We're a bad ass and serious encyclopedia and all that shit. But the policy essentially says you can't say 2+2=4 if you don't find a source that says that. However, you can say 2+2=5 if you find a source that satisfies WP:RS - you can't say its wrong, however, since that would be OR again. That is not serious encyclopedia-making. That isn't even uncyclopedia-making. That is just lunacy and a violation of all that is good and holy and sexy about Wikipedia. We, as editors, need be given our RIGHT back, to point out the obvious - if necessary. "True" original research, like the policy originally intended to keep out, is already prevented by WP:V. WP:NOR is just the result of the overreaction of one man who was fed up dealing with physics cranks. Worse even, every article on Wikipedia that is not a 1:1 carbon copy of a Britannica 1911 article, is a synthetic product that may or may not advance a point, and thus violates NOR policy. What is more important, this policy, or the absolute sum of everything that is Wikipedia? I say we take this policy behind the barn with a shotgun and blow the mother away. Dabljuh 18:32, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I find WP:NOT extremely sufficient. This policy has ramifications that make it harmful to the entire encyclopedia, overruling any WP:SENSE, making it only useful to trolls, pov-pushers, wikilayers and stealth vandals. Dabljuh 18:39, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Consensus at this time is that this policy should be removed. If you are of a different opinion, then you are simply not up to date with the discussion. But because you are lazy, and I am such a nice person, I will give you a short summary right here:
If you want to know more, scroll up and read up.
You can disagree with those two simple points all you want if you want yourself to look foolish. Its not a matter of opinion. The policies themselves are extremely clear, explicit, and not a matter of interpretation on that matter.
If the policy is displayed as in effect right now, that means someone who couldn't be arsed to look up the talk pages is acting against the consensus and reverted against someone who took the policy out of effect. Remove the policy now, for the good of Wikipedia. Dabljuh 16:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Dab does have a point here. The way to show consensus would be to demonstrate that the people on one side have any argument at all. Inability to do this is tantamount to a concession. Al 16:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
This is one of Wikipedia's three core policies, and is not subject to being overturned by consensus. There are many sites on the web through which one can publish one's own research. One may also exercise one's m:Right to fork and create a new project that allows it. Jkelly 16:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, very strange. One of Wikipedia's problems is letting people know about important discussions. I've been visiting this site most days for a long time and this is the first time I've seen any discussion of this issue.
Since we seem to be talking about this, here are some cases where NOR helps us:
DJ Clayworth 16:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Dammit, Alienus beat me to it - but only because I got wrongly blocked again -_-
So.
Pleased to help out ;) Dabljuh 17:39, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Much obliged for your help, Dabljuh. However I think it's wrong. In 1 the theory is only verifiable because professor A has created his own off-Wikipedia reference to it. The theory exists, and the reference verifies it. However the theory doesn't deserve an article, and Wikipedia would be a better place without it. It passes verifiability but fails NOR. Your interpretation that NOR keeps us from adding the comment about nobody believes the theory is just wrong. That is not what NOR means.
Example 2: "Wikipedia is not a place to publish his personal theories". Well that's just a restatement of NOR. Sure we could make everything a subset of WP:NOT ("Wikipedia is not a place for non-neutral points of view":"Wikipedia is not a place for unverifiable things") but what's the point? Let's make it explicit. The same comment applies to Example 3.
As an aside, even if it were true that NOR was already prohibited by other rules, then what would be the disadvantage of keeping the rule? It makes an important piece of policy very clear, rather than letting people deduce it from other readings, and saves them time they might waste misunderstanding Wikipedia. DJ Clayworth 18:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
A last way to state it:
No, there is not consensus to remove NOR. Yes, I have been reading the talk pages. Five recent posts by a single contributor desperate to eradicate NOR supplemented by pages of dissent doesn't look like any kind of consensus to me. I congratulate you on your ability to provoke discussion however. Deco 19:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
The policy is not carved in stone, evident by the fact that the page is not protected, the most basic way on Wikipedia to prevent alteration. Also, note how sbharris points out that the policies fail themselves - they are not verifiable, have no reliable (external, unalterable) sources, and are certainly original research. They are intentionally kept that way, so as for us editors, when we find them to no longer serve the goals of Wikipedia, to alter them or remove them, if necessary. And this necessity to remove WP:NOR is evident. Dabljuh 20:34, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I suspect that Dabljuh will be responding in about three days. Al 03:37, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
(Removed troll comment)
I am beginning to think that it might be worth making explicit in this policy something that I have always assumed was obvious, and that I have always assumed other Wikipedians will find obvious: that is, that the drawing of simple logical inferences from sources is permissible, and does not count as original research. It seems from some of the examples given above (and my own experience on Adolf Hitler) that this needs to be made explicit. DJ Clayworth 13:40, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
(Removed troll comment)
(Removed my own reply to the troll comments, which look pretty silly without them. DJ Clayworth 19:05, 13 June 2006 (UTC) )
With all due respect, adding a "don't serve to advance a position" proviso totally undermines our ability to make reasonable inferences, and is itself unreasonable. Consider the case of circumcision, where one source speaks of the risk of CA-MRSA for all infant surgery without specifying circumcision. A reasonable inference is that, as circumcision of infants is obviously a type of infant surgery, the CA-MRSA risk applies. However, some people might decide that this advances the anti-circumcision position (by showing another risk to the procedure) and therefore try to block it using your version of WP:NOR. This is NOT a hypothetical example! Al 20:58, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Actually, it's the best reason to change them. When a policy has a weakness that allows abuse of a particular sort, that's a hint that we should fix the policy so that this sort of abuse is harder to accomplish. Al 22:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I can only agree with your intentions, but I must sadly report that, in actually, things are not as you describe. Articles on controversial topics, such as circumcision, have been turned into battlegrounds, where rules are routinely abused in the support of partisanism. While all rules are subject to some abuse, and it would not be a good idea to try to anticipate all possibilities, I would have to say that it is a bad idea to fail to react to actualities. Al 22:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
The attempt to include "reasonable inference" will only open the floodgates for unlimited original research. What is "reasonable", after all? Everyone will conclude that their own inferences are, of course, "reasonable". There's no point in including this kind of wording, since its primary use will be for abrogating the policy. Jayjg (talk) 22:03, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
The terminology "reasonable inference" may have some problems. Without clarification, "reasonable" could be interpreted as the common, weak merely sensible or not absurd, when instead it should mean the much stronger logical. Similarly with "inference", it could be interpreted as a subtle signification or indirect assumed result, when instead what is meant is a necessary logical consequence. The policy needs to allow straightforward descriptions and summaries of sources, tautologies, and logical inferences of the kind in the question below about mathematical proofs, not sensible assumptions that involve new, hidden premisses. — Centrx→ talk • 02:36, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
This is all fine and good, but look at the example in the policy. "This is a definition of plagiarism, which requires doing these acts. Person X has not committed these acts. (Implied:) By this definition the person is not a plagiarist."
That's a reasonable inference, but it's banned.
(Of course, if the inference is not qualified with "by this definition", then there's a hidden premise that the definition is useful, making the inference not reasonable. But since the inference isn't stated outright, I think we should assume that the intended inference is the reasonable one.) Ken Arromdee 19:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
One thing that occurred to me recently was to look at US censuses (which I have access to via a subscription service) to establish the addresses and birthplaces of people who are the subject of biographies. Look at Talk:John W. Campbell#Census information for some notes I made on this data, for example. Is this original research? I think it's not, since the source is available and the inferences are not analysis or synthesis, but I'd like to hear opinions from more experienced Wikipedians. I am well aware that identifying particular people in a census is a process that has many pitfalls, but it is also true that it is often very clear that the right person has been identified (as in the John W. Campbell case). Any thoughts on this data? And incidentally, if I'm going to cite the census, is there a cite template for it? I can build a cite format from the forms used by genealogists, if not. Mike Christie 16:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
JA: I want to discuss a certain type of (DIYD)2 phenomenon that I frequently encounter out there in the process of writing articles. As a responsible scholar by nature and nurture, I always give complete literature citations, very often give verbatim quotations, and doing that in the case of a complex argument in the source often necessitates the use of blockquotes. This is very common in books and journals that demand exacting analysis of primary source materials. This meets with more diehard resistance in WP than I ever would have dreamed or nightmared possible. Now, you obviously can't write a decent article in the form of a string of blockquotes, and I have never tried doing that, so you have to put in transitions of various types, very often stating in more casual or contemporary terms what a primary source, that may be from another clime or another time, is about to say, or has just said. And there you get the other half of the condemnation that you are inserting Orginal Research for interpreting what the primary sources said. You must understand that this mostly occurs in the case of very contentious articles where just about any addition of information, now matter how well sourced, will be disputed, so there is no rational evaluation of whether the necessary interpolations are in fact no-brainer interpretations or not. But this seems to happen more and more of late, and people who no more read the whole of the WP:NOR page than they read the whole of anything else are very fond of citing it in defense of their desire to remain innocent of any "new" idea, even if, or especially if, it's a "new" idea from Plato or Lao Tzu. So I think that something in the very first boxed paragraph of this article needs to clarify that issue in a manner both clear and firm. Jon Awbrey 14:48, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
I'll try to be brief.
As is well-known, mathematics is a deductive science. This means, before anything else, that the conclusions of mathematics are numerous, and the ways in which they can be presented are ten-fold as numerous. If you start with a different set of assumptions, or the same set of assumptions in a different form, you can build modern mathematics in an entirely different language.
Because this encyclopedia is to be a reference, there is every sense in maintaining the modern academic standards, and in refraining from introducing nonstandard expression. But that is only half the journey. Even if we accept the same fundamental assumptions, and agree to express ourselves more or less cohesively (that is, with internal consistency, motivated by convention, which in any case is nine out of ten times simple common sense), we are still confronted by derivatives. That is to say, short of copying proofs verbatim from authors of books -- proofs which will vary widely, because while the conventions of mathematics are widely standardized among mathematicians, the procedures and means of reasoning is not. So if John writes down an author's proof and Michael writes down another's, who is to decide between them? And who is to stop Harry from barging in with his own proof, which adheres to all the conventions of the language, as set forth in the preceding text -- and which is correct, maybe more correct than either John's or Michael's. but for which Harry won't come up with a source. What to do then?
The policy on Wikipedia so far has been de facto different for mathematics articles. That is to say, like all mathematicians, the mathematicians who write here judge substantive additions to articles on their correctness first, and then by everything else. But this leaves one important question open: where do we draw the line? What kind of deduction in mathematics articles can be seen transparent, so that it doesn't need verification? -- VKokielov 05:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
I can't wait to see the Wikipedia policy called "First-order logic: An exception to OR". — Centrx→ talk • 02:03, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
JA: There are two ways of grounding statements: (1) common sense (2) prior publication. The reason why math articles don't contain a lot of citations, except for breaking news items, is that a lot of math content is really founded on (1), and in two senses: (1a) the extreme stability of math knowledge and the uniformity of math training means that a lot of things are common knowledge, folklore, learned in the process of doing some textboook exercise that may have never been considered worth publishing in its own right, or whose original source is all but lost to memory, (1b) in principle, any person, given enough time and diligence, should be able to understand any proof. Jon Awbrey 06:28, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
The example link under why no original content is broken, I would fix it but I don't know where it is supposed to point to.
-- 24cell 21:31, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I have corrected the link, which before pointed to section "Example of a new synthesis of published material serving to advance a position", to point to section " Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position". — Centrx→ talk • 01:59, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
Is manual translation OR? It would seem to be, wouldn't it? A contributor's personal translation is neither WP:RS or WP:V and since it is a determination made by the contributor as an interpretation of a source, it's OR isn't it?
But if it is, and by all characteristics it would appear to be, then how can we have WP:TIE encouraging people to perform manual translations to create articles?
Please advise; the matter of contributor manual translation as valid article content is being called into question in an article dispute.
- Keith D. Tyler ¶ ( AMA) 07:14, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
I would appreciate everyone here to look at and oppose Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups/Rules for lists of X-Americans. User:Arniep seems to be saying that "Common sense" can override this policy when it comes to listing "X-Americans". It is very clear from the policy that all the "X-American" labels can only be applied by Wikipedia to a person if applied elsewhere already, even if the definition for X-American matches that person, just as is the case with the plagarism example on this page - we can not say what is or is not plagarism pending a source that labels that subject as exactly that. The "Common sense" that Arniep is proposing, besides being incredibly editor-subjective, seems to be a stark violation of the policy. Cheers... Mad Jack 17:11, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
I believe, and it's reflected in the discussions here, that common sense really should override Wikipedia rules. This is reflected in Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. DJ Clayworth 18:57, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
The X-American discussion seems to be very confused between the issues of "it's a questionable deduction" and "it's a deduction".
I think a case can be made that deducing that someone is Irish-American is wrong because the deduction is questionable--for instance, the definition may not be quite right, given how some people define themselves. I *don't* think the deduction is wrong *merely because it's a deduction*. The discussion there is confusing these two issues. Ken Arromdee 21:06, 7 July 2006 (UTC)