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Original Text
Original research refers to original research by editors of Wikipedia. It does not refer to original research that is published or available elsewhere (although such research may be excluded if editors consider the source to be disreputable or inappropriate).
The phrase "original research" in this context refers to untested theories; data, statements, concepts and ideas that have not been published in a reputable publication; or any new interpretation, analysis, or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts or ideas that, in the words of Wikipedia's founder Jimbo Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation".
Proposed text
Original research refers to theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, and ideas that have not been published in a reputable publication; or any unpublished interpretation, analysis, or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts or ideas that, in the words of Wikipedia's founder Jimbo Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation".
Original research is prohibited when produced by editors of Wikipedia if it has not been published elsewhere. (This prohibition does not refer to research that is published or available elsewhere, although such research may be excluded if editors consider the source to be disreputable or inappropriate.) In summary, if the facts, opinions, or arguments you want to include have not been published already by a credible or reputable publication, you're engaged in original research.
Comment The proposed text is so very wide that 40% of wiki articles would have to be deleted.
I don't see any substantive difference between the old text and the new text. Could some one explain what they think the substantive difference is, if any? I do think however that the new text is more clearly worded. Who is proposing this change? Paul August ☎ 17:51, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
My greatest concern the five pillars of Wikipedia are slowly being changed to make it easier to delete by Vfd. This will allow "blocks of users" to delete and control.
-- Poorman
I'd like to see an arbitration on the following subject:
Fact: In page "General relativity", secion "Alternative theories" a ref to my page titled "General relativity with conservation of energy" has been removed by Ems57fcva with the following explanation: (→Alternative theories - removed User:JimJast's "general relativity with conservation of energy". Cannot verify that this is not original research.)
Implications: It means that Ems57fcva believes that "general relativity with conservation of energy" is a result of my original reserch rather than work of Einstein.
My objections: I was not born yet when Einstein proposed his 1915 "general relativity theory" (necessarily with conservation of energy since it happen to be the basic principle of physics - see Wikipedia), and so it was impossible for Einstein to base his work on my "original research" (copy of my driver's license verifying my date of birth may be presented when required).
Comments: In my humble opinion it is improper to remove the original Einstein's theory of 1915 from the list of possible alternative theorires to the present general relativity that is an Einstein's original theory "enhanced" by the removal of conservation of energy from it to make viable a hypothesis that the universe has been created in a hot "big bang" event some 14 billion years ago and is expanding ever since. The impropriety is because the original Einstein's theory (as it can be easily demonstrated wit high school calculus which does not require any research) is able to explain all the mysteries that the present general relativity without conservation of energy can't explain. The new (post Einsteinian) general relativity to stay viable has to postulate except non conservation of energy severeal not observed yet phenomena. Which strongly suggests in my humble opinion that Einstein's original theory of 1915 is right and the theory without the conservation of energy but with expanding space in it instead, is wrong. Yet I don't insit on deciding on rightness of any theory just on keeping the record straight, that there is available also the original Einstein's general relativity of 1915, with conservation of energy, that can be used as an alternative to the present post Einsteinian general realativity without conservation of energy. If mentioning the fact that Einstein theory of 1915 is able to explain all the mysterious phenomena in relatively simple way by postulating general time dilation (another removed page) would constitute an original resaerch, it does not need to be mentioned. But I don't see why mentioning that Einstein 1915 is an altrnative theory, contradicts the policy of "no original research" (if Einstein's theory of 1915 was not discovered by me, which I can prove). Jim 12:55, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
Response: Jim is not documenting Einstein's 1915 theory. Instead he is attempting to document his own interpretation (or IMO misunderstanding) of it. The current general relativity page is mostly devoted to decribing the 1915 theory as it has come to be understood by those who study it (with the exception being the Alternate theories section). In any case, I kindly submit to you all the proposition that this issue should be discussed at talk:general relativity and not here. -- EMS | Talk 17:03, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
The current guidelines for no original research seem as though they don't do a good job dealing with the issue of published crackpottery. A couple of points to propose with respect to this, but before I start I'll notice that most of my experience with crackpottery on wikipedia has been with respect to historical/archaeological, rather than strictly scientific, subjects:
A corollary issue to this is the problem of apologetics. Most scholars believe in the Documentary Hypothesis on the origins of the Torah. Most believe that the Book of Daniel was written in the second century BC, and that there are at least two, and more likely three, separate strands of the Book of Isaiah, written at widely different times. And so forth. In such instances, the fact that some religious groups dispute these findings ought to be mentioned. But I don't see how we can treat the beliefs of some religious groups as though they are equivalent to the beliefs of many other religious groups and of nearly all mainstream scholars. I think we need to make a much greater effort to insure that apologetics (of whatever kind) do not make their way into wikipedia. john k 21:22, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
I have no problem with the above discussion, but it is not really relevant to this particular policy. Perhaps it is more appropriate to the cite sources policy, as you are discussing what are the limits of acceptable sources. Or you may feel there is need of an additional policy. I encourage you to move this discussion elsewhere, not because I dismiss your concerns, but because they are important enough to merit further discussion, which will happen at a more appropriate place. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:35, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
"The phrase "original research" in this context refers to untested theories; data, statements, concepts and ideas"
So does that mean that if I were to do some reasearch on something, and I came up with a theory that could be backed up by actual proof, it would be allowed? If not, then why?
What do I do with a page about a book that only contains a book review. Do you delete it or put something else there. -- AMorris (talk)● (contribs) 07:51, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
FYI -
I have been working on my own redraft of this policy at User:Ems57fcva/sandobox/No_original_research. The basic points this I try to make with this are that
To me, it is not enough to achieve publication. Instead, the idea must have become noteworthy. That is not to say that it must be famous or well known, but at least for those with an interest in a relevant field that this is an item worthy of their attention. I have run across one editor who published his alternate explanation of gravity in Electronics World, and popular science magazine devoted mostly to electricity and modern technology. He took that to be the "primary publication" needed. So I have tried to produce a sense that the source must be relevant.
I have done what I can with this. I do not feel that it has come together quite right, and so I am not formally proposing it as a replacement for the current policy. However, I encourage people to look it over and see if they can make some use of it. -- EMS | Talk 03:58, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Is original eyewitness testimony considered prohibited original research? See the dispute about Billy Joel's hometown on Talk:Billy_Joel#Billy_Joel_never_lived_in_Levittown. -- Locarno 14:20, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
Before revising the "No original research" page, I am seeking consensus on the following proposal.
The US judicial system has long struggled with what is a valid basis for claims of authority in the courtroom. In 1923, the Frye standard was formulated by the Supreme Court in which expert testimony would only be allowed to be presented to the fact finders if it was established (had "achieved acceptance") in the relevant scientific/expert community as evidenced by, among other things, publication in peer reviewed technical/scientific publications.
Sounds familiar, no? This is very similar to the Wikipedia standard of not including "original research" by editors of the Wikipedia.
However, in 1993, the Frye standard was revised by the new Daubert standard. In formulating the Daubert standard, the Supreme court acknowledged that knowledge was changing rapidly and that the courts, in the pursuit of the facts, might be quite remiss if a new incontrovertible understanding was not allowed into the courtroom.
The analogy would be to a study of a new drug to cure AIDS. If in our study, preliminary analyses indicate that the new drug is twice as effective as existing treatment in preventing the progression of the disease, it would be considered unethical to continue the study and deprive the "comparison" group (who were getting the standard treatment) of a life saving drug. Even though the finding had not been published in a peer reviewed journal.
In a similar vein, the Daubert standard requires that a judge review evidence that a new theory/finding be allowed into testimony because the existing evidence makes it clear that it is valid---even if it hasn't been peer reviewed and published yet. Just so, would we not be remiss to not consider other bases for knowledge other than publication in peer reviewed or otherwise authoritative venues?
Indeed, if the evolving, non-static Wikipedia is not to be a source of the latest knowledge, in what forum would one expect to find up-to-the-minute, valid information? As others have noted, many Wikipedia articles are about topics that are too new to have been published in authoritative or peer reviewed forums.
I would propose that the editorial process of review and revision of the Wikipedia itself provides one of the most effective forums for reviewing new information/ideas available today. Thus, the Wikipedia may be one of the only reliable forums for cutting edge information. If this is so, and I believe it is, then deleting articles or information because the information has not appeared in more static, slow-moving forums would constrain the Wikipedia and prevent it from performing an important function that only an evolving, ever changing medium can provide.
My suggestion would be to stay with the "original research" standard (just as the courts continue to use the Frye standard unless there is a compelling reason to go beyond it to the Daubert criteria) but to allow unpublished un-peer reviewed information in when there are other reasons to consider it valid, i.e., when it has been subjected to the Wikipedia editorial process itself and not deemed to be irrelevant, arbitrary, or untrue by the editors. Bear in mind that inumerable nonsensical, false, irrelevant, and vandalistic edits are routinely (and rapidly) deleted by many editors, i.e., patently false and/or misleading information is quite ephemeral in the Wikipedia.
As an example of one of an inumerable number of Wikipedia articles about topics that have not been researched and published in peer reviewed journals, I refer you to the articles on South Park and the numerous articles on each of the South Park contributors, episodes, and characters. While they do contain some "original research," as time goes on, they are being revised to reflect more NPOV, to refine the ideas presented with references as they become available, and to eliminate the idiosyncratic views of the original authors. If they were to be subjected to the "original research" criteria, the vast majority would have to be deleted as there are limited authoritative sources about Cartman, Tweak, Kyle's mother, or about specific new episodes, etc.
(While many features of South Park have now been written about in many forums, many of the statements made in the Wikipedia articles have no reference basis other than the fact that numerous Wikipedia editors have found the statements to be acceptable. And there are many cultural phenomena that are even newer than South Park and yet should not be barred from inclusion.)
The proposal I am making is:
This last suggestion is simply a reflection of the fact that not all human knowledge has been established and or achieved consensus to the same degree. To suggest otherwise is to ignore reality. To demand that all Wikipedia articles be equally capable of being defended on the basis that they reflect knowledge established through peer review in more static media would mean:
Again, the loss of certainty about new knowledge can be offset by
Kriegman 05:26, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
I have never supported NOR as a policy (although obviously I enforce it); as applied to popular culture it is obviously impractical (In what journal does one find peer reviewed info on Ashlee Simpson? Our practice is much more common sense than is set forth in the policy itself. I would like to see an attempt at convergence between policy and practice. Fred Bauder 15:28, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Contrary to Slrubenstein's claim that, unlike judges, "we are not authoritarian, i.e. we do not claim authority," I would then ask, "On what basis do you make deletions?" You must use "judgment" and act as a "judge." The Wikipedia policies you describe are the exactly analogous to laws, they are the "laws" (ultimate rules) of the Wiki. Indeed, here in Massachusetts, each state agency promulgates its "policies," which are, once approved, given the status of law. Calling the legal rules that judges follow "policies" instead of "laws" would not change the nature of the decision making they must engage in.
Just so, when you act to delete or add, you are using your judgment (acting as a judge) and claiming authority to interpret and act on the rules and policies of the Wikipedia. The only difference is that you are agreeing to negotiate with other judges/editors and, in a courtroom, the judge's decision is not negotiated (though it can be "negotiated" in the higher courts and returned to the judge for modifications of rulings). In the higher courts, e.g., an appeals court, or a supreme court, the decisions are even more like Wikipedia decisions as they are negotiated and voted on by a panel of judges.
Possibly this confusion between what judges do and what editors do in interpreting rules/policies/laws is based on the higher stakes (as Slrubenstein noted) in the courtroom and a misconception that judges, trained in the law, have some actual ability to judge that differentiates them from ordinary lay people interpreting the Wiki rules. As an expert witness in hundreds of trials, beyond knowing the definitions of certain words that a lay person would have to be taught, I have seen no evidence that judges can judge substantially better than the average intelligent person. Some can and some can't. Indeed, the NOR rule and many legal definitions have very similar structure, as can be seen in the application of the Frye and Daubert standards. Like lay people, many (if not most) judges have an incredible (and often frightening, given their power in very high stakes cases) inability to understand basic science and scientific principles (like the notion of statistical proof). The level of understanding used in applying scientific understandings is, on average, much higher in Wikipedia editing than in the courtroom.
As support for "the Wikipedia community is one of the one of 'the most effective forums for reviewing new information/ideas available today,'" I would point to the evolution of the Blog page. The original(?) or early version of) the "Blog" article could have been called "original research" and have been put up for deletion under the NOR. Notwithstanding its provision of an evidentiary basis (its links to examples) from the Internet, it cited no authorities and there may have been few to cite back in 2001 to support its claims. It eventually evolved into Blog, a fully documented, mature Wikipedia article. It would have been counterproductive to delete the article because the original author could not find or did not have access to paper print versions of each statement she wrote, statements that were fully verifiable (and/or open to disconfirmation) by following the links she provided. For the inclusion of such articles---which over a period of months or years should evolve into more mature articles or should then be removed if they do not---a modification of NOR would be necessary. Kriegman 18:15, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
I sincerely hope you are missing my point rather than deliberately twisting it. The fact that you can use the same word, "judge," to describe what I do when I delete from or add to an article, and to designate an elected or appointed to the bench, does not mean that the acts are the same. If you think that wikipedia has the authority of any court in the United States, you are deluded. We do not have that authority, and for that reason our policies and guidelines are often going to be quite different from those of judges. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:50, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
"we are not authoritarian, i.e. we do not claim authority. This makes us very different from judges who are by law authorities. We have no law here, just policies and generally loose ones. Finally, for some of the specific examples Kriegman provides, I believe that the Apple Pie and Current Events exclusions from this policy are sufficient."
I strongly oppose proposals to weaken the policy; the current guidelines are not prohibitive. Jayjg (talk) 05:58, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Kriegman - perhaps there would be more sympathy for your proposal if you could point us to an example of a situation where current interpretations of the NOR rule is stifling an article. The fact that the NOR rule might theoretically be interpreted in such a way as to invalidate a huge number of articles that nobody has ever actually challenged is not a very good argument - obviously, whatever the letter of the law, it is being interpreted in a way that makes it allowable to have articles on South Park episodes without the existence of peer-reviewed articles on South Park. So, could you provide a real example of this? Then perhaps we can begin to assess whether your proposal is worthwhile or not. If there are no real examples, I think that should speak for itself. john k 07:50, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Alright. I've been avoiding doing what Slrubenstein and John K have suggested. I was hoping it wouldn't be necessary. But John K's point makes it clear: If a policy is working in practice and only theoretically will cause problems, then it shouldn't be changed. So I need to present an actual example. (BTW, John, maybe the etiquette should be that new topics should be placed at the top of the page. It would make repeated previewing of the most worked on recent topics easier as one would not have to scroll all the way to the bottom to find the right spot in the editing window after each preview.) I don't want to; but I guess I gotta.
Is there a biased view of bias operating?
The reason I have avoided providing an actual example of the problem I have faced with NOR is because I don't expect to get a fair consideration of the underlying issue once it is clear that I have "an agenda." I find too much "naive atheism," so to speak, in the culture of the Wikipedia, i.e., the belief that one can operate largely free of belief systems and bias. For example, Slrubenstein suggested that Wikipedia editors are not like judges who interpret rules according to their idiosyncratic notions of what the rule means and thus excercise real authority, i.e., push their own versions of what they think the law means (that is, how they understand it and how they think it should operate) into being, as opposed to following a rule that would (barring simple, neutral, i.e., unbiased, errors in understanding) lead to more or less the same outcome regardless of who the interpreter/editor is.
EMS seems to present a similar view in which Wikipedians should and can keep their two-cents out of it. Cold fusion, as an example of misinformation (was it out and out fraud, or did the proponents actually believe they had something?), may be an example of what we want to prevent people from using the Wikipedia for (i.e., to use it to present their crackpot, unintelligible, or irrelevant ideas). And the NOR rule, as it is stated, is well suited for ideas and theories, such as cold fusion, in the areas of the sciences (both physical and social) in which there really are peer reviewed journals. In the area of cultural and especially new phenomena, however, most of which will never be arbitrated in peer reviewed journals, the rule just doesn't quite fit so well (though the underlying principle/aim may still be sound).
In addition, Slrubenstein's and EMS's notions seem to suggest that editors can essentially just follow rules; we can expect experienced editors not to edit in the pursuit of their agendas (not to promote ideas/views they value). Yet, I believe there are reasons why this is both unrealistic and impossible in practice. Yes, I have edited quite a few articles in which I have no real interest. I needed some information. Went to the article. Got my information. Saw some errors (usually minor, grammatical, layout, or spelling). Corrected them. And left. I didn't put them on my watchlist. I didn't spend much time on them. I had very little influence over the content of the articles.
In one instance, I did do some follow up research and significantly improved the content ( 501(c)(3)). But this was an exception. Maybe you folks are Wikithusiasts whose agenda is the Wikipedia itself. While I share a strong interest in the Wikipedia, I would expect even such an interest to introduce bias, as in supporting the liberal notion that evolved organisms can reliably overcome self-interested bias---an interesting notion that, like the naive idealism underlying communism, flies in the face of how evolution works, i.e., by selecting those organisms designed to perceive and act on information in a manner biased toward their own interests.
How the Wikipedia harnesses biased writers to produce accurate, relatively neutral articles.
Indeed, I would suggest to those of you who hold such a bias (i.e., the belief that evolved creatures can, for the most part, intentionally and consciously perceive and rise above their adaptive biases) that editors who put some real effort into starting and/or really shaping an article have some deep (almost by definition, biased) interest in the topic. Have you ever seen a scholar or scientist that didn't have a strong opinion about the debates in their field? Those who really follow an article almost always have such "an agenda." Indeed, while standard encyclopedias try to be "objective," they invite experts in the various fields to write their specialized articles. These experts often have quite clear agendas and biases. For example, Freud was devoting all his life energy toward promoting psychoanalysis when the Encyclopedia Britannica editor enlisted him to write their 1922 article on psychoanalysis.
Rather than suggesting that self-interested bias can be avoided and/or overcome, we should acknowledge its inevitability. I realize that some if not most Wikipedians may already agree with this, and I do not mean to "preach to the converted." Especially since, like with the etiquette issue of topic placement, many if not most of you have more experience than I. Rather, I am responding to a frequent argument I have seen, in which an editor looks for self-interested bias, finds it, and then uses that as a basis for a deletion of an edit or even of an entire article. In contrast, it may be more productive to always assume self-interested bias, never to use such bias as a basis for an edit, and instead to proceed to evaluate an edit/article on the established principles and rules. In this process, our rules are not attempts to eliminate biased actions. In this view, we reframe our understanding of the Wikipedia rules as attempts to engage competing biases in a balancing, open source process that tends to neutralize bias. By using the Internet to invite a large number (all those available and interested) of (biased) parties to participate in the process and giving them equal authority to edit the text---something that has never existed in the collective human attempt to elucidate knowledge---we automatically eliminate the ability of one side to control the discourse.
(The NOR rule, itself, is partly an attempt to avoid the biasing impact of such self-interested agendas. I am claiming, however, that, somewhat paradoxically, the discussion of the employment of NOR often reveals some denial of the ubiquity of the biased self-interest the rule was designed to limit.)
In contrast to liberal notions about how fair, objective, and self-aware folks can be, I think that one of the most interesting things about the Wikipedia is how it functions to allow thoroughly biased parties to produce remarkably fair/accurate articles. For example, one article I have been following and contributing to is the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Partly, I have invested a good deal of energy in that article (and none of the dozens of other closely related, similar articles that tap into the same issues) precisely to study one example of how Wikipedia articles develop when almost all of the main participants have strong emotional ties to biased views of the subject. I have been very impressed about how careful the main content contributors to this article are: If you want your input to last for more than a few hours, you simply have to be very careful about your wording and your ability to back up what you say. Note: I am claiming that this makes people try to appear unbiased as true neutrality is impossible. While trying to appear unbiased is helpful, it is only through the constant removal of bias/inaccuracy, the introduction of opposing bias and inaccuracy, its removal and introduction of opposing bias and inaccuracy, etc. . . . that the article seesaws back and forth and slowly evolves toward real accuracy and neutrality. It is like Dawkins's Blind Watchmaker argument demonstrating how functional "designs" can come into being without a designer: The Wikipedia has created a process through which relative neutrality can be produced without neutral editors.
Again, I would claim that the Wiki process of editing and negotiating edits, even when the parties involved have conflicting views, is an excellent way to develop an accurate perspective, i.e., it can be an excellent test of (or method to evaluate) ideas, both old and new. Though Slrubenstein and EMS rejected this notion, there was no response to the example I gave of the early "Blog" article. And now I would add the 1948 War article. The latter article covers an area where debate rages with night and day "realities" presented by both sides. Yet, even when I am engaged in a strenuous argument with someone (for example, my oldest son) about this war, neither of us can find a clear bias in the Wikipedia version. I don't like some of what it says and I think there are still some biases in it, but it is the most balanced description on the web that I have been able to find. So I reiterate my claim: Certain knowledge claims---e.g., new ones with little or no references (the Blog), or old ones with endless night and day versions that can be found in an endless stream of apparently authoritative books and journals (e.g., the 1948 War)---seem to be uniquely arbitrated by the Wikipedia process.
Many articles are rife with untested unreferenced "theories"
Again, consider South Park, where you can easily spot dozens of theories or beliefs that are unsubstantiated by any references beyond the editor's opinion (and it may be ages before there are published references addressing more than a handful of these cultural theories/beliefs). Here are five examples among thousands in just the South Park articles (all from one small section of the main South Park article):
But, we are told, my agreement (or yours, or other editors) is not to be the measure of whether a claim should be in the article; that's "the sin of OR." After all, we are only editors. But where will you find "peer reviewed" articles to support the zillions of cultural claims/judgments/descriptions that can be found in these articles? Nowhere. The idiosyncratic inaccuracies in such claims are corrected by other editors based on their examination of the evidence (i.e., their experience viewing South Park episodes).
Finally, an example, Open source religion: The article that is being attacked with NOR criticisms
In a similar vein, I believe the Open source religion (OSR) article can be revised and edited, based on other editors reviews of the statements after visiting the examples of this new cultural phenomenon. And I believe this is as it should be. Apparently, even some of those who oppose modifying NOR agree that NOR should be interpreted somewhat inconsistently:
I came here to discuss NOR because it was being used to suggest deletion of what I consider a rather simple article with the kind of face validity found in some South Park articles, i.e., it describes a phenomena that can be checked by going to the links referred to, just like the Blog article noted earlier. But it (OSR) does not have many paper published references yet, and it has been attacked for being OR. I believe there are enough independent references to support the article even without modification of NOR, but I am only aware of one in the Boston Globe, 1/11/2004. This may also have been true of the early Blog article when it was created.
Hmmnn. I just realized another Wikipedia independent published reference describing OSR: Rushkoff's book.
A revised suggestion
OK. So one result of this dialogue is that I was forced to think about references to support the OSR article and became aware that I know of at least two that aren't mentioned in the article. However, even if this article can be fixed with existing external references, there was no need to force the issue with threats of deletion because of NOR. I think that, like the South Park articles, OSR could stand without the external references, at least for some time. An article like it---with the six Internet references---should not be rapidly subject to deletion based on NOR because the editors do not know of other, non-Internet, external, published references.
I felt forced to engage in a lengthy argument about it in the OSR-Talk page as well as to engage in this discussion. If the NOR rule could be clarified to be more consistent with actual practice (see Fred Bauder's comments above), this wouldn't be necessary. There is no reason why the inconsistency with which the rule is applied---inconsistency that usually prevents it from causing the problem I was describing---can't be described. So, I replace my original proposal with a call for clarification of how NOR is actually to be employed rather than for a fundamental change in the principle.
While I came here to negotiate this and thus learned more about NOR as well as the existence of validated external references for OSR, I believe that many people rigidly call the NOR rule into play without understanding these issues. And very few of the people for whom this causes problems would have the temerity to come here, propose a change, and engage in this process. The lack of clarity about how it is to be employed encourages wasteful arguments on innumerable talk pages about what NOR really means, and probably drives some people away from editing the Wikipedia. Kriegman 02:54, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Very interesting example. This seems like precisely the type of thing NOR should limit. You make several claims of the type that, if allowed in, could render the Wikipedia unreliable.
Whether or not there are external sources for them, assuming you are accurate about the rest of the notions (how far the laughter could be heard, that this occurred during Trinity term, that he was gay, etc.), these two personal judgments are extremely subjective. As an expert witness who evaluates sex offenders to determine the risk they pose, I have heard more than one rapist say, "She was flirting with me. It was consensual sex; she wanted it." In more than a few cases, I have come to the conclusion that they really believed their distortions. While women may not get it wrong as often as men, women too can have "off the wall" notions about who is flirting with whom. And without a poll of other female students, what is the basis for making a general statement about his attractiveness? Maybe you just had "a crush" on him and imagined that everyone found him as attractive as you did.
That said, I think there are ways to make your experience (which is likely to contain some valid information) available for use in the Wikipedia.
As I noted, in the area of cultural/social experience, this is of limited use as there really are no "peer reviewed" journals where such claims will be evaluated. However, this is precisely the kind of validation I used to suggest that Timothy Leary had the quality "audacity." According to an eyewitness (that's what you are), he "stood up to" (subjective judgment 1) FBI agents to try to defend (subjective judgment 2) a terrified (subjective judgment 3), innocent (subjective judgment 4) woman during the Millbrook bust. The eyewitness was interviewed in a DVD I obtained from my local library, so I was able to reference the external source upon which (along with other activities, like his well-documented escape from prison) I based the characterization. But what makes the eyewitness's judgments in the DVD more reliable than your description of Wittgenstein's flirting and attractiveness? Nothing.
The difference is that other editors can go and view the DVD themselves and decide if my use of it comports with reality. While this calls for a good deal of judgment on the part of editors---and this is inescapable and should not be denied---it is not fundamentally different from any other kind of fact checking, i.e., going and reading a peer reviewed article on cold fusion to see if an editor is reporting it right. This seems to be the bottom line: There has to be a way for others to see: (1) what/who the source was, (2) if the source is a reliable basis for the type of information it provides, (3) if the source is sufficiently fixed in some medium to enable others to check it for themselves, and (4) to determine if, in the general opinion of other editors, the information from the source was correctly represented and characterized in the article.
So,
In addition to publishing the information in a peer reviewed journal, which is not appropriate for such cultural information, where else can the information be "fixed" for others to view/examine. Well you could make and distribute a movie (or be interviewed for such). But that is not very doable and if we require such fixing of all cultural information a lot of knowledge will be lost. Not to mention that the vast majority of judgments/beliefs/statements in the South Park articles, for example, could not be made unless they were first shown to be fixed elsewhere.
Fortunately, there is another option, the technological innovation that makes the Wikipedia itself possible, the Web.
While some could argue that the Web is ephemeral and cannot be relied on for others to fact check, this is just a matter of degree. While available now, at some point, the DVD I referred to may be impossible for others to find. In the OSR article, I referenced several Web sources and somebody added one or two other examples of OSR. The reader can check the description of the phenomenon in the article against six fairly stable Internet presences, and I believe more will be found. (Not to mention, the two fixed print external sources that came to mind in this discussion, and others that I think I can now find.)
If there are discussion groups on the Web where Wittgenstein is the topic and this characterization of him is noted in them, you could reference them. To beef them up, you could enter the discussions and add your observations. While this suggestion may horrify naive editors who believe that this would allow people to create their own realities, what do they think is going on all the time in the old technology media? The difference is simply that it costs more to get an idea/belief into fixed form on paper, audio recording, or film than on the Internet. Without a genuine peer review process, requiring a highly fixed, more costly media publication doesn't make the information one iota more reliable. It simply biases all cultural information toward the interests of those with money.
Yes, it is easier to create and disseminate fictions on the Internet, just as it is easier to create and disseminate truths and artistic creations. But editors aren't stupid, especially when it is the judgment of the community of editors we are looking at. Clearly, publication in a major newspaper that has a large investment in its reputation for accuracy to protect is likely to be more reliable than a random blog. But there are more than one or two realities that you will never find in major mainstream newspapers that you will only be likely to encounter on the net in, for example, blogs. And if a notion has appeared in many, many blogs, that fact alone can have significant meaning and may be worthy of noting. The point is that the reliability of the source is routinely evaluated by editors using common sense. If it is easier to create fictions on the Internet, then we may require far more than one source before editors feel a notion should be included in the Wikipedia.
I would suggest that whether or not a cultural (non-peer reviewed) source is reliable can be evaluated---not by the degree to which it was costly to create a representation of and disseminate the notion in some medium, but rather---by the judgment of the community of editors. Indeed, the fact that the info is available on the Internet makes collective fact checking much easier (to precisely the same degree that it makes fact creating easier).
The bottom line is that editors have to be able to see and evaluate the source and that they must then use their judgment. If there are enough editors involved, common sense will prevail. Nonsense will be weeded out. The irrelevant chaff will be discarded. Bias will be neutralized. These are not statements of faith. They can be empirically verified by looking at the articles referenced in this discussion.
As Obi Wan Kenobi said, "Trust in the Wikipedia Process, Luke." Kriegman 13:55, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
All that I see in this long tirade is a straw man which Kriegman has quite conviently set up and knocked down.
My point is not the Wikipedians should be automatons and refrain from imposing their personal agendas on Wikipedia. Indeed, there is no point in editting Wikipedia unless there is something that you wish to accomplish by it (even if it is just to correct a misspelling). I also accept the point about mulyiple editors permitting the creation of reasonable NPOV and accurate text. However, there are people out there who want to make Wikipedia into a forum for my own unique ideas. That is where NOR comes in. if something seems outlandish enough, you need to either back it up (as with your Dylan example), or see it bounced.
I will admit that some clarification is needed for NOR. For example, I do not see peer review as being the real condition here for permissibility, but instead awareness of the item in question in society as a whole or within the relevant sector of it. There is plenty of peer reviewed material that is just junk (but at least it pads the CV). So I certainly can go along with the idea that what is acceptable is to some extent a function of what kinds of literature are available to support it, and that peer review journals may or may not be part of that mix.
I repeat: We are not here to review new material. We are here to report on that which already exists. For Star Trek there are plenty of fan magazines and fanzines to report from. For Bob Dylan, you not only have DVDs but also have a whole genre of rock-and-roll magazines (such as Rolling Stone), which should have articles that back up your interpretation of the DVD. Indeed, the popular press trumps peer review (as is that case for cold fusion) as a practical matter. NOR should be consciously aware of that, but I emphasize that I do not wat the floodgates openned to the many ideas that are not supported. I assure you that for every Gregor Mendel (whose laws of inheritance languished for 40 years until the field of genetics was ready for them) there are thousands of people with ideas that do not pan out; and I would argue that until an idea does pan out, it does not belong here anyway. -- EMS | Talk 15:19, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Regarding those last two "hot potatoes."
If you reject "face validity," i.e., the ability of editors to look at a phenomenon directly and see if the article reflects it accurately, then aren't you rejecting the "apple pie" exemption that is already in NOR? I thought I had come to understand the "apple pie" exemption and that it also covered what is going on on the South Park pages, e.g., "when an article makes descriptive claims that are easily verifiable by any reasonable adult."
In applying face validity, the editors directly experience a phenomenon and then edit an article so that the words comport with their collective experience. This applies to things like apple pie as well as the way :-) is used in Internet communication. A table of such text icons could appear in the Wikipedia long before any of the editors saw one in print in a newspaper or Newsweek. (I'll bet one exists in the Wikipedia, even though I can't find it, probably because I don't know what they are called.) While a reference could probably be found to some website that displays some of the icons and their meanings, even if one were not found, if the editors felt that a sufficient number of others can easily obtain direct experience about how the icons are used and there is general agreement, then this would meet the standard for which you spelled out the underlying principle, what I had, in essence, been referring to as "the South Park Standard."
Indeed, the Wikipedia is where I would go to find such a table, before it exists in any one print or external resource. The Wikipedia is now the place where you are likely to find the most complete list of Internet abbreviations, like BTW and IMHO. Check out that page. If we require it to appear in any other source, we would probably have to delete the page and/or many, if not most, of the items in the list there. Note all the references and citations to verify the data included there. None. Indeed, maybe some of the items should be deleted, and that may be an ongoing process. But the editors, at least at the beginning and for new abbreviations, have to rely on their direct experience. Someday, someone may publish a hard copy version of such a list, but it is likely to contain errors and be out of date the week after publication.
Such lists (text icons, Internet abbreviations) are rapidly evolving and the most authoritative, complete list of their usage could only appear in the Wikipedia. What individual or group of individuals do you know of could create such a complete list and edit it back and forth to refine it before it appears in the Wikipedia? Even if such a list is created elsewhere, what organization could keep up with its rapid evolution and compete with the Wikipedia for completeness and up-to-dateness? There are certain phenomena that the Wikpedia brings into existence. To say the Wikipedia cannot include such phenomena until they appear in Newsweek is . . . unrealistic.
Furthermore, I think there is a huge challenge to any attempt to ban face validity when no other referent is available for citation. You see, face validity is the same technique we use to determine if citations are valid! It is the bedrock technique for verification. Eliminate the ability of an editor to go and see directly if what is described in an article is what the citation refers to and you've eliminated the ability to fact check at all. "But that is not what I am eliminating," you might claim.
Then what is it you object to in "if the item in question is available to direct observation by a sufficient number of Wikipedia editors, the validity of the article and its contents can be determined directly?" If an article states "the website, wwww.thispageisred.com, glows red when visited," and assuming that this fact is of sufficient importance to enough readers and is generally known in a certain subculture---but it hasn't been published in Newsweek---what is wrong with editors accepting that simple fact (that they have verified themselves) for inclusion in the Wikipedia? This is my understanding of why the South Park articles are allowed to stand with their innumerable claims with no sources: The editors agee that "the descriptive claims are easily verifiable." No one here has suggested they should be deleted. Likewise for most of the claims in the OSR article or the early Blog article.
Your critique of the last point suggests to me that the descriptive term I used, "convergent common sense," is too confusing and unclear. By CCS, I meant the back and forth process of editing and negotiating edits that eventually arrives at a descriptive article that seems to comport with reality. Like the process called convergent evolution, the particular path may be somewhat random (depending on the particlar editors involved and when they arrive on the scene), but, if human words can correspond to human experience and humans can judge the degree to which they do so, eventually the words in an article will arrive at a description that "converges" on an acceptable description that is " evolutionarily stable," so to speak.
So maybe that last term needs to be dropped or changed. But the point is that the Wikipedia has brought into being a process of evolving, seesawing (back-and-forth) editing that tends to converge on an acceptable, relatively unbiased article, through an open source process that maximizes completeness and rapid change as knowledge develops. This process is what I meant by CCS. Kriegman 01:02, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Do be careful. Much of the ability of Wikipedia to be an authority comes from its being a clearing house of information instead of an originator of it. For example, with the "text icons" or rather the smileys and emoticons, there are several web resources out there to draw from. As for changes: Those are a matter of usage and common consensus. I strongly oppose any statement that "common sense" deserves to be included. However, I can accept a statement that a consensus of the editors of a page that something is reasonable and/or appropriate gives it legitmacy. In other words, "face validity" is a community decision, not an individual one. In that form, it may be a safety valve, as it can justify certain content that a small minority may find queationable and therefore a means of justifying thier own material which lacks this attribute.
Even so, I think that in general there should be a paper trail for Wikipedia articles, even if over half of it is digital.
You keep mentioning South Park, but that page seems to have a healty "External links" section.
Simply put: If you try, you can find some documentation for anything on the Web, and some of it even now puts the Wikipedia article to shame. The cases where Wikipedia shines are the current event articles. I found the article on the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami to be a marvelous resource at the time, able to constantly integrate new sources of information and create a coherent and authoritative article on the event. On the other hand, I would be careful with the relativity articles. Hopefully the ones that I have has a hand in are fairly good now, but many others continue to need work.
Overall, I think that the edict that Wikipedians do source based research based on existing primary and secondary sources is a good one. It seems to me that there should be some flexibility in what counts as approrpiate sources based on the subject of the article and the literary environment related to it. After all, I would not rely on Science magazine to properly characterize creationism no more than I would rely on Pat Robertson to properly describe evolution (athough I would rely on each to describe their side's view of those subjects).
Perhaps my point is best made with the podcasting article. Here is something totally new and cool and suddenly popular. Yet look at the bottom on that page: It has a whole section of notes and references, making it a very well documented article.
We live in an age of information. There is no need to Wikipedia to be its ultimate source. Instead there is a need to Wikipedia to be common resource that people can turn at need, and which amongst other things will point them on towards the apprpriate primary and secondary sources for those who want more in-depth information. -- EMS | Talk 04:33, 12 October 2005 (UTC) (Modified EMS | Talk 15:29, 12 October 2005 (UTC))
In a way, I do and do not agree with Kriegman's last few points. Don't agree: I have witnessed enough conflicts here to be skeptical if not cynical about the common sense of editors, and am frankly a little scared to rely on it. Do agree: on the other hand, I think Kriegman is on to something. Maybe he and I actually disagree — I will have to await his response to this comment — but I hope that he and I may be close in this matter. However, I will put it differently. And I will take some time to do this, because it is precisely my thought-process that I want to share with people, and not just my conclusions. The way I see it, policies and guidelines have two functions at Wikipedia. First (and this is my minor point, I just want to get it out of the way), they are useful to newbies who want to accelerate their socialization into the wikipedia community. For what it is worth, I do not think our policies are consulted by as many newbies as often as I would like them to be. On the other hand, perhapos that is not such a bad thing as all of our policies, when put into practice, require nuanced interpretations and perhaps many newbies can learn more about our values and ideals from interacting with other editors than from reading our policies. Be that as it may, I think the second function of policies is they provide a text editors can appeal to when in conflict. The text provides an external (external to the editors in conflict) point of reference that may help them resolve their dispute. I am (in describing this second function) making an empirical claim: I am not claiming that this is a good or bad thing, I am just observing that this happens. I thinkmost of us can agree to this. But I will go further and say that this is a good thing, and go even further to point out what I believe is another good thing, a correlary: that policies are generally ignored when there is no conflict. Now, I know that even among people who may agree with me that this is empirically accurate (in the absence of conflict, many policies are ignored) that this is a bad thing; that we need to raise general awareness of policies, and so forth. Well, I can't really argue against such people. Since I have put some work into this policy, I can't just go ahead and say that I think people should ignore it. But this is not my point, my point is not that people should ignore it. My point is just that in the absence of conflict many people do ignore it, sometimes with the consequence that the article in question is not entirely compliant with every element of the policy. And the reason I do not think this is a bad thing, the reason I think this is an acceptable thing, is because I think when there is consensus I think we can and should be somewhat less strict about the rules. I know some people find my position irrational or hypocritical. I, however, see it merely as pragmatic. I share the concern that many people have about strict rules at Wikipedia. I believe that there needs to be room for people to act creatively and use their own judgement. I find it hard to believe that it is possible to write a rule that can and should be obeyed in every situation, and I think it is foolish to try to write a set of rules that take into account all possible situations because (1) we cannot foresee all possibilities and (2) even if we can foresee a possible situation, it may be impossible to be sure what is the right thing to do until we are in that situation, and if we tried to come up with a policy that would be uniformly and universally applicable it would be too long, overwrought, and too many people will find too many faults with it. So rather than opt for one extreme (no rules) or the other extreme (very clear and detailed rules) I opt for a third position, which is to have rules (or policies or guidelines) that are imperfect, but whose imperfections are forgivable because (1) people will not be consulting these rules all the time, and certainly will not consult them prior to every edit — people will consult them only when people are unsure as to what is the right thing to do (i.e. in times of conflict) and (2) even then the "rule" or policy provides a set of standards that people will still have to discuss and think about before being sure what the best way is to proceed. I admit that this is not a perfect system or a rational system but I honestly believe it is the most practical situation. To return to Kriegman, perhaps what I am saying is that in practice we do rely on the convergence of common sense, because we appeal to these policies only when it is clear that there is no "common" sense (i.e. when there is a conflict). To this extent I agree with him. HOWEVER, I do not think we should actually write this into the policy. to me, that would reflect just another attempt — noble yet foolish — to articulate the perfect policy. We should not say this, because the whole point of the rule, what I mzean is, the rule is only aperative when, this claim (convergence of common sense) is wrong (i.e. when there is conflict). And we do not need to say this because as long as there is convergence of common sence, no one will be called upon to read the policy anyway. Again, I know many people will think I am babbling nonsense or worse, hypocracy. But my position is principled: I am not interested in policies that, in the abstract, make sense. I am interested only in how to achieve a certain outcome. I think that the policy, for the most part as it is currently written, and given the realities of how things actually work at Wikipedia, which is that there is this semi-anarchic semi-self-regulating community of people who for the most part turn to written policies only when the semi-anarchic, semi-self-regulating M.O. is failing (e.g. a revert war), produces precisely the outcome that I think is most desirable. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:36, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Interestingly, I agree with this, too. However, I think some clarification should be made anyway because making a clarification is consistent with the pragmatic approach Slrubenstein has spelled out. The clarification is intended to make the rule more effective when it is appealed to in a time of conflict. I had the experience of the OSR page being called something it is not, OR. When the conflict proved problematic, I went to the rule and it was unclear, i.e., it could not be used to arbitrate the conflict. The clarification is proposed only for that: To improve its ability to be useful in times of conflict, not to make it perfectly clear. If you read the clarification I proposed, it would be easy to think of many circumstances in which it is open to interpetation and negotiation.
The need for the clarification is illustrated by the fact that, in a time of conflict, the OSR page was called OR and deletion was suggested. I think it is pretty clear that there is a real phenomenon out there (people trying to find a model for developing a religious belief system that parallels or imitates what they see happening with successful open source software projects and the Wikipedia). I will soon add two paper published external references; and while this discussion was going on, someone (and I do not know who) added another nascent example of the phenomenon. Yet, it is a new phenomenon and external paper print sources, which seem to be absolutely required by NOR for almost any type of article, are few.
So when the conflict arose, the unclarified rule was not helpful. The clarifications I propose would simply prevent the rule from being invoked in a knee-jerk fashion. It could still be argued that the links (especially without the external published references that I realized could be cited) are insufficient evidence for the existence of such a phenomenon or that the phenomenon is unimportant. But the challenge would have to be more reasonable than: "No articles from peer reviewed journals or books by recognised experts are referred to concerning the phenomenon of open source religion," which was actually used as part of an argument for deletion.
As I have noted along the way in this proposal for clarification, the same exact reasoning could have been used to propose deletion of the early Blog and Podcasting articles. Furthermore, the argument would apply to much of the content of the South Park articles as well as to many other pages that simply don't have a problem because an editor is not in conflict over an unrelated (i.e., not regrading OR) issue.
The editor who invoked NOR wanted to include religions such as Wicca, Discordianism, and the Universal Life Church in the OSR article. While they do not copyright their contents and thus their notions are in the public domain and freely available to all, it seemed to be an error to me to equate "uncopyrighted" with "open source" in the sense that open source is meant by people who were inspired by the success of Linux, Apache, OpenOffice, and Wikipedia to try to create open source religions. Uncopyrighted existed long before these very unsual worldwide collaborations. And it is clear from looking at the linked examples of religions that call themselves "open source" and claim to be built on that specific model (unlike the three religions the NOR editor wanted to add) that they were consciously modeled on these recent Internet open source phenomenon, not on having uncopyrighted scripture (which all traditional religions have, i.e., many major versions of the Bible and the Koran have long had their copyright expire, if any ever existed).
But instead of focusing on that issue, the editor attacked the article using NOR, and tried to use that to undermine this distinction (uncopyrighted vs open source) when I used it to delete his addition of those three religions. When I went to the rule, it was not helpful in the conflict as it was insufficiently clear.
So, the proposed clarification is meant to do exactly what Slrubenstein and SlimVirgin agree works. Nothing more. Please consider the specific wording of the proposed clarification. Maybe it should be changed if it is too far reaching. (Though, personally, I do not think it makes things all that clear.) Kriegman 16:19, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
OK. My attempt to retain the phrase "Convergent Common Sense" irks you as much as EMS. I'm not sure what you object to about what CCS is supposed to refer to. Apparently you don't want to even suggest that sense might be common because you know how uncommon common sense is. But, OK. Throw that out if we must. What about the rest of my proposal? The CCS part/phrasing is not necessary to prevent the problem I was having.
By the way, I had many anonymous edits before I decided that I should be up front about who I am. I wish more people would just use their names. It makes us all more honest, or at least it makes many people more polite/careful. Kriegman 19:34, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Yes, there is. Or rather, an article I originated has been threatened with deletion by someone invoking NOR who does not seem to understand what I believe has been articulated here (that is, if I have come to understand the policy and its importance correctly).
The problematic interaction over the article and the need for some type of clarification (not change) of how NOR actually operates is described above in various places, starting in the middle of this page in the section with the bolded title, "Finally, an example, Open source religion: The article that is being attacked with NOR criticisms."
If the ensuing material is too much to wade through to find the references to the conflict and how the rule has been confusing, then just go back up to Slrubenstein's last comment and your response, ending with the line about "sleeping dogs," and read from there down; the issues are summarized in what follows from that point. (In that material, OSR = Open Source Religion.)
While the following should not substitute for at least reading from that point, here's another summary: The other editor was upset by me for deleting material he felt belonged in the article and accused me of OR because I am one of the founders of a particular open source religion (true) and have an investment in the topic and its importance (true). I countered by trying to explain the difference between the inspirational effect of open source projects (like Wikipedia) that have led to the attempts to create open source religions and material simply being uncopyrighted or in the public domain. He insisted that I was engaged in OR and such a label has been placed on that page.
I came here to modify the NOR policy. In the process, I came to understand it better and to realize that OSR can be made to conform to the letter of NOR more closely and that the letter of a policy is not always meant to be followed without reasonable interpretation. I then discarded my proposed modification and suggested, what I thought was, a minor clarification so that this type of wasteful, knee-jerk invocation of NOR in an unrelated conflict would not occur (and so that I could legitimately remove the OR warning from the article). Kriegman 22:31, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
I read (both from "NPOV" page and No original research pages):
"A general purpose encyclopedia is a collection of synthesized knowledge presented from a neutral point of view." "The quality of an encyclopedia depends on its accuracy and reliability. " "The policy of having a neutral point of view is not to hide different points of view, but to show the diversity of viewpoints. In case of controversy, the strong points and weak points will be shown according to each point of view, without taking a side. "
Which sounds sensible. Compare the above with the following rule:
"If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not."
Thus, if someone digs up an original, verifyable source that directly *proves* that a common *viewpoint* is mistaken, strictly following this rule the encyclopedia should suppress the correct information and propagate the misinformation. Not only that would be objectionable (almost criminal), but also it contradicts the above rules. Obviously that paragraph urgently needs to be amended! (who has a suggestion?). - See "Schrödinger's cat" as an example of correcting erroneous popular belief.
Harald, Lausanne, 14/10/2005
I really think it makes more sense to stick to real cases rather than hypotheticals. But let's hypothetically travel back in time. It is 1906, and Wikipedia 1.0 (the version that existed on abacuses and chalk-boards) has an article on physics. Einstein publishes some pretty radical articles in 1905 but they are not generally accepted. Someone adds the theory of special relativity to the physics article. Let's say that the person is Einstein. Someone accuses him of violating NOR, and says "we can have a section on the Michaelson-Morley experiment, and we can have a section on Maxwell's equations, but this way you are putting them together is novel and unproven." Einstein replies, "No, I am not violating NOR, because I am summarizing an article of mine that was published." A general discussion ensues about whether it is in poor taste for Einstein to be using Wikipedia to promote himself, when really, we should wait until the scientific community has had time to evaluate his newfangled ideas. Someone points out that there may be a bit of hubris on Wikipedians' part, thinking that Einstein is really promoting himself by putting his admittedly published paper argument in Wikipedia, because no physicicst or physics student turns to Wikipedia as an authority. For three days a few people argue over how important Wikipedia is, until everyone agrees that in the future more people will read wikipedia, as soon as Jimbo buys a much larger abacus. Einstein puts his summary of his article back into the Wikipedia article. Someone deletes it again, just putting "NOR" in the edit summary. Einstein reverts the deletion, writing in capital letters "THIS REFERS TO A PUBLISHED ARTICLE." Someone points out on the talk page that this is not really an NOR issue because Einstein is right, it is a published article, but there is an NPOV issue because the article now presents Einstein's view as the truth. Another editor edits Einstein's paragraph down from five sentences to three, and adds "this theory has not achieved general acceptance by physicists." Einstein adds, after not, "yet." Someone deletes the "yet" and Einstein writes, on the talk page, "You are the ones engaging in original research, because you are claiming physicists do not accept my theory. What is your proof? Has some survey of physicsists been published?" The editor replies "I know because I am Max Planck." People are not sure whether or not to believe this user, and someone tries to find out if his chalk-board was purchased in Berlin, which would narrow the identity of the editor down. Someone else says "look, there is no published survey, but let's be reasonable. The article just came out. It hasn't been cited anywhere yet." Einstein deletes "this theory has not yet achieved general acceptance by physicists" and replaces it with "Einstein's theory represents the most recent scientific work on this topic." SOmeone reverts that and writes on the talk page that it doesn't matter whether there has been a survey of physicists true, but we have to comply with NPOV and this is the simplest and most reasonable way to handle that. Someone else adds to the talk page a message to Einstein, that if he can accept the "not achieved general acceptance," then everyone else will accept including his summary of his published article. Another person tells Einstein just to be patient, that if he is right physicists will figure that out eventually, and Wikipedia is an ongoing project and the article will of course continue to be edited over the coming years (and at an even faster rate, if Jimbo buys us more chalk). Einstein writes "Okay, I can wait. After all, time is relative!" The next day, Einstein puts double-brackets around "time" and starts working on that article (and promptly gets into an argument with a very young Martin Heidegger, but the argument turns out to be over style and not content). Slrubenstein | Talk 19:50, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Given that it was a joke, your answer is entirely sensible. Your point, "if he had bothered with it it would have been to make sure that the articles on the Michelson-Morley experiment, the Lorentz contraction, and (possibly also) the work of Henri Poincaré were correct so that special relativity could be coherently discussed when the time comes" is actually, I think, very constructive because it gives editors who are coming into conflict with NOR and feeling frustrated, a task that they might be qualified to do and could achieve some gratification by doing. My question: should something like this be put into the NOR policy (specifically, as a suggestion to those editors who feel thwarted or frustrated by our NOR policy and ownder how they they might contribute)? As to your comment "note the comments of Harald88 above" I am afraid I do not know what you are talking about; the above discussion is pretty complex. Should we just assume that you and I agree in principle and do not need to extend this discussion, or can you give me a clearer idea of what specifically is at stake, in the section of the discussion your reference, that I may or may not have anything to add to? Slrubenstein | Talk 20:50, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
See the above discussion point 10.
The following text is a bit obscure and can be misunderstood:
"If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not."
It appears on the page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research (under the header "Disputes over how established a view is"),
as well as on the page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view (under the header "Undue Weight").
Based on the above discussion I propose to add a clarification, as follows:
"If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can create evidence for it or not!
Instead it is the job of Wikipedia to report that which is believed to be the truth, and if there is a controversy about what the truth is then Wikipedia is obliged to report on that controversy."
(Compare also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_is_a_featured_article : "comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral") Harald88 20:05, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
-- EMS | Talk 23:04, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
EMS, I honestly am not trying to be a pain in the ass. But can you please restate your proposal? There has been a lot of discussion going in different directions, and I don't think I know precisely (and concisely) what youa re proposing. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:31, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
[someone had inserted another subject header, which obscured the issue]
Well, the last sentence is a serious issue for me, because the last sentence is making a point that is different from and unconnected to the first sentence. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:18, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Maybe ems57 wanted to use the opportunity to add something that he wants to clarify... and he thinks that it doesn't matter so much where? ;-) Harald88 18:04, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Section reads: Primary sources...such as...transcript of a public hearing...
Can this be clarified to include
declassified information, for example, declassified transcripts of closed door hearings now held in the public domain, or
FOIA documents, etc. Thank you.
nobs
15:57, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
To "descriptive claims that are easily verifiable by any reasonable adult [need no secondary sources]," I added as an example of such a claim "the sun rose in the sky this morning." I also added to "any reasonable adult," the words "without specialist knowledge." And I added a bit about accuracy, so the paragraph now reads:
In order to emphasize that this is the exception, not the rule, I repeated in the next paragraph that we publish on the basis of verifiability, not truth.
I did this because an editor today wanted to use the descriptive-claims paragraph to add material from a website on the grounds that any reasonable adult could verify that the material was there by looking at the site. However, not any reasonable adult could verify its accuracy. I feel relucant to add the "accuracy" rider because it takes us away from our "verifiability, not truth" principle, but then I suppose that's the point of the apple-pie exception: that in some cases commonly accepted facts may be published, though I'm still uncomfortable with it.
Also, I added the words in bold to this section: "In some cases, there may be controversy or debate over what constitutes a legitimate or reputable authority or source. Where no agreement can be reached about this by the majority of editors on the page, the article should provide an account of the controversy and of the different authorities or sources. Such an account also helps ensure the article’s neutral point of view."
I added that because the paragraph implied where there was any controversy whatsoever about sources, an account of it should be added to the article. This would mean that LaRouchies could insist every article contain an account of what LaRouche says about X, and why he isn't being allowed to say it. ;-) The "majority of editors on the page" qualification provides a safeguard. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:53, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Slim, I'm concerned that your addition would allow minority views not to be included at all and would allow "editing by gang". Editors who wish to privilege certain sources need only acquire "a majority of editors on the page" (IOW, email their mates and get them to back them) to disallow a source. Personally, although I understand your intent (to disallow the insertion of views of people who just wander by and have an opinion) and support it (as you know, in Rachel Corrie, I deplore the inclusion of a blogger's view of Corrie's death solely on the basis of the blogger's being Jewish, and believe that our policy should definitely be written in a way that disallows that; but not in this way because on that page you have the majority but are wrong to consider Balint "reputable" in the sense that she is qualified to have an opinion (because that's at the root of it: you want to disqualify LaRouche's sundry opinions because he is no more qualified to hold them than any other observer)), I don't support policy backing for subjective measures for inclusion of views, whatever the reality on the ground is. You are opening the door for yet more votes. For instance, you can exclude David Icke's views on his own opinions simply by holding a poll to decide that he is not "reputable" (effectively this is what you did do on that page, but here you're writing policy to back it and that worries me, because I for one don't agree with you that a person's view on their own views is of less weight than others' views, even if one believes they are lying, misguided or stupid, because, remember, the truth or accuracy of what they say is not in question). Okay, while you are confident that you will be able to raise majorities to support your exclusions of views you don't want represented, what happens when the LaRouchies wake up and realise that all they need do is sign up a hundred of their cadres and they can junk your sources? Do you recognise the danger in that? Editing by consensus (in the true meaning of the word) is a good means to prevent pages from being hijacked by gangs. I urge you not to rewrite policies to encourage editing by majority instead, and to see the danger in it. Oftentimes, those in a majority simply do not realise that on other occasions they might be in a minority. The same is true of those who hold power: they all too often don't recognise the possibility of their disempowerment. -- Grace Note.
-- Philip Baird Shearer 10:32, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
The page needs to be edited to reconcile the NOR policy with Wikipedians who create primary sources by snapping a photo of something:
Tempshill 23:27, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
I think photos can in effect constitute "original research." Here is what I think the policy should be: If an editor adds a photo toillustrate a point that is already made in the article, if that point itself does not violate NOR, then neither does the photo. However, if the editor adds a photo to make a point that is not already in the article, and that has a verifiable source, then the photo does violate NOR. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:46, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, if you and other editors think that the current policy as stated covers the hypothetical I just gave, well, I guess then we do not need to change the policy! Slrubenstein | Talk 16:33, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Do you mean hypothetically, or on Wikipedia? On Wikipedia, I honestly have not tried. And I don't think I need to — all that matters is whether the policy is written in such a way that it would cover this situation if it ever came up. But if you mean hypothetically, well, Let's say I took a photograph of a famous politician while/she was looking distracted, and added to a page along with the caption "X is often easily distracted at public events" I would call that original research. Or if I wanted to argue that I had discovered a new species of rodent, and had a photograph to prove I had seen an anomolous rodent, and put it in the article on rodents and claimed this was a new species, well, that would be original research. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:07, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
There is no reason why an NPOV violation cannot also be an NOR violation. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:23, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Let's take a concrete example ... what wording of the policy would tolerate the continued existence of the three images now associated with spoon? One image is from a Wikipedian. One image is from a free online resource of images. One image is from the US Government. Let's set aside the complications inherent in interpreting facial expressions and take care of a simple case first.
I would propose the following text insertion directly after "data, statements, concepts and ideas that have not been published in a reputable publication;":
These seven words would seem to unlock the box some of us see Wikipedians in. It is quite safe to say that a person photographing a spoon and saying "this is a spoon" would be an example of an observation that non-unique and corroboratable (looking at the picture I can safely say, yes, that is a spoon and I've seen one like it on most days). The facial expressions matter is something altogether different. This observation could very easily be either unique or so sparsely experience as to be practically unique such that a person looking at the photo would not be able to corroborate that in fact that expression was seen in the named circumstance. Such a photo does not pass the test - it cannot be corroborated and it is a practically unique experience. Now, this criterion only applies to information from Wikipedians added directly to Wikipedia and not to news services or other sources of record (just to be pedantically clear).
The seven words are something of a skeleton key in that they don't merely open the photo box. I took a brief look up the page here and saw a reference to a dispute over where Billy Joel lived. In the end of the thread there essentially these seven words were invoked in spirit; prior to finding of sources that corroborated the personal observations of a personal acquaintance of Billy Joel, only sources that contradicted him were found and it was a case of "you say one thing but evidence says something else - and we don't know why that evidence would be wrong" (paraphrased), but once sources were found that agreed with the person's personal experience, all was right with the world; in other words the person was no longer in a "he said - she said" situation but had corroboration on his side. My gut says "add the seven words" and turns a little bit at addition of a section for the present purpose. I think User:SlimVirgin's reminding us to word it carefully need not be construed to mean word it exhaustively ... in this case I think that more words are not a better course to take. Seven words seems about right. Courtland 04:56, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
How about editors who distort standard reference works? An experienced editor has told me there's no Wikipedia policy on academic dishonesty.
I've tried to reason with two such people on the Joan of Arc article. To give an example, the context here is the fate of Joan of Arc shortly after her capture. The duke of Burgundy's men captured her. A few months later the English bought her from the duke of Burgundy. These editors say French king Charles VII tried to ransom her. Every part of the footnote is false:
The above citations actually say:
These distortions were not created in ignorance. When the fraudulent footnote was in its infancy I posted an excerpt from one of the same books they cite. I excerpted Morosini's actual journal entry with Pernoud and Clin's subsequent comment (pp. 97-98):
Pernoud and Clin speak for the academic consensus.
One of these two editors has been sitebanned and posts from an anonymous IP address. I requested mediation after I found a note where the other one admits to fabricating a nonexistent source document. Admin deleted that edit but has not moderated. These editors refuse to cite sources for most of their strange assertions. I don't want to put myself in trouble with the three edit rule.
I'm new to Wikipedia. What's your advice? Durova 05:18, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
I think that photos, which are intended to make a specific point, should not be uploaded to Wikipedia unless they have been previously published by a disinterested, reputable 3rd party.
Flikr.com, weblogs, partisan political web sites (dailykos, freerepublic, etc) and such are not acceptable, but commercial news organizations and commericial publishers and to a lesser extent, non-profits would be ok. There is simply too much opportunity out there to stage photos, for example:
Clearly it's a staged photo intended to make a point. If the control parameter of "intended to make a point" is not enforced, the excuse regarding the above scenario would be "I found the trash & signs in the parking lot and merely snapped the photo". Such assertions could not be disproved, opening a pandora's box of scheming opporunities.
Rex071404 216.153.214.94 05:52, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
No, I do not. The uploading and attempted use of a "loaded" photo is prima facie of bad faith. Those who do it, are rogues. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 00:09, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
After a week with no serious objections and a lot of "well, duh" comments, I added the "Original pictures" section clarifying that Wikipedia editors are still encouraged to snap photos or draw diagrams and upload them, and this doesn't count as OR.
The John Kerry bra photo poster inspired me to further clarify that (a) uploaded photos that are otherwise original research are still banned; my example was somebody who draws a diagram of a hydrogen with extra particles in the nucleus because he thinks there are; and (b) all uploaded photos still are covered by Wikipedia's other guidelines and policies, notably factual accuracy and NPOV.
Thanks all for the discussion. Tempshill 21:19, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
SlimVirgin commented when he deleted a sentence about it (from Tempshill I think), that we don't have a factual accuracy policy. But any self respecting encyclopedia should have such a policy! Thus: 1. Is that correct (is that accurate, pun intended!) 2. If so, where to launch a proposal for such a policy? Thanks, Harald88 23:05, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
You know, this might be an occasion to look at the verifiability policy and see if it needs any fixing up. In the past year we have tidied up the NOR and Cite Sources policies. I know SlimVirgin has put some good work into Verifiability. I hope it is clear and makes sense to Harald. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:40, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
This seems like a common practice, though perhaps there is a nuance not apparent to me in the comment. Is the idea that "it is in poor taste" to argue for your own theory on a talk page, so as to influence the weight it is given in an article, in contrast with
Comment appreciated -SM 21:19, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Hi, SlimVirgin, but can you comment on the four (one against, three for) points above? -SM 12:54, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Several (largely unregistered) editors have apparently simply been adding things to two lists of examples (on Wise Old Man and, until recently Hero) as they pop into their heads. Would unilaterally deciding that "Johnny Tsunami's Grandpa" and "Peppy Hare" are the Wise Old Man as defined by Jung count as original research? Or that a character in the Epic of Gilgamesh counts as being a "Wise Old Man in popular fiction"!? elvenscout742 22:22, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
This definition of OR, right at the outset of the article, is not apt:
First, this defines original research (boldface) in terms of something different which is also called "original research," which is confusing. For purposes of this discussion, let me distinguish them, so the above definition is:
This is still inadequate. What's intended is: Don't use Wikipedia to publish your own OR2. But you shouldn't publish your friend's OR2 either.
So all reference to whose OR2 it is should be scrapped, because it's irrelevant.
One might argue that any OR2 appearing in Wikipedia is always OR1, since it was found and placed there by a Wikipedia editor. But that's misleading. OR2 might be some gossip that everyone is talking about. If a Wikipedia editor reproduces the gossip, which he learned effortlessly, it doesn't seem like "research."
This comment does not apply to the draft rewrite of the article, which has eliminated the problem.
— Urielw 13:26, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
From the article:
Why "untested"? Isn't a tested theory that has not been published in a reputable publication also original research? Why not drop "untested"?
— Urielw 13:26, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
There's a proposal at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#References_title_misread_as_non-web_External_links to change the References header to "Sources", and External links to "Further reading". So far, the proposal has been accepted by all the editors on the page, but because Wikipedia:Verifiability is a policy page, I'm putting it out for further discussion before changing it.
The reason for the proposal is that using "References" and "External links" is confusing. Sources are supposed to be listed under References, and any further reading is listed under Further reading or External links. But many editors think that any external links, whether used as sources or not, should go under External links, so then they list any material that isn't online, like books, under References, even if not used as a source. To cut through all this confusion, the proposal is to change the headers to Sources and Further reading, which are self-explanatory, and don't make the online/offline distinction. Comments would be welcomed. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:04, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
Agree to change
Disagree to change
I'm going to move the votes above to Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#References.2Fexternal_links_name-change_proposal. Hope that's okay. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:47, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
I would like to know where we stand with regards to disputes about the accuracy of external links. As I understand it, original research means something that someone just "knows", whereas external links mean that something is researched. If the external links are disputed, then this is a dispute about verifiability, and assertions of original research are incorrect. If an article about something is verified by links to its official web sites, then I would suggest that that does not count as original research. If the article is then verified as notable by referencing third party reviews, alexa rankings, and noting important historical significance, then I do not think that either of these rules should apply. Case in point in the discussions for the Vfd of planes of existence (chat site) where assertions have been made that it is original research in spite of over 50 references, similarly with the Vfd of lintilla (chat site). I do not think that it is appropriate to make such assertions in these cases. I think that they can be misused to try to steamroll votes, and that they probably were used in this way in these cases.
I would like to see the policy modified to prevent such misuses. Zordrac 14:34, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Old section title: Taking an article with a proposal and inviting others to modify it. The original author modifies the article before others do so that his or her proposal becomes an "example" inside what could become a neutral point of view article with well organized references.
Will it be ok to add an adjective to a regular, well known term as to be descriptive of a "category" of a certain thing, such as "Distributive" Income Tax, even though the meaning of the adj. + term, though utilitarian and good for comprehension purposes, hasn't been spoken in those same words?
See Distributive Corporation Tax —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kmarinas86 ( talk • contribs)
What happens when a fact can be verified by any Wikipedia user by performing a simple task? In The Warden (software), I added a statement that Warden is also in Warcraft III, Starcraft, and Diablo II. The problem is that there is no source for this anywhere but on Internet message boards of dubious quality. However, this information is actually verifiable, despite the lack of sources: if you open Warcraft III's game.dll, Starcraft's Battle.snp, or Diablo II's D2Client.dll in Notepad, you can search for the string WardenClient.cpp, proving that Warden is in these games as well. ( World of Warcraft's WoW.exe also has this string.) -- Myria 06:27, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm having problems with the "no original research" policy, particularly when it comes to wanting to include tables in articles. For example on Poker probability (Texas hold 'em) a table of probabilities for hands is obviously appropriate. However, to take a table from a recognised expert is probably a copyright violation. Attempting to disguise the fact just makes it plagiarism. Generating the table yourself is original research. Similarly, what do you do when there is one excellent source which says all there is to know on a topic? Does your article just become "See the following article"? Do you offer a summary of the article, citing every sentence back to the original source? Do you say, "According to ..." and provide a series of quotes instead of a genuine article? What if there are no "reputable sources" on a topic, simply because reputable authors don't write about such topics? Computer games and strategy, cheating at various sports, etc etc? Is google a source? I would like to say in Paris that this city is frequently referred to as "The most romantic city in the world". Google says that 92% of pages containing that phrase also contain "Paris". Whereas only 1% contain "Venice", for instance. This seems to "verify" that the claim is correct. How on earth would you find a reputable source that also verifies the claim? (Note here the 'claim' is that people call Paris that, not that Paris is actually romantic...) Responses very welcome! Stevage 14:23, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I can imagine only two cases where one would rely on one source. First, it happens to be the only source you know. In that case, just provide the proper citations, and add a message to the "talk" page that you invite other editors to add to what you wrote drawing on other sources. Second, you are writing about a question or issue that, for the moment, only one person has raised. In that case, you can write something like, "Recently, x has argued that ... The following section draws heavily on her recent book, in order to provide an accurate account of her argument..." or something like that. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:05, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Maybe it would help you if you just bear in mind that the point is to prevent our own views from entering articles. Reread the policy from that perspective and see if it makes more sense. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I am not saying the policy cannot be improved (but, since what you read is the process of a very long collaboration between editors, raise your proposed changes here first, and allow for much discussion) — but Wikipedia is really not meant to be the place for publicizing unpuublished research. For all I know, Stephen Hawking wants to add to our article on black holes some new musings he has been having. I sure don't question their importance, but this just is not Hawking's own blog or personal webpage. He has to publish it in a respected publication first. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:45, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I have two questions that need answering, even though they've probably already been asked.
Thanks for answering. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 22:04, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
This is a bad policy and should be withdrawn. It's just too semantically vague, which inevitably leads to time-wasting debates when somebody invokes the policy. It was plainly instituted to keep out long, developed personal theories or points-of-view, but it is now being used to attack even simple observations of phenomena and written matter-- the sort of basic observation which simply cannot be avoided in the construction of sentences. I vote for a vote to delete. JDG 09:51, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
At most, I can see the value of adding a sentence or two to the apple-pie test, to address JDG's concern. But this is one of the oldest Wikipedia policies; it is certainly much clearer than the original formulation. Moreover, as the number of contributors grows and grows this policy becomes more important than ever. I agree fully with SlimVirgin's comment above. Look, if any conflict over whether someone is violating NOR or not ever makes it to the ArbCom – hey, let's say ever makes it to formal mediation – then I will take JDG's concern more seriously. I have yet to see a clear case where this policy was uncondintionally preventing an article from becoming better. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
On this page: Talk:"Lucas_Bashing"_phenomenon#Fundamental_challenge_to_sourcing this guy is claiming that "no original research" should not or does not apply to fan culture. Is it possible to make explicit mention that fan topics like Harry Potter and Star Wars articles are not exempt from the sources requirement? These articles have the most problem with original research IMO. Borisblue 19:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
The ArbCom has yet to finalize the new "priveleged expert" exemption [2] based upon Nobs01 and others case, yet I note the change has already been made official here with little discussion [3]. nobs 20:09, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Is there a Category or some list to include articles that (suspected to) violate WP:NOR? I just came across NPR and Commercialization which appears to be someone's school paper copied into Wikipedia. I don't think it necessarily needs to be deleted (it has references), but at least needs major cleanup, needs to adhere to WP:NPOV, and moved to conform to the Manual of style. --- Aude 05:41, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
So... all information in this encyclopaedia either has to be of an undeniable basis (e.g. humans are bipeds) or backed up by a reputable publication?? I hope Wikimedia would establish a "Wiki-infoshare: The (Truly) Public Encyclopedia" or something like that soon -.- (The last sentence is meant to be slightly sarcastic, by the way.)
Problem One
Let me point out a problem with this policy: The policy page recommends that so-called original researchers publish their findings in a journal or reputable publication first, and then post them on Wikipedia. The problem is... there are lots of everyday observations that would simply be too trifling for release in such a journal but would be beneficial to readers of Wikipedia who might simply not be familiar with a particular environment or point of view. (It is also my opinion that NOTHING is too trivial or trifling to be included on Wikipedia, a limitless resource.)
For example, if I were to post a line stating that the majority of Hongkongers are ill-mannered by western standards, this would almost certainly be deleted because I'd be accused of (1) having a non-neutral point of view and (2) not backing myself up with a reputable authority on the matter. The fact is that everyone who comes or returns to Hong Kong after some time in the western world would undeniably concur with my observation, which would morever be rather useful to those who intend to visit our city.
What's your take on this?
Problem Two
I read above that even eyewitness testimony and accounts are prohibited. What sort of rule is this???
Even the user who stated this prohibition above admitted: "I say this with some sorrow, because clearly there are some topics where you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that some newspaper article, or publicists' statement, is wrong."
I would like a lengthy explanation and justification of this counter-progressive policy, especially in light of the proposed remedy I shall detail below.
Proposed remedy
The loudest argument in favour of the existing policy would perhaps be: "It's better to be safe than sorry." I agree, but their are clear alternatives to an unreasonable all-out ban on original research and eyewitness accounts.
1. Remedy for original research: Original research should be permitted if the author puts in a note stating that certain information might be observation-based or limited to a particular geographic area. This note could take on a standardised form similar to the spoiler warnings commonly seen in Wikipedia articles on works of fiction. Example (based on the spoiler warning):
Original research: Observation-based deduction, regional inference, or unpublished research follows.
2. Remedy for eyewitness accounts: As above, eyewitness accounts should be permitted if the author puts in a note making clear that the information is considered undeniable by the author but based on an individual's own observation and not obtained from a publication. Example:
Eyewitness account: Information based on an individual's own undeniable observation follows.
I would appreciate your comments on my viewpoints and proposed remedies to the problem. Please do not respond, as some of you have above, with blanket statements concerning "what is prohibited" and "what is allowed". I'd like to have a discussion contesting the rules themselves and not what is allowed under the current rules.
Thanks in advance for your input! -- Lapin rossignol 10:24, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for your explanation of this policy, Slrubenstein. I stand rectified on my usage of the word "undeniable" and my "single eyewitness" stance. Of course, I still stand behind the remainder of my viewpoint.
Incidentally, you failed to address the remedies I suggested for this problem. These remedies are an integral part of my viewpoint, and without them in force, my argument would be greatly weakened due to its liberal attitude that may possibly result in "a deluge of unverified claims". With my remedies in force, however, readers could easily distinguish between established facts and such claims. Therefore, it would be greatly appreciated if you and other Wikipedians here could please consider the remedies I suggested for the problem.
(P.S. Please do not try to turn me away from Wikipedia by suggesting other online venues. Let's have a discussion here. Contrary to what you may think, Wikipedia policy does allow discussion over its core elements. Certainly, they may be uncompromisable in practice at this moment, but they may be pondered over in search of a better solution, no? ^.^) -- Lapin rossignol 02:43, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
I retract my stance on permitting eyewitness testimony for current events. I have read the explanations for the NOR policy in more detail, and I now agree that articles on current events should abide by the existing policy because in any case, current events are most likely to be covered by publications and most likely to be pounced on by unverified claimants.
However, I still would like to see a softening of the existing policy towards observation-based conclusions.
Thus, please consider the remedy I proposed for such observation-based conclusions: Instead of an all-out ban on them, a warning like the following should suffice...
Observation warning: Observation-based deduction or regional influence follows.
This warning may not be used for current events or specialist topics (i.e. discipline-specific matters requiring professional research). I now believe that the existing NOR policy is best for such topics. So, with my softened stance on the matter, I would appreciate your further feedback on my suggested policy improvement. Thanks a bunch! -- Lapin rossignol 03:45, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
To Slruberstein: Aww, there's no need to apologise, but thanks a lot for that ^.^ I feel guilty whenever someone apologises to me, haha, so you've got me at a soft spot :-p. Hmm, I'll reply in full later, when I've read the policy page in more detail and thought over things (and their consequences) a bit, but here's what I can say now in response to the above:
"Nothing more than a statement that the associated content is in violation of our policies." ... Well, I'm proposing a modification of these very policies, so whether my suggestion contravenes them is really a moot point, no? (And don't worry, I'd do no such thing as violate a policy. I'll debate policies, challenge policies through my words, yes, but until policies are changed- and they might never be- I won't do anything that the existing rules prohibit.)
To Stan: And thanks for "kibitzing", or in my words, contributing to the discussion :-p. Haha, my example on behaviour in Hong Kong was a rotten one. Anyway, I remember my A-level days last year... spending two whole days in the university library to find sources for my final research paper, whew! >.< Quite a lot of effort, but certainly necessary for academic papers and more specialised/technical Wikipedia articles. Considering the sort of trivial "observation-based conclusions" I have in mind, however, it's really a very, very roundabout way to get at stuff when the evidence is right in front of your eyes, I must say!! Heh :-) -- Lapin rossignol 02:06, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Lapin rossignol, I would bet that most "observation-based conclusions" (and to be honest, you mean "personal observation-based conclusions," since one of the tests of a scientific theory is its ability to suggest possible "observations" from which one would draw conclusions; the observations must thmselves be verifiable (or reproducible) and the conclusions falsifiable. My point is, most conclusions expressed in any encyclopedia article are "observation-based," just notin the way you mean)you would make could actually be found in verifiable sources. If so, why not cite those sources? Doing so could only help readers, and make the article stronger. And if there are no verifiable citable sources for your "observations," with all due respect I suggest you think long and hard about why that is the case. The reasons why may very well be the same reasons for not including them in this encyclopedia. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:30, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Heh, you know what, I'm going to drop this cause as soon as I get somewhere with my campaign to eliminate the criterion of notability. Almost all of Wikipedia is against me on my NOR reform proposal anyway, so my arguments here serve no purpose. In the debate over notability, at least, Wikipedia is pretty much divided 50-50. And plus, I take a personal interest in that issue but not in NOR, so I'll let all of you here win on this one and breathe a sigh of relief. Thanks to you all for debating with me and contributing to this discussion whilst my fire was still burning ^.^ Lapin rossignol 10:29, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi Uncle G, I reverted that edit again because you're introducing footnotes. It's not the extra quotes I'm concerned about, just the deletion of the embedded links. When I have time, if it's all right with, I'll put back the extra quotes but give the sources as links. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
A very interesting discussion is taking place at Media circus ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Stbalbach ( talk · contribs) has claimed that the inclusion of events in a "list of media circuses" that's in the article can only be done by citing a source that has referred to them as a "media circus", or else it's a contributor's opinion, and original research. I'm advocating that this is not the case, since "media circus" is not a standardized, nor an official-on-any-level term, but rather a general characteristic of an event receiving more media attention than would be reasonable, or necessary. I'm particularly enphasizing the fact that "media circus" is a term in English, but it's general parameters (too much media coverage) can happen anywhere, but it would be next to impossible to find a source saying "this is a media circus" about an event taking place outside of the English-speaking world. Well, best if anyone interested would read the discussion going on here. Then all the points of view being expressed can be read and reflected upon. Regards, Redux talk 22:23, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
That's something key here: the definition in our article about the term "media circus". Everything else is constructed/inserted having that logic as a starting point. The article explains it as something that can be objectively observed by the reasonable man (hence my quote). Curiously enough (from my perspective), both Stbalbach (on the article's talk page) and you guys here are addressing the term "media circus" as something subjective, that would require a subjective and personal analysis to be verified. But that's not what I'm drawing from the article at all. So I'm wondering if the problem isn't that the article is unclear, or maybe just plain wrong. Because I'd not be having this discussion if I understood that calling a situation a "media circus" were the same, from an analytical point of view, as calling it "tricky", "unbelievable" or what have you. Assuming that the article is right, however, SlimVirgin just brought up something I had said over at the article's talk page: it' just opinions. But it's just opinions all along. There's no official definition of a "media circus", in the sense that there are no standardized parameters to determine one. In that sense, the bulk of the article would also be reflecting a user(s)'s opinion (those users who wrote it, of course), or, more accuratelly, their understanding of this expression, "media circus". That's quite interesting, since the article says The term is used in a number of ways, including as a pejorative description by critics of the media and/or partisan sides in the event (...). But everybody seems to understand it as peremptorily pejorative, and thus that calling something a "media circus" signifies a subjective analysis (which, without an external source, would be original research).
Is the article wrong then, is that it? But if it's not, then I don't see it as a subjective opinion at all (that would be if we were implying any context associated with the term), but rather as a term that defines an objective situation, and one that can be easily verified by the "reasonable adult".
Redux
11:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Redux, I think you are missing everyone's point (but Older/Wider and Slim Virgin, correct me if I am mistaken). What constitutes a "media circus" is not something everyone agrees on. Moreover, the phrase is used rhetorically in an inherantly POV way. What I mean is, when people call something a jmedia circus they are not just naming something in a matter-of-fact-way (like, "Oh, that is an oak tree"). They are calling it a "media circus" in order to cast aspersions on either the object of media attention, or the media themselves. It is simply not up to Wikipedia editors to make this judgement. But Redux, let me go one step further. Let us say just for the sake of argument that you are right that all reasonable people agree as to what a media circus is, and can tell when something is a media circus. If this were the case, shouldn't it be very easy for you to find a verifiable source? And if you can easily find a verifiable source, why insist on inserting your own opinion when you can provide the source and in the process comply with three policies? To summarize: if you cannot find verifiable sources identifying something as a media circus, then I would consider that evidence that you are wrong about the "reasonable person" claim. And if you can find verifiable sources, you should use them. You suggest that this is a phrase used in the English-speaking world. If you want to add to the list of "media circuses" something that happened in Ukraine or Japan, it is worth researching whether they have in their own language an equivalent for "media circus." And if they don't, all the more reason to find a verifiable source, because you would be making an intrinsically POV claim, namely, that English speakers view it as a media circus. Well, if that claim is accurate, you will be able to find verifiable sources. And if you can't, the claim is not accurate. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:36, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Can someone please answer this hypothetical question: Suppose a scientist publishes a simple algebraic expression, and claims that when evaluated, the expression equals 15.89. I spend a few minutes with a calculator and I verify that it does indeed equal 15.89. Have I done "original research"? I believe the answer is no; instead, I have come up with some "verifiable information" (because anyone else with a calculator can also verify that the expression equals 15.89). Thanks, Anonymous, 20:33, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your replies, Jkelly and Stevage. Here's the issue: said scientist's theory contains an algebraic expression that makes a quantitative prediction. Said scientist claims that when the expression is evaluated, you get a value that closely matches experimental results published by CODATA. I used a calculator to verify that the expression did indeed evaluate to a value that closely matches the CODATA experimental results, as claimed. So I stated in the article that the prediction closely matches the experimental results, but maintained a NPOV by explicitly stating that the scientific community has not yet reached a consensus about whether this close match is due to a correct theoretical basis, or "luck." Another user deleted what I wrote, saying that the scientist's claim hasn't "been verified in any published source," and that my verification of the claim -- which, I must stress, could be done by any middle-school algebra student -- constitutes "original research." I say it's not "original research"; to the contrary, it's "verifiable information." Who is correct? Thanks, Anonymous, 02:02, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Jimbo stressed [4] that
Thanks again Stevage. Let's see if I understand. If Jacques Chirac predicts on Jan. 11 that "the sun will rise tomorrow," I guess it would be against Wikipedia policy to later write, "the sun rose on Jan. 12, as Chirac predicted." Right? Anonymous 22:36, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, verifiable calculations and proofs may be original research, but sometimes it's necessary to fabricate this kind of thing to facilitate presentation or to avoid copyright issues. Just act in good faith, don't make any objectionable claims that are either questionable in accuracy or contradict accepted scientific knowledge, add extended justification details to the talk page where necessary, and you're not likely to get OR cited on you.
In this case, though, there's no need to prove that the scientist's claims are accurate, as long as they are verifiable. If there's reason to doubt the scientist themselves, other verifiable information to this effect could be added, but let the reader judge who to believe. Deco 00:05, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I am increasingly worried by the fact that some people here seem to think that what passes academic peer review must be true. There are actually examples where people have generated random sentences using a computer program and got their paper accepted in a peer-reviewed journal! Much of what is published in peer-reviewed journals is controversial, otherwise nobody would be interested in publishing it in the first place!
A Draconian measure would be having a "moving wall" which meant that articles younger than x years (maybe 3 or 5?) could only be discussed by giving an alternative view to the "novelty" element of the publication (since any hypothesis has flaws - theories can be useful, not true - this should not be difficult to do, and in most cases, the peer-reviewed literature will only have the ). Otherwise wikipedia will itself be seriously prone to citation bias, where only extraordinary new things will get written about, much of which will prove wrong a few years down the line. There is at least some virtue in conservatism! There are a few editors here who have a habit of digging out off-the-wall papers and editing their contents into articles straight away.
The policy discusses what reputable publications are, but a peer-reviewed journal would have to be very young (and hence not yet reputable) to have never published a false claim!
I don't particularly favour the idea of a moving wall, and will write again when I come up with something better, but there should be a guideline on managing this problem. If anyone else has ideas, I'd be more than glad to hear them! - Samsara 17:31, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Harald88, your model works well for articles that are being watched by many people. Publicising the conclusion of a published article in a less visited wikipedia item, without checking for alternate points of view (in the published literature), can have serious consequences, however. Remember that all you need for your article to pass as "peer-reviewed" is to get two favourable reviews. Maybe those reviewers just happen to agree with you, but the rest of the community may have serious reservations. On wikipedia, we would be stuck with the minority view until someone knowledgeable enough to raise an eyebrow comes along, and (hopefully) gives a more balanced discussion.
What you may also be unaware of is that when you submit articles to peer-reviewed journals, you are often asked to give a list of suggested referees, usually a number between five and eight. You can also ask for particular people to be excluded as referees. So in reality, you exclude those who you know are hostile to your work and put all your friends down on the "suggested" list. We have to realise that this has consequences for wikipedia! - Samsara contrib talk 14:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I know that personal interviews are considered original research, and thus are not allowed as a source. But what about personal interviews that were done some time ago for the purpose of publication elsewhere? Can I cite my own published work?
Specifically, several years ago, I worked as a newspaper reporter. During that time, I did interviews with a few people whom I believe should have articles in Wikipedia. Since that information was published (albeit under my byline), can it be used? (The subjects never disputed the accuracy of what I wrote.)
-- Michael J 01:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
"One of the keys to writing good encyclopedia articles is to understand that they should refer only to facts, assertions, theories, ideas, claims, opinions, and arguments that have already been published by a reputable publisher."
The basic implication here is that Wikipedia will only promote propaganda. The facts regarding law in the United States are very easy to verify. But the above rules have a very serious stultifying effect on criticisms of the legal system in the USA.
There is no doubt that a large cross section of the American public believe that lawyers and the legal system have a bad smell. The problem is that the pro-lawyer arguments are published in force by reputable authority and publishers. This is because the status quo has a very serious interest in maintaining itself.
The arguments against the legal system are much more difficult. This is proven by the fact that at present there is no effective criticism of the legal system and the lawyers in Wikipedia. The apologists for the lawyers are relying on this particular rule here to squelch all criticism.
It seems to me that it is far better to have a poorly written and poorly researched criticism of lawyers and the USA legal system than no criticism at all. A badly written criticism of the lawyers and the legal system will only get better with age. No criticism will only remain that which it is, propaganda. LegalEagle1798 00:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Since making my initial post, I have read the project page more carefully and the basic problem here is that all of Wikipedia is original research. If you remove original research, you have WikiArchive. Once primary sources and secondary sources or whatever are edited or paraphrased that turns them into original research. There is no turning to the right or the left of this. The issue is not whether an article is original research, for they all are, but only as to degree.
All the articles in Wikipedia are original research but most of them are accepted as properly written according to the rules for practical reasons. If this rule were to be strictly followed Wikipedia would not be possible. Certainly, for example the mathematics articles in Wikipedia are original research. There are uncounted numbers of mathematics sources, and selecting the ideas and form that goes into Wikepedia is original research. If this is true for mathematics, it must be true for every subject and it is true for every subject.
In articles that involve propaganda this rule takes on an insidious character. For example in articles that involve the law and the lawyers this rule enforces censorship and denies criticism. If propaganda is allowed in Wikipedia this makes Wikipedia a tool for propaganda. The apologists for propaganda can always censor all criticism by simply labeling it original research. This will always have effect since everything on Wikipedia is original research, but almost by definition propaganda will be original research to a lesser degree than any criticism of propaganda. This must be true because the status quo will have more legitimacy than anyone or any thing critical of it. LegalEagle1798 06:47, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I want to ask a question, as I don't know how to react. User:Vald adds his own translations of poems to the articles on Russian poets, e.g., here. I'm not a native English speaker; please clarify whether this may be classified as original research and whether the quality of his translations is sufficient to be kept. Or, perhaps, such poems should be moved to Wikiquote? I don't want to offend a potentially valuable contributor, so I'm asking someone more knowledgable to look into the matter. -- Ghirla | talk 13:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it should be called "original research." I've seen several people think that it means reporting information from primary sources. Many times I've been accused of original research for doing that --not making synthetic arguments or anything like that, but simply paraphrasing a quote from a primary source and providing a reference link for it. A lot of newbies think the rule against original research means that only research from secondary sources is allowed. "Original research" should be called "unsourceable research" or better yet, "unsourceable assertions." It would be much more readily understandable as to what is meant. RJII 04:12, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I am relatively new to Wikipedia but I also read carefully the policy, which is a good combination to have a fresh opinion on this question, and I also think the title is far from expressing the core of the policy. However, I think the alternative "No unsourceable research" is not really better. The key point is that this policy is not only useful to suppress viewpoints that are not well established, but also and more often to preserve the integrity of well established viewpoints. For example, the sentence :"Joe, which is well known to have been convicted for sexual abuse against young children [ref], says that every young child should do whatever any adult ask. [ref]" does not attack the integrity of any well establised viewpoint. However, consider the following: "Joe, a catholic priest [ref], says that every young child should do whatever any adult ask. [ref]" If given its context, this last sentence appears to present the catholic viewpoint, to preserve the integrity of the catholic viewpoint, it must be sourced in a reputable publication for the catholic viewpoint. For this example, such a source does not exist, I think. Note that Joe might be the same person in both sentences. This means that we are not forced to suppress the viewpoint of Joe here, but only to present it in a different context. This example illustrates that the most important purpose of the requirement for a reputable source is not to suppress information, but to preserve the integrity of well established viewpoints. The above example was about the catholic viewpoint, but the same principle applies to the scientific viewpoint. Perhaps it is even more often the case that we need to protect the integrity of science than we have to protect the integrity of a religion, but the principle is universal and applies to all established viewpoints, religious or whatever. In particular, it is clear that what constitute a reputable publisher depends on the content that is sourced and how and in which context it is presented. -- Lumière 21:06, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Recently the Template:Game of Go position, which is like the chess template generates a Go board at a specific position for articles, was changed to use an original coordinate system. There are several systems used in the literature and on Internet servers most of which share a number of features but none of which look like this. I complained on the talk page (but did not revert) that it strikes me as original research (even though personally I think it is probably easier to follow), it would be incompatible with other published accounts of games such as the one in this article ( Cho Chikun) a reader going over a published account and analysis of the game would have a hard time checking out version for correctness or simply using the two together. Is this original research enough as to be reverted? Dalf | Talk 07:07, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
It is wrong to have a general requirement for a reputable publisher that is independent of the content and the way it is presented. The policy already indicates that the definition of reputable publisher is different for academic contents than it is for less rigourous contents. So the idea that the requirement depends on the contents and the way it is presented is there, but it is not clear enough. This is a very important aspect of the policy and it should be presented very clearly. For example, if a content is clearly the viewpoint of the catholics (the religion) and it is presented as such, a publication from the Vatican is perfectlty fine to source that viewpoint. However, if the Vatican itself enters into a scientific debate, just because the debate itself as some scientific pretention, then the Vatican's opinion in that debate automatically gains some scientific pretention as well and must be sourced in a reputable independent scientific publication. I don't think this is clear enough in the current formulation of the policy. -- Lumière 18:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
See also my comment in #Change the name of "original research" to "unsourceable research". -- Lumière 21:09, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Someone added to "secondary sources": "This should include websites." That's unclear and likely open for discussion; thus I put it here for clarification. Harald88 20:28, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Can someone get rid of the "this page has been cited by..." from the top of this talk page? Yes, it's all nice to give ourselves a pat on the back, but it's really irrelevant and counterproductive to anything we're trying to achieve here. Maybe these citations could be collected somewhere else? Stevage 21:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Can someone explain to me in simple terms what is the connection between the division Primary/Secondary sources and the other division Original/Not Original research? -- Lumière 21:39, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Also, is the term "sources" in the expressions "primary sources" and "secondary sources" the same as the term "sources" in the expression "reputable sources" used in WP:verifiability? If yes, can a primary source be a reputable souce? -- Lumière 21:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I am confused. If the primary/secondary source division has nothing to do with original research, why exactly do we have a section about it in a policy about original research? -- Lumière 02:09, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I am still confused. Maybe if you just explained with an example why people have to understand the primary/secondary source division to understand how the no original research policy works, i.e. to understand the rule in itself. Maybe it is not needed to understand the rule in itself, but it is some kind of motivation behind it. If that is the situation, it is a motivation that I have a hard time to understand, but I would like to understand it. -- Lumière 04:04, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I think I understand now. There is just one sentence that you wrote that I believe is incorrect: "all original research is primary source material". This did not help, but it is not what confused me originally. One thing that confused me originally, but not anymore, is that the two following sentences are not in contradiction, but appear to be in contradiction: "[using] a primary source need not be original research." and "Wikipedia is itself an encyclopedia and should exclusively be written as a secondary source, not a primary source.". The basic point here is that it is fine to use reputable primary sources in a wikipedia article, but the overall article itself should not be a primary source, which means that it should be more than just a simple collection of primary source materials without any analysis, generalization, etc. However, the thing that confused me the most orginally is that there is a folk belief in the Wikipedia community that no orginal research means only that all contents must have a reputable source. From what I understand now, it is possible to explain this main rule of the no original research policy without making any reference to primary/secondary source, but there is an additional rule in this policy: an article that is presented as a primary source, even if it contains only reputable primary source materials, is still not acceptable for inclusion in Wikipedia. --
Lumière
14:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Now that I believe I understand, I would say that the current organization and formulation of the policy should be improved. In particular, the additional rule is not the most important and it is confusing to essentially begin the explanation of the no original research policy with this rule. There should be earlier in the text two or three sentences that present the wholeness and mention that there is a main rule and an additional rule. Better, I would even suggest that we move the additional rule and all references to the primary/secondary source division into a separate policy. --
Lumière
14:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I read again the policy, and I realize that it is not what I explained in the striked comment above. I am still confused. I guess what confuses me is that most of the policy simply say that we must have contents with a reputable source and most people seem to be believe that this is what "no orginal research" means in practice. So, why do we need to refer to the primary/secondary source division? -- Lumière 14:41, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
The above is a cut and paste of a comment that was written before by Friday. Friday, I hope you do not mind that I took your comment out of context, but I wounder if this a part of the explanation that I am looking for? -- Lumière 15:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Let me give my interpretation of Friday's comment by adding what I believe was implicit in this comment:
Is this a good interpretation? Clearly the addition of the two "reputable" makes sense. The addition of "that is not entirely..." also makes sense because clearly we should hope that a wikipia article will be used as a secondary source by others. If this interpretation is correct, then I can unstrike my striked comment because it is what I previously understood. -- Lumière 15:54, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Also, one can observe that Friday's comment makes no formal use of the distinction between primary and secondary sources. It is formally equivallent to:
Clearly, there is something implicit behind the last "source". This is what my interpretation provides. However, my interpretation distinguishes primary and secondary sources. Wikipedia is not intended to be a primary source at all. It is not intended to be a secondary source that is supported through internal review. Instead, as a secondary source it must be supported by external reputable sources. This interpretation is also consistent with Deco's explanations. So, I start to believe that it might be correct. Any opinion? -- Lumière 17:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I have a problem with the "Where no agreement can be reached about this, the article should provide an account of the controversy and of the different authorities or sources." Can someone provide examples to illustrate what this means because I do not think that we can implement this approach in a way that is acceptable in an encyclopedia. The point is that a discussion on sources will be controversial and totally off topic. Also, the sources that must be used to support the arguments in such a discussion are unlikely to be easy to find, and whatever sources will be found will most likely be not more acceptable than the sources that are discussed. Should these other sources also be discussed? This can go forever. This approach seems totally unrealistic. Such a discussion is necessary, of course, but it does not need to be a part of the article. If there is no agreement, the editors should use standard means such as Rfc. This is much more reasonable and can only improve the quality of the outcome because it calls for additional expertise. -- Lumière 23:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Fortunately, in many cases there is little ambiguity about what constitutes a reputable source. For example, the policy is reasonably clear about what is a reputable scholarly publication. -- Lumière 23:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I added some text describing the motivation for NOR. Please review for accuracy and add any suitable citations that you know of. The idea is to simultaneously describe why NOR is necessary and give a clear-cut, concrete of example of the sort of thing it prevents, while giving a little history too. If there's strong opposition to this addition it's okay to remove it. Deco 00:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
The above paragraph was just added to the section "Why do we exclude original research?" of the policy by an anon IP. I took it to this talk page because I think it should be discussed. The first problem with this proposal is that when you start to explain that the theory is not serious, you are doing original research. There is a much more serious problem because, as it is stated now, this proposal says that this ridiculous story can be added in a serious article about the expansion of the universe. I do think that the above paragraph leads to a valid point, but clearly many issues need to be clarify. As I try to argue before (see #The way the policy is setup is not clear.), the solution is to consider that what is a reputable source depends on the contribution and its context. For example, it makes no sense that this ridiculous story polutes an otherwise serious scientific article. This is taken care if we use the fact that to add a contribution in a scientific context, a reputable scientific source is required. There is no real issue that this ridiculous story is added in an article about strange stories. -- Lumière 21:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
As counter-intuitive as it seems, I'd like to note that there's a built-in bias against providing sourced research on Wikipedia. There are a number of Wikipedia "editors" who do little or no searching for sources, but rather try to prevent the sourced research that others have found that conflicts with their POV from being added into articles. They'll claim it's a "misinterpretation" of the sources, so the researcher/editor is relegated to simply providing direct qoutes. Then the POV-motivated critics come along and claim that the quotes are taken out of context, and claims of "original research" are renewed. This applies to both primary and secondary sources. God forbid adding any explanatory editorial among the quotes at all, lest there are claims of "original research" there as well. So, you can't have an article with all quotes, you can't have an article with no quotes, and you can't have an article with any explanation of sources or quotes. Ultimately, the editor is taken to arbitration and he is banned for "original research." Even for the most honest of editors, it's a no-win situation if original research is claimed. There must be a better way. RJII 21:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
RJII, I followed your link to your arbitration. I just read quickly the arbitration page. I did not have the time to follow links inside that page. From an external perspective, your case looks good. I personally think that Wikipedia is very hard for any new comer that comes with a view to defend. The opponents tend to attack you every time you break a small rule, and many times they even refer to rule that are not official. When one is under constant attacks, some of these attacks being very rude, one can easily lose his temper. I see that you did not lose your temper, perhaps a little. IMO, you are doing fine! -- Lumière 20:20, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
There is another bias against sourced research - sometimes a new article is created which includes external links and/or references, and the article is voted for deletion — because the voters think it is copied from the source(s). If the contributor had neglected to add references, the article would probably have been less likely to be deleted! I know several newbies who were turned off Wikipedia when this happened to articles they created. ··gracefool | ☺ 01:03, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Copied from the section "The role of expert editors". I think that the purpose of this sentence is just to summarize what was said in the section, which is that experts do not have more right to present original research than any other editors. I think we should be more direct to the point. The fact is that experts do play a special role in Wikipedia articles. We still need them to understand source articles and present their content fairly with no original research. It is fine that a few experts on a topic determine together that some source articles are well represented in some WP article on that topic. A non expert will have to understand these source articles before he can argue against them. In particular, a non expert cannot use his own ignorance to argue that most of the content must be replaced with exact quotes from these articles. This will significantly reduce the quality of the article and discourage these experts from contributing in Wikipedia. IMO, we have to count on the fact that many experts will be interested in this article and check it for neutral point of view and especially for no original research. There is a tag to call for expertize on a topic. Perhaps we should mention it in that section. -- Lumière 05:40, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Lumiere, not to be rude, but in the past 50 edits as of now, 33 are from you, and I don't see a single substantive suggestion. Some were questions, which I hope have been answered to your satisfaction. Many of the remainder seem to be commentary with no clear focus. Would it be possible for you to muse in your head, rather than on this page, then if you find you have a clear suggestion for improvement to post it here with your reasoning? It would help people to understand what suggestion(s) you may actually have. Thanks - KillerChihuahua ?!? 14:06, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Someone is deleting a claim that a person is a member of Sigma Xi, the honorary Scientific Research Society, so I emailed the Society to make sure and they responded that the person is indeed an active member. They don't have a printed book where the names are listed --it's all in a computer database. What do I do? How can I cite it? Is this original research? I'm sure the editor will continue deleting it, unless I have a way to cite it. RJII 03:17, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Draft proposal: Change
to
We should perhaps even add a new sentence (just before the last sentence) to invite non expert editors to not interfer when to the best of their endeavours the expert editors respect WP policy. -- Lumière 07:10, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
My mistake if you had the impression that it was a poll! The purpose of this draft is to stimulate thoughtful comments. BTW, this section has no real policy content. Even the fact that expert editors did not receive any previlege is redundant. It could be moved to a guideline. There is no need to vote. -- Lumière 14:51, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Who is to say who is an expert and who is not an expert? Further, ONLY references to sources count. If I can disprove an "expert" by googling something I know very little about and can find a GOOD source that proves the expert wrong, then that source is what matters and not who is an "expert". Interpretation differences must also be about finding futher sources that define the terms, provide context, etc. WAS 4.250 18:04, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
The phrase "original research" originated primarily as a practical means to deal with physics cranks, of which of course there are a number on the Web. The basic concept is as follows: It can be quite difficult for us to make any valid judgment as to whether a particular thing is true or not. It isn't appropriate for us to try to determine whether someone's novel theory of physics is valid; we aren't really equipped to do that. But what we can do is check whether or not it actually has been published in reputable journals or by reputable publishers. So it's quite convenient to avoid judging the credibility of things by simply sticking to things that have been judged credible by people much better equipped to decide. The exact same principle will hold true for history
What an embarrassing statement. "practical means to deal with physics cranks" sounds like wikipedia is one of those flame-ridden usenet groups. This is also undoubtedly insulting to whoever get labeled as such person. Please raise the bar of civility here. This isn't helping it.
The whole paragraph sounds to me like wikipedia editors are some "counter crankism unit" in a holy war against the evil "charlatans" or "crackpots" or whatever. Note that many of the so-called "cranks" honestly believe in their theories and have spent a lot of time developing them. ( Alchemy was just as "crankish" but it inspired developments in "real science")
Such hostility is really useless. Politely asking "please show me a journal where your work is published (in accordance with the wikipedia policy)" will do the job just as well. -- Anon84.x 20:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Here's a recent "real life" case for you to analyse. In the Bigfoot article, User:Beckjord has presented his published theory that Bigfoots might actually exist: (let's ignore whether this is actually true or not)
Of course, over the history many such theories were made by many researchers. The question is, how much prominence should be given to Beckjord's theory?
The NPOV policy gives a vague principle in which if a theory is "significant minority" it should be mentioned. But what exactly does "significant minority" means? is it significant minority of the general population? of wikipedians? of experts?. And also, what makes a minority "significant". What makes a view significant? are there answers to this questions covered by real policies, and not wikpedia's "street rules"? -- Anon84.x 22:21, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
If editors want to engage in "conversations" rather than gathering consensus for specific proposals for the improvement of this policy, I would suggest they susbcribe to the mailing list or handle these conversations on IRC at #wikipedia-en. Thank you. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:24, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
This edit relates to the overall organization of the policy and its connection with other policies and guidelines. Lumière 11:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Keepers of the policy needed. I'm amazed that people are actually voting in an AfD that it's not that important to avoid original research, and keeping an article that is pure original research is ok. They're obviously uninformed voters and an anon's aggressive wording is not helping thing, as some voters are voting to be contradictory to the anon. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Longest streets in London. - Taxman Talk 16:29, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I just had a look at the vote and arguments there. Perhaps people working on this page should take a keen look too. I would contend that reading distances off a map is no more original research than citing a book written in French. Someone has gone out and measured streets, made notes, and then translated that information into a map. Which is supposed to be an easy to use, accurate, graphical representation of that information, just as words printed on a page represent information devised by someone who strung those words together. A different language, but both do exactly the same task. Now it is being argued that because something is represented in a drawing instead of words, it is an inadmissable source. English is a pretty repetitious language, only 26 letters. So what about Chinese? If I have to get out a dictionary and look up every single character to see what a text means, does that invalidate it as a reference? can't cite Egyptian Hieroglyphics, because only 100 people in the whole world can read them? I bet a lot more people can read a distance straight off a map than can read those. Sandpiper 01:28, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
This is weird! When you follow the wikilinks for primary and secondary sources (which are provided in the project page), the explanation of these concepts that you obtain is only meaningful in the context of the work of historians. This is weird because we are not only constructing history when we create Wikipedia. - Lumière 04:03, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
"If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;"
"If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia""
I agree - this is the sort of thing editors on a given page should try to work out on a case-by-case basis. If they cannot reach consensus, then there is probably a deeper problem in the discussion and more specific guidelines will not help. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:36, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Katefan0 reverted an edit I made to the article that contained multiple changes. Because she did not instead simply edit the changes she disagreed with, I'm not sure what parts were objectionable. I've modified and restored my edits, and am commenting here on some specific parts of my changes, to further discussion.
Thanks! - O^O 00:22, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
I am the one who pointed out this edit to O^O, and I also noticed that it was not really discussed in the talk page. Nevertheless, the sentence
is perfectly fine. As Slim pointed out, it appears to contain an inconsistency, but actually it does not. This sentence makes perfect sense, and it was the policy for months. Here is why it makes perfect sense. The analytical, evaluative, etc. content of an article is its essential content. Every thing else are just basic ingredients that are used in this essential content. Because of its evaluative, analytical, etc. aspects, the support for this essential content should be secondary sources, not primary sources. This is not in contradiction with the fact that we can also cite primary sources because, while reporting what is published in secondary sources, it is very natural to cite primary sources, the basic ingredients. Therefore, I think that we should keep the sentence as it was for the last months. As it was, it conveyed an important understanding. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 22:14, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I understand that removing "secondary" from the sentence can help remove an apparent contradiction, but it also remove an important understanding. Therefore, instead of removing it, we should simply add a sentence that says that it is normal to also cite primary sources when we report what was published in reputable secondary sources. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 16:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
I completely disagree if you mean that we can report on this official trial transcript, used as a primary source, without any secondary source to provide the context. In accordance with policy, you would have to avoid any interpretation, any evaluative claim, etc. on top of this official transcript, if you want to include it without a secondary source to support this context. This is almost impossible and not what we want to do anyway when we report on such a primary source. You miss the point that "used as a primary source" means used as a basic ingredient without any interpretation, evaluative claim, etc. on top of it. By definition, you must have a secondary source to provide this context. An example where this context is not provided would be an article that is only a list of primary source data, without any interpretation on top of this list, but this must violate What Wikipedia is not, I think. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 16:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
In view of the above discussion, it seems necessary to clarify what is the usefulness of the expressions primary source and secondary source in the policy. Below are the only three occurences of the expression "primary source" or "secondary source" in isolation in the policy, as recently modified by User:SlimVirgin. The significance of these two expressions relies entirely on these three occurences:
I claim that the two expressions "primary source" or "secondary source" have an unclear significance in the policy, unless we keep the sentence
which uses the expression secondary source in isolation. Please prove me wrong by explaining the significance of the expressions primary source and secondary source as expressed in the three above occurences of the expression "primary source" in isolation in the policy. Note that in the next section I argue that the sentence Original research that creates primary sources is not allowed. can be replaced by Original research is not allowed. This means that only the last two phrases determine the usefulness of the expressions "primary sources" and "secondary sources". - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 04:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I understand that the policy distinguishes between (1) primary-source material and (2) generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of information or data. I understand that primary-source material can be sourced in primary sources, but not generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of information or data. The required sources for this other kind of material are by definition used as secondary sources, not as primary sources. In other words, this other kind of material is secondary-source material. I understand that we can cite a primary source such as an official trial transcript to include some primary-source material in the article, but we cannot provide any generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of this material, that is, you cannot provide any secondary source material to discuss this primary source material, unless you provide a secondary source to support it. The problem is that such a secondary source material is necessary to see how the primary source material fits in the article. Therefore, you cannot have the primary source material without an associated secondary source material to provide the context.
If the connection with the article is implicit, it is the equivalent of an implicit interpretation of the primary source material, and this interpretation is secondary source material. For example, the use of such primary source material to create an insinuation is not allowed. An insinuation is very bad and against policy. For example, as a primary source-material, an official trial transcript says nothing bad about the defendant. For example, this transcript can be used as a criticism of a witness in the trial or of the trial itself in an article that is in support of the defendant. A reference to this transcript in the context of a criticism of the defendant corresponds to an implicit interpretation of this primary source material. Whatever is insinuated from a trial transcript or any other primary source material should be explicitly stated and sourced in a secondary source, or else the primary source material that creates the insinuation should be removed. The same is true for any implicit secondary source material, insinuation or not, that is normally created when a primary-source material is added in an article. Therefore, [the essential content of] the article normally reports what is already published in secondary sources. The exceptions are the articles with no significant implicit or explicit secondary source material such as the apple pie and the current events articles.
I would be interested to know which are these articles that only report on primary sources. Could you please provide the wikilinks? They might be examples similar to the apple pie article, which would not be a contradiction. There is also the possibility that they are controversial articles that violates [my interpretation of] the policy. Obviously, there are plenty of articles that violate the policy, and the articles you have in mind could be some of these. Note that the sentence "Wikipedia is a tertiary source" entirely supports my point. However, my point also stands by itself using common sense and the definitions of primary sources and secondary sources, and this is much more important.
BTW, it is clear that a tertiary source can also provide links to primary sources. For example, it makes no sense to request that a review article, say on molecular surface, cannot give a reference to some original pictures or any other form of primary sources that are important ingredients in the secondary sources that are reviewed. Certainly, primary-source material remain interesting and can be cited in a tertiary source. This is not at all in contradiction with the fact that a tertiary source reports on secondary sources. The logic is simple and easily understood. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 13:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I guess they are not tertiary sources, but they are considered exceptions in the policy. I do not suggest that we delete these articles. The worst case scenario will be to look harder to find secondary sources when the analysis or evaluative part starts to become more important. I think we are in agreement. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 19:59, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Just to continue, there are movies and books that are highly controversial. I understand that, as you clearly pointed out, they are not the pages that you are thinking about. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 20:25, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Let us consider the following paragraph.
IMO, the part "primary and/or secondary" in "primary and/or secondary sources" is uneccessary. It is important to go directly to the point and remove any uneccessary expressions such as "primary and/or secondary" whenever possible. If anyone see a real purpose to "primary and/or secondary" in the above, let me know what it is. Otherwise, I propose to remove it. We obtain:
Moreover, IMO, the first sentence
is implied by the simpler statement
Some original research creates primary sources, but original research may also create secondary sources. Any original research is not allowed. It cannot be wrong to replace a statement by another one that contains all the information that is provided in the original statement. Therefore, I suggest the followoing:
If there is a any difference (in terms of what is allowed or not allowed by the policy) between this paragraph and the original paragraph, let me know what it is. Otherwise, I propose that we use the last version instead of the original version that contains uneccessary expressions.
Note that the proposed paragraph has nothing to do with primary and secondary sources. Moreover, it would fit very well at the beginning of the section "What is original research?" We obtain:
In this way, the purpose of the second paragraph is to clarify that, even though new interpretation, analysis, etc. is not allowed, it is fine to collect and organize information from existing sources. Looks good to me. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 04:11, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, and because it is a modification at the presentation level that does not change at all the meaning of the policy, I will implement it. Of course, whoever thinks that we have missed something, can discuss it here. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 19:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Consider the paragrah:
I have no idea what is the purpose of the terms "authority" and authorities in this paragraph. They suddenly appear out of nowhere and they are not mentioned anywhere else in the policy. Perhaps the objective was to refer to the authority of the adherents to a view. It is indeed important to consider how prominent (and authoritative) are the adherents to a view, but this is a part of the Neutral point of view policy, not of the no original research policy. To keep the focus on the no original research policy, I propose to remove "authority or" and "authorites or". We obtain:
Any objection? - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 21:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
For the record: I categorically object to every suggestion Étincelle/Lumiere has made, and indeed will make in the future, unless I specifically state I endorse. I cannot waste my time opposing every specious suggestion made by this individual because of his phrasing, which implies if there is not a specific oppose voiced it denotes consent. Silence denotes opposition insofar as my position. KillerChihuahua ?!? 21:11, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
What is the problem? Someone understand what is going on? Is it that I am not a member of the gang or something like that. Should I pass some kind of initiation or test to be part of the gang? I know it is not because I am only a three months old editor because some people have been editors for very long and have met the same problem as me as soon as they tried to improve the policy in an intelligent way. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 21:29, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Don't be mistaken. This edit is not a reversal of position. Perhaps that he was just afraid that I could accuse him of obvious personal attacks, but the essential attitude did not change. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 22:00, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
In view of the above discussion, it seems necessary to clarify what is the usefulness of the expressions primary source and secondary source in the policy. Below are the only three occurences of the expression "primary source" or "secondary source" in isolation in the policy, as recently modified by User:SlimVirgin. The significance of these two expressions relies entirely on these three occurences:
I claim that the two expressions "primary source" or "secondary source" have an unclear significance in the policy, unless we keep the sentence
which uses the expression secondary source in isolation. Please prove me wrong by explaining the significance of the expressions primary source and secondary source as expressed in the three above occurences of the expression "primary source" in isolation in the policy. Note that in the previous sections I argue that the sentence Original research that creates primary sources is not allowed. can be replaced by Original research is not allowed. This means that only the last two phrases determine the usefulness of the expressions "primary sources" and "secondary sources". - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 04:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I understand that the policy distinguishes between (1) primary-source material and (2) generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of information or data. I understand that primary-source material can be sourced in primary sources, but not generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of information or data. The required sources for this other kind of material are by definition used as secondary sources, not as primary sources. In other words, this other kind of material is secondary-source material. I understand that we can cite a primary source such as an official trial transcript to include some primary-source material in the article, but we cannot provide any generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of this material, that is, you cannot provide any secondary source material to discuss this primary source material, unless you provide a secondary source to support it. The problem is that such a secondary source material is necessary to see how the primary source material fits in the article. Therefore, you cannot have the primary source material without an associated secondary source material to provide the context.
If the connection with the article is implicit, it is the equivalent of an implicit interpretation of the primary source material, and this interpretation is secondary source material. For example, the use of such primary source material to create an insinuation is not allowed. An insinuation is very bad and against policy. For example, as a primary source-material, an official trial transcript says nothing bad about the defendant. For example, this transcript can be used as a criticism of a witness in the trial or of the trial itself in an article that is in support of the defendant. A reference to this transcript in the context of a criticism of the defendant corresponds to an implicit interpretation of this primary source material. Whatever is insinuated from a trial transcript or any other primary source material should be explicitly stated and sourced in a secondary source, or else the primary source material that creates the insinuation should be removed. The same is true for any implicit secondary source material, insinuation or not, that is normally created when a primary-source material is added in an article. Therefore, [the essential content of] the article normally reports what is already published in secondary sources. The exceptions are the articles with no significant implicit or explicit secondary source material such as the apple pie and the current events articles.
I would be interested to know which are these articles that only report on primary sources. Could you please provide the wikilinks? They might be examples similar to the apple pie article, which would not be a contradiction. There is also the possibility that they are controversial articles that violates [my interpretation of] the policy. Obviously, there are plenty of articles that violate the policy, and the articles you have in mind could be some of these. Note that the sentence "Wikipedia is a tertiary source" entirely supports my point. However, my point also stands by itself using common sense and the definitions of primary sources and secondary sources, and this is much more important.
BTW, it is clear that a tertiary source can also provide links to primary sources. For example, it makes no sense to request that a review article, say on molecular surface, cannot give a reference to some original pictures or any other form of primary sources that are important ingredients in the secondary sources that are reviewed. Certainly, primary-source material remain interesting and can be cited in a tertiary source. This is not at all in contradiction with the fact that a tertiary source reports on secondary sources. The logic is simple and easily understood. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 13:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I guess they are not tertiary sources, but they are considered exceptions in the policy. I do not suggest that we delete these articles. The worst case scenario will be to look harder to find secondary sources when the analysis or evaluative part starts to become more important. I think we are in agreement. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 19:59, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Just to continue, there are movies and books that are highly controversial. I understand that, as you clearly pointed out, they are not the pages that you are thinking about. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 20:25, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Contrary to the above, in my experience nearly all original publications about certain subjects (which I assume to be "primary sources") contain, using the same phrasing as above, "analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of information or data".
With that interpretation, "secondary sources" necessarily should mean "generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation" of analysis and/or interpretation by such primary sources.
Simply put (but only as a rule-of-thumb), in my interpretation primary sources contain and/or provide the simple facts (data) as well as analysis and possible interpretation, while secondary sources contain alternative analysis, interpretation and viewpoints.
Consequently, as most(?) primary sources provide not only the bare data but also interpretation and context (this is certainly the case with mainstream science articles, as such is generally required for good papers), in many cases no or little such secondary sources are required, or even useful. Secondary sources are wirth mentioning in case of notable disputes and differences of opinion, which generally are discussed in secondary sources. Secondary sources require notability.
Because of the differnt possible interpretations of what is meant with "primary" and "secondary", and the obscure usefulness relating to this subject of NOR, I think that Lumiere's proposals to eliminate much of that jargon makes perfect sense.
BTW, it may be worth to include (cite) more of Jimbo's explanations. From reading his remarks I think that he was pretty clear about his motive for NOR as well as what he had in mind, and it appears that this is slowly being forgotten, with the risk that the potential quality of articles may be affected. Harald88 19:38, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
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Original Text
Original research refers to original research by editors of Wikipedia. It does not refer to original research that is published or available elsewhere (although such research may be excluded if editors consider the source to be disreputable or inappropriate).
The phrase "original research" in this context refers to untested theories; data, statements, concepts and ideas that have not been published in a reputable publication; or any new interpretation, analysis, or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts or ideas that, in the words of Wikipedia's founder Jimbo Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation".
Proposed text
Original research refers to theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, and ideas that have not been published in a reputable publication; or any unpublished interpretation, analysis, or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts or ideas that, in the words of Wikipedia's founder Jimbo Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation".
Original research is prohibited when produced by editors of Wikipedia if it has not been published elsewhere. (This prohibition does not refer to research that is published or available elsewhere, although such research may be excluded if editors consider the source to be disreputable or inappropriate.) In summary, if the facts, opinions, or arguments you want to include have not been published already by a credible or reputable publication, you're engaged in original research.
Comment The proposed text is so very wide that 40% of wiki articles would have to be deleted.
I don't see any substantive difference between the old text and the new text. Could some one explain what they think the substantive difference is, if any? I do think however that the new text is more clearly worded. Who is proposing this change? Paul August ☎ 17:51, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
My greatest concern the five pillars of Wikipedia are slowly being changed to make it easier to delete by Vfd. This will allow "blocks of users" to delete and control.
-- Poorman
I'd like to see an arbitration on the following subject:
Fact: In page "General relativity", secion "Alternative theories" a ref to my page titled "General relativity with conservation of energy" has been removed by Ems57fcva with the following explanation: (→Alternative theories - removed User:JimJast's "general relativity with conservation of energy". Cannot verify that this is not original research.)
Implications: It means that Ems57fcva believes that "general relativity with conservation of energy" is a result of my original reserch rather than work of Einstein.
My objections: I was not born yet when Einstein proposed his 1915 "general relativity theory" (necessarily with conservation of energy since it happen to be the basic principle of physics - see Wikipedia), and so it was impossible for Einstein to base his work on my "original research" (copy of my driver's license verifying my date of birth may be presented when required).
Comments: In my humble opinion it is improper to remove the original Einstein's theory of 1915 from the list of possible alternative theorires to the present general relativity that is an Einstein's original theory "enhanced" by the removal of conservation of energy from it to make viable a hypothesis that the universe has been created in a hot "big bang" event some 14 billion years ago and is expanding ever since. The impropriety is because the original Einstein's theory (as it can be easily demonstrated wit high school calculus which does not require any research) is able to explain all the mysteries that the present general relativity without conservation of energy can't explain. The new (post Einsteinian) general relativity to stay viable has to postulate except non conservation of energy severeal not observed yet phenomena. Which strongly suggests in my humble opinion that Einstein's original theory of 1915 is right and the theory without the conservation of energy but with expanding space in it instead, is wrong. Yet I don't insit on deciding on rightness of any theory just on keeping the record straight, that there is available also the original Einstein's general relativity of 1915, with conservation of energy, that can be used as an alternative to the present post Einsteinian general realativity without conservation of energy. If mentioning the fact that Einstein theory of 1915 is able to explain all the mysterious phenomena in relatively simple way by postulating general time dilation (another removed page) would constitute an original resaerch, it does not need to be mentioned. But I don't see why mentioning that Einstein 1915 is an altrnative theory, contradicts the policy of "no original research" (if Einstein's theory of 1915 was not discovered by me, which I can prove). Jim 12:55, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
Response: Jim is not documenting Einstein's 1915 theory. Instead he is attempting to document his own interpretation (or IMO misunderstanding) of it. The current general relativity page is mostly devoted to decribing the 1915 theory as it has come to be understood by those who study it (with the exception being the Alternate theories section). In any case, I kindly submit to you all the proposition that this issue should be discussed at talk:general relativity and not here. -- EMS | Talk 17:03, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
The current guidelines for no original research seem as though they don't do a good job dealing with the issue of published crackpottery. A couple of points to propose with respect to this, but before I start I'll notice that most of my experience with crackpottery on wikipedia has been with respect to historical/archaeological, rather than strictly scientific, subjects:
A corollary issue to this is the problem of apologetics. Most scholars believe in the Documentary Hypothesis on the origins of the Torah. Most believe that the Book of Daniel was written in the second century BC, and that there are at least two, and more likely three, separate strands of the Book of Isaiah, written at widely different times. And so forth. In such instances, the fact that some religious groups dispute these findings ought to be mentioned. But I don't see how we can treat the beliefs of some religious groups as though they are equivalent to the beliefs of many other religious groups and of nearly all mainstream scholars. I think we need to make a much greater effort to insure that apologetics (of whatever kind) do not make their way into wikipedia. john k 21:22, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
I have no problem with the above discussion, but it is not really relevant to this particular policy. Perhaps it is more appropriate to the cite sources policy, as you are discussing what are the limits of acceptable sources. Or you may feel there is need of an additional policy. I encourage you to move this discussion elsewhere, not because I dismiss your concerns, but because they are important enough to merit further discussion, which will happen at a more appropriate place. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:35, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
"The phrase "original research" in this context refers to untested theories; data, statements, concepts and ideas"
So does that mean that if I were to do some reasearch on something, and I came up with a theory that could be backed up by actual proof, it would be allowed? If not, then why?
What do I do with a page about a book that only contains a book review. Do you delete it or put something else there. -- AMorris (talk)● (contribs) 07:51, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
FYI -
I have been working on my own redraft of this policy at User:Ems57fcva/sandobox/No_original_research. The basic points this I try to make with this are that
To me, it is not enough to achieve publication. Instead, the idea must have become noteworthy. That is not to say that it must be famous or well known, but at least for those with an interest in a relevant field that this is an item worthy of their attention. I have run across one editor who published his alternate explanation of gravity in Electronics World, and popular science magazine devoted mostly to electricity and modern technology. He took that to be the "primary publication" needed. So I have tried to produce a sense that the source must be relevant.
I have done what I can with this. I do not feel that it has come together quite right, and so I am not formally proposing it as a replacement for the current policy. However, I encourage people to look it over and see if they can make some use of it. -- EMS | Talk 03:58, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Is original eyewitness testimony considered prohibited original research? See the dispute about Billy Joel's hometown on Talk:Billy_Joel#Billy_Joel_never_lived_in_Levittown. -- Locarno 14:20, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
Before revising the "No original research" page, I am seeking consensus on the following proposal.
The US judicial system has long struggled with what is a valid basis for claims of authority in the courtroom. In 1923, the Frye standard was formulated by the Supreme Court in which expert testimony would only be allowed to be presented to the fact finders if it was established (had "achieved acceptance") in the relevant scientific/expert community as evidenced by, among other things, publication in peer reviewed technical/scientific publications.
Sounds familiar, no? This is very similar to the Wikipedia standard of not including "original research" by editors of the Wikipedia.
However, in 1993, the Frye standard was revised by the new Daubert standard. In formulating the Daubert standard, the Supreme court acknowledged that knowledge was changing rapidly and that the courts, in the pursuit of the facts, might be quite remiss if a new incontrovertible understanding was not allowed into the courtroom.
The analogy would be to a study of a new drug to cure AIDS. If in our study, preliminary analyses indicate that the new drug is twice as effective as existing treatment in preventing the progression of the disease, it would be considered unethical to continue the study and deprive the "comparison" group (who were getting the standard treatment) of a life saving drug. Even though the finding had not been published in a peer reviewed journal.
In a similar vein, the Daubert standard requires that a judge review evidence that a new theory/finding be allowed into testimony because the existing evidence makes it clear that it is valid---even if it hasn't been peer reviewed and published yet. Just so, would we not be remiss to not consider other bases for knowledge other than publication in peer reviewed or otherwise authoritative venues?
Indeed, if the evolving, non-static Wikipedia is not to be a source of the latest knowledge, in what forum would one expect to find up-to-the-minute, valid information? As others have noted, many Wikipedia articles are about topics that are too new to have been published in authoritative or peer reviewed forums.
I would propose that the editorial process of review and revision of the Wikipedia itself provides one of the most effective forums for reviewing new information/ideas available today. Thus, the Wikipedia may be one of the only reliable forums for cutting edge information. If this is so, and I believe it is, then deleting articles or information because the information has not appeared in more static, slow-moving forums would constrain the Wikipedia and prevent it from performing an important function that only an evolving, ever changing medium can provide.
My suggestion would be to stay with the "original research" standard (just as the courts continue to use the Frye standard unless there is a compelling reason to go beyond it to the Daubert criteria) but to allow unpublished un-peer reviewed information in when there are other reasons to consider it valid, i.e., when it has been subjected to the Wikipedia editorial process itself and not deemed to be irrelevant, arbitrary, or untrue by the editors. Bear in mind that inumerable nonsensical, false, irrelevant, and vandalistic edits are routinely (and rapidly) deleted by many editors, i.e., patently false and/or misleading information is quite ephemeral in the Wikipedia.
As an example of one of an inumerable number of Wikipedia articles about topics that have not been researched and published in peer reviewed journals, I refer you to the articles on South Park and the numerous articles on each of the South Park contributors, episodes, and characters. While they do contain some "original research," as time goes on, they are being revised to reflect more NPOV, to refine the ideas presented with references as they become available, and to eliminate the idiosyncratic views of the original authors. If they were to be subjected to the "original research" criteria, the vast majority would have to be deleted as there are limited authoritative sources about Cartman, Tweak, Kyle's mother, or about specific new episodes, etc.
(While many features of South Park have now been written about in many forums, many of the statements made in the Wikipedia articles have no reference basis other than the fact that numerous Wikipedia editors have found the statements to be acceptable. And there are many cultural phenomena that are even newer than South Park and yet should not be barred from inclusion.)
The proposal I am making is:
This last suggestion is simply a reflection of the fact that not all human knowledge has been established and or achieved consensus to the same degree. To suggest otherwise is to ignore reality. To demand that all Wikipedia articles be equally capable of being defended on the basis that they reflect knowledge established through peer review in more static media would mean:
Again, the loss of certainty about new knowledge can be offset by
Kriegman 05:26, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
I have never supported NOR as a policy (although obviously I enforce it); as applied to popular culture it is obviously impractical (In what journal does one find peer reviewed info on Ashlee Simpson? Our practice is much more common sense than is set forth in the policy itself. I would like to see an attempt at convergence between policy and practice. Fred Bauder 15:28, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Contrary to Slrubenstein's claim that, unlike judges, "we are not authoritarian, i.e. we do not claim authority," I would then ask, "On what basis do you make deletions?" You must use "judgment" and act as a "judge." The Wikipedia policies you describe are the exactly analogous to laws, they are the "laws" (ultimate rules) of the Wiki. Indeed, here in Massachusetts, each state agency promulgates its "policies," which are, once approved, given the status of law. Calling the legal rules that judges follow "policies" instead of "laws" would not change the nature of the decision making they must engage in.
Just so, when you act to delete or add, you are using your judgment (acting as a judge) and claiming authority to interpret and act on the rules and policies of the Wikipedia. The only difference is that you are agreeing to negotiate with other judges/editors and, in a courtroom, the judge's decision is not negotiated (though it can be "negotiated" in the higher courts and returned to the judge for modifications of rulings). In the higher courts, e.g., an appeals court, or a supreme court, the decisions are even more like Wikipedia decisions as they are negotiated and voted on by a panel of judges.
Possibly this confusion between what judges do and what editors do in interpreting rules/policies/laws is based on the higher stakes (as Slrubenstein noted) in the courtroom and a misconception that judges, trained in the law, have some actual ability to judge that differentiates them from ordinary lay people interpreting the Wiki rules. As an expert witness in hundreds of trials, beyond knowing the definitions of certain words that a lay person would have to be taught, I have seen no evidence that judges can judge substantially better than the average intelligent person. Some can and some can't. Indeed, the NOR rule and many legal definitions have very similar structure, as can be seen in the application of the Frye and Daubert standards. Like lay people, many (if not most) judges have an incredible (and often frightening, given their power in very high stakes cases) inability to understand basic science and scientific principles (like the notion of statistical proof). The level of understanding used in applying scientific understandings is, on average, much higher in Wikipedia editing than in the courtroom.
As support for "the Wikipedia community is one of the one of 'the most effective forums for reviewing new information/ideas available today,'" I would point to the evolution of the Blog page. The original(?) or early version of) the "Blog" article could have been called "original research" and have been put up for deletion under the NOR. Notwithstanding its provision of an evidentiary basis (its links to examples) from the Internet, it cited no authorities and there may have been few to cite back in 2001 to support its claims. It eventually evolved into Blog, a fully documented, mature Wikipedia article. It would have been counterproductive to delete the article because the original author could not find or did not have access to paper print versions of each statement she wrote, statements that were fully verifiable (and/or open to disconfirmation) by following the links she provided. For the inclusion of such articles---which over a period of months or years should evolve into more mature articles or should then be removed if they do not---a modification of NOR would be necessary. Kriegman 18:15, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
I sincerely hope you are missing my point rather than deliberately twisting it. The fact that you can use the same word, "judge," to describe what I do when I delete from or add to an article, and to designate an elected or appointed to the bench, does not mean that the acts are the same. If you think that wikipedia has the authority of any court in the United States, you are deluded. We do not have that authority, and for that reason our policies and guidelines are often going to be quite different from those of judges. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:50, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
"we are not authoritarian, i.e. we do not claim authority. This makes us very different from judges who are by law authorities. We have no law here, just policies and generally loose ones. Finally, for some of the specific examples Kriegman provides, I believe that the Apple Pie and Current Events exclusions from this policy are sufficient."
I strongly oppose proposals to weaken the policy; the current guidelines are not prohibitive. Jayjg (talk) 05:58, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Kriegman - perhaps there would be more sympathy for your proposal if you could point us to an example of a situation where current interpretations of the NOR rule is stifling an article. The fact that the NOR rule might theoretically be interpreted in such a way as to invalidate a huge number of articles that nobody has ever actually challenged is not a very good argument - obviously, whatever the letter of the law, it is being interpreted in a way that makes it allowable to have articles on South Park episodes without the existence of peer-reviewed articles on South Park. So, could you provide a real example of this? Then perhaps we can begin to assess whether your proposal is worthwhile or not. If there are no real examples, I think that should speak for itself. john k 07:50, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Alright. I've been avoiding doing what Slrubenstein and John K have suggested. I was hoping it wouldn't be necessary. But John K's point makes it clear: If a policy is working in practice and only theoretically will cause problems, then it shouldn't be changed. So I need to present an actual example. (BTW, John, maybe the etiquette should be that new topics should be placed at the top of the page. It would make repeated previewing of the most worked on recent topics easier as one would not have to scroll all the way to the bottom to find the right spot in the editing window after each preview.) I don't want to; but I guess I gotta.
Is there a biased view of bias operating?
The reason I have avoided providing an actual example of the problem I have faced with NOR is because I don't expect to get a fair consideration of the underlying issue once it is clear that I have "an agenda." I find too much "naive atheism," so to speak, in the culture of the Wikipedia, i.e., the belief that one can operate largely free of belief systems and bias. For example, Slrubenstein suggested that Wikipedia editors are not like judges who interpret rules according to their idiosyncratic notions of what the rule means and thus excercise real authority, i.e., push their own versions of what they think the law means (that is, how they understand it and how they think it should operate) into being, as opposed to following a rule that would (barring simple, neutral, i.e., unbiased, errors in understanding) lead to more or less the same outcome regardless of who the interpreter/editor is.
EMS seems to present a similar view in which Wikipedians should and can keep their two-cents out of it. Cold fusion, as an example of misinformation (was it out and out fraud, or did the proponents actually believe they had something?), may be an example of what we want to prevent people from using the Wikipedia for (i.e., to use it to present their crackpot, unintelligible, or irrelevant ideas). And the NOR rule, as it is stated, is well suited for ideas and theories, such as cold fusion, in the areas of the sciences (both physical and social) in which there really are peer reviewed journals. In the area of cultural and especially new phenomena, however, most of which will never be arbitrated in peer reviewed journals, the rule just doesn't quite fit so well (though the underlying principle/aim may still be sound).
In addition, Slrubenstein's and EMS's notions seem to suggest that editors can essentially just follow rules; we can expect experienced editors not to edit in the pursuit of their agendas (not to promote ideas/views they value). Yet, I believe there are reasons why this is both unrealistic and impossible in practice. Yes, I have edited quite a few articles in which I have no real interest. I needed some information. Went to the article. Got my information. Saw some errors (usually minor, grammatical, layout, or spelling). Corrected them. And left. I didn't put them on my watchlist. I didn't spend much time on them. I had very little influence over the content of the articles.
In one instance, I did do some follow up research and significantly improved the content ( 501(c)(3)). But this was an exception. Maybe you folks are Wikithusiasts whose agenda is the Wikipedia itself. While I share a strong interest in the Wikipedia, I would expect even such an interest to introduce bias, as in supporting the liberal notion that evolved organisms can reliably overcome self-interested bias---an interesting notion that, like the naive idealism underlying communism, flies in the face of how evolution works, i.e., by selecting those organisms designed to perceive and act on information in a manner biased toward their own interests.
How the Wikipedia harnesses biased writers to produce accurate, relatively neutral articles.
Indeed, I would suggest to those of you who hold such a bias (i.e., the belief that evolved creatures can, for the most part, intentionally and consciously perceive and rise above their adaptive biases) that editors who put some real effort into starting and/or really shaping an article have some deep (almost by definition, biased) interest in the topic. Have you ever seen a scholar or scientist that didn't have a strong opinion about the debates in their field? Those who really follow an article almost always have such "an agenda." Indeed, while standard encyclopedias try to be "objective," they invite experts in the various fields to write their specialized articles. These experts often have quite clear agendas and biases. For example, Freud was devoting all his life energy toward promoting psychoanalysis when the Encyclopedia Britannica editor enlisted him to write their 1922 article on psychoanalysis.
Rather than suggesting that self-interested bias can be avoided and/or overcome, we should acknowledge its inevitability. I realize that some if not most Wikipedians may already agree with this, and I do not mean to "preach to the converted." Especially since, like with the etiquette issue of topic placement, many if not most of you have more experience than I. Rather, I am responding to a frequent argument I have seen, in which an editor looks for self-interested bias, finds it, and then uses that as a basis for a deletion of an edit or even of an entire article. In contrast, it may be more productive to always assume self-interested bias, never to use such bias as a basis for an edit, and instead to proceed to evaluate an edit/article on the established principles and rules. In this process, our rules are not attempts to eliminate biased actions. In this view, we reframe our understanding of the Wikipedia rules as attempts to engage competing biases in a balancing, open source process that tends to neutralize bias. By using the Internet to invite a large number (all those available and interested) of (biased) parties to participate in the process and giving them equal authority to edit the text---something that has never existed in the collective human attempt to elucidate knowledge---we automatically eliminate the ability of one side to control the discourse.
(The NOR rule, itself, is partly an attempt to avoid the biasing impact of such self-interested agendas. I am claiming, however, that, somewhat paradoxically, the discussion of the employment of NOR often reveals some denial of the ubiquity of the biased self-interest the rule was designed to limit.)
In contrast to liberal notions about how fair, objective, and self-aware folks can be, I think that one of the most interesting things about the Wikipedia is how it functions to allow thoroughly biased parties to produce remarkably fair/accurate articles. For example, one article I have been following and contributing to is the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Partly, I have invested a good deal of energy in that article (and none of the dozens of other closely related, similar articles that tap into the same issues) precisely to study one example of how Wikipedia articles develop when almost all of the main participants have strong emotional ties to biased views of the subject. I have been very impressed about how careful the main content contributors to this article are: If you want your input to last for more than a few hours, you simply have to be very careful about your wording and your ability to back up what you say. Note: I am claiming that this makes people try to appear unbiased as true neutrality is impossible. While trying to appear unbiased is helpful, it is only through the constant removal of bias/inaccuracy, the introduction of opposing bias and inaccuracy, its removal and introduction of opposing bias and inaccuracy, etc. . . . that the article seesaws back and forth and slowly evolves toward real accuracy and neutrality. It is like Dawkins's Blind Watchmaker argument demonstrating how functional "designs" can come into being without a designer: The Wikipedia has created a process through which relative neutrality can be produced without neutral editors.
Again, I would claim that the Wiki process of editing and negotiating edits, even when the parties involved have conflicting views, is an excellent way to develop an accurate perspective, i.e., it can be an excellent test of (or method to evaluate) ideas, both old and new. Though Slrubenstein and EMS rejected this notion, there was no response to the example I gave of the early "Blog" article. And now I would add the 1948 War article. The latter article covers an area where debate rages with night and day "realities" presented by both sides. Yet, even when I am engaged in a strenuous argument with someone (for example, my oldest son) about this war, neither of us can find a clear bias in the Wikipedia version. I don't like some of what it says and I think there are still some biases in it, but it is the most balanced description on the web that I have been able to find. So I reiterate my claim: Certain knowledge claims---e.g., new ones with little or no references (the Blog), or old ones with endless night and day versions that can be found in an endless stream of apparently authoritative books and journals (e.g., the 1948 War)---seem to be uniquely arbitrated by the Wikipedia process.
Many articles are rife with untested unreferenced "theories"
Again, consider South Park, where you can easily spot dozens of theories or beliefs that are unsubstantiated by any references beyond the editor's opinion (and it may be ages before there are published references addressing more than a handful of these cultural theories/beliefs). Here are five examples among thousands in just the South Park articles (all from one small section of the main South Park article):
But, we are told, my agreement (or yours, or other editors) is not to be the measure of whether a claim should be in the article; that's "the sin of OR." After all, we are only editors. But where will you find "peer reviewed" articles to support the zillions of cultural claims/judgments/descriptions that can be found in these articles? Nowhere. The idiosyncratic inaccuracies in such claims are corrected by other editors based on their examination of the evidence (i.e., their experience viewing South Park episodes).
Finally, an example, Open source religion: The article that is being attacked with NOR criticisms
In a similar vein, I believe the Open source religion (OSR) article can be revised and edited, based on other editors reviews of the statements after visiting the examples of this new cultural phenomenon. And I believe this is as it should be. Apparently, even some of those who oppose modifying NOR agree that NOR should be interpreted somewhat inconsistently:
I came here to discuss NOR because it was being used to suggest deletion of what I consider a rather simple article with the kind of face validity found in some South Park articles, i.e., it describes a phenomena that can be checked by going to the links referred to, just like the Blog article noted earlier. But it (OSR) does not have many paper published references yet, and it has been attacked for being OR. I believe there are enough independent references to support the article even without modification of NOR, but I am only aware of one in the Boston Globe, 1/11/2004. This may also have been true of the early Blog article when it was created.
Hmmnn. I just realized another Wikipedia independent published reference describing OSR: Rushkoff's book.
A revised suggestion
OK. So one result of this dialogue is that I was forced to think about references to support the OSR article and became aware that I know of at least two that aren't mentioned in the article. However, even if this article can be fixed with existing external references, there was no need to force the issue with threats of deletion because of NOR. I think that, like the South Park articles, OSR could stand without the external references, at least for some time. An article like it---with the six Internet references---should not be rapidly subject to deletion based on NOR because the editors do not know of other, non-Internet, external, published references.
I felt forced to engage in a lengthy argument about it in the OSR-Talk page as well as to engage in this discussion. If the NOR rule could be clarified to be more consistent with actual practice (see Fred Bauder's comments above), this wouldn't be necessary. There is no reason why the inconsistency with which the rule is applied---inconsistency that usually prevents it from causing the problem I was describing---can't be described. So, I replace my original proposal with a call for clarification of how NOR is actually to be employed rather than for a fundamental change in the principle.
While I came here to negotiate this and thus learned more about NOR as well as the existence of validated external references for OSR, I believe that many people rigidly call the NOR rule into play without understanding these issues. And very few of the people for whom this causes problems would have the temerity to come here, propose a change, and engage in this process. The lack of clarity about how it is to be employed encourages wasteful arguments on innumerable talk pages about what NOR really means, and probably drives some people away from editing the Wikipedia. Kriegman 02:54, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Very interesting example. This seems like precisely the type of thing NOR should limit. You make several claims of the type that, if allowed in, could render the Wikipedia unreliable.
Whether or not there are external sources for them, assuming you are accurate about the rest of the notions (how far the laughter could be heard, that this occurred during Trinity term, that he was gay, etc.), these two personal judgments are extremely subjective. As an expert witness who evaluates sex offenders to determine the risk they pose, I have heard more than one rapist say, "She was flirting with me. It was consensual sex; she wanted it." In more than a few cases, I have come to the conclusion that they really believed their distortions. While women may not get it wrong as often as men, women too can have "off the wall" notions about who is flirting with whom. And without a poll of other female students, what is the basis for making a general statement about his attractiveness? Maybe you just had "a crush" on him and imagined that everyone found him as attractive as you did.
That said, I think there are ways to make your experience (which is likely to contain some valid information) available for use in the Wikipedia.
As I noted, in the area of cultural/social experience, this is of limited use as there really are no "peer reviewed" journals where such claims will be evaluated. However, this is precisely the kind of validation I used to suggest that Timothy Leary had the quality "audacity." According to an eyewitness (that's what you are), he "stood up to" (subjective judgment 1) FBI agents to try to defend (subjective judgment 2) a terrified (subjective judgment 3), innocent (subjective judgment 4) woman during the Millbrook bust. The eyewitness was interviewed in a DVD I obtained from my local library, so I was able to reference the external source upon which (along with other activities, like his well-documented escape from prison) I based the characterization. But what makes the eyewitness's judgments in the DVD more reliable than your description of Wittgenstein's flirting and attractiveness? Nothing.
The difference is that other editors can go and view the DVD themselves and decide if my use of it comports with reality. While this calls for a good deal of judgment on the part of editors---and this is inescapable and should not be denied---it is not fundamentally different from any other kind of fact checking, i.e., going and reading a peer reviewed article on cold fusion to see if an editor is reporting it right. This seems to be the bottom line: There has to be a way for others to see: (1) what/who the source was, (2) if the source is a reliable basis for the type of information it provides, (3) if the source is sufficiently fixed in some medium to enable others to check it for themselves, and (4) to determine if, in the general opinion of other editors, the information from the source was correctly represented and characterized in the article.
So,
In addition to publishing the information in a peer reviewed journal, which is not appropriate for such cultural information, where else can the information be "fixed" for others to view/examine. Well you could make and distribute a movie (or be interviewed for such). But that is not very doable and if we require such fixing of all cultural information a lot of knowledge will be lost. Not to mention that the vast majority of judgments/beliefs/statements in the South Park articles, for example, could not be made unless they were first shown to be fixed elsewhere.
Fortunately, there is another option, the technological innovation that makes the Wikipedia itself possible, the Web.
While some could argue that the Web is ephemeral and cannot be relied on for others to fact check, this is just a matter of degree. While available now, at some point, the DVD I referred to may be impossible for others to find. In the OSR article, I referenced several Web sources and somebody added one or two other examples of OSR. The reader can check the description of the phenomenon in the article against six fairly stable Internet presences, and I believe more will be found. (Not to mention, the two fixed print external sources that came to mind in this discussion, and others that I think I can now find.)
If there are discussion groups on the Web where Wittgenstein is the topic and this characterization of him is noted in them, you could reference them. To beef them up, you could enter the discussions and add your observations. While this suggestion may horrify naive editors who believe that this would allow people to create their own realities, what do they think is going on all the time in the old technology media? The difference is simply that it costs more to get an idea/belief into fixed form on paper, audio recording, or film than on the Internet. Without a genuine peer review process, requiring a highly fixed, more costly media publication doesn't make the information one iota more reliable. It simply biases all cultural information toward the interests of those with money.
Yes, it is easier to create and disseminate fictions on the Internet, just as it is easier to create and disseminate truths and artistic creations. But editors aren't stupid, especially when it is the judgment of the community of editors we are looking at. Clearly, publication in a major newspaper that has a large investment in its reputation for accuracy to protect is likely to be more reliable than a random blog. But there are more than one or two realities that you will never find in major mainstream newspapers that you will only be likely to encounter on the net in, for example, blogs. And if a notion has appeared in many, many blogs, that fact alone can have significant meaning and may be worthy of noting. The point is that the reliability of the source is routinely evaluated by editors using common sense. If it is easier to create fictions on the Internet, then we may require far more than one source before editors feel a notion should be included in the Wikipedia.
I would suggest that whether or not a cultural (non-peer reviewed) source is reliable can be evaluated---not by the degree to which it was costly to create a representation of and disseminate the notion in some medium, but rather---by the judgment of the community of editors. Indeed, the fact that the info is available on the Internet makes collective fact checking much easier (to precisely the same degree that it makes fact creating easier).
The bottom line is that editors have to be able to see and evaluate the source and that they must then use their judgment. If there are enough editors involved, common sense will prevail. Nonsense will be weeded out. The irrelevant chaff will be discarded. Bias will be neutralized. These are not statements of faith. They can be empirically verified by looking at the articles referenced in this discussion.
As Obi Wan Kenobi said, "Trust in the Wikipedia Process, Luke." Kriegman 13:55, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
All that I see in this long tirade is a straw man which Kriegman has quite conviently set up and knocked down.
My point is not the Wikipedians should be automatons and refrain from imposing their personal agendas on Wikipedia. Indeed, there is no point in editting Wikipedia unless there is something that you wish to accomplish by it (even if it is just to correct a misspelling). I also accept the point about mulyiple editors permitting the creation of reasonable NPOV and accurate text. However, there are people out there who want to make Wikipedia into a forum for my own unique ideas. That is where NOR comes in. if something seems outlandish enough, you need to either back it up (as with your Dylan example), or see it bounced.
I will admit that some clarification is needed for NOR. For example, I do not see peer review as being the real condition here for permissibility, but instead awareness of the item in question in society as a whole or within the relevant sector of it. There is plenty of peer reviewed material that is just junk (but at least it pads the CV). So I certainly can go along with the idea that what is acceptable is to some extent a function of what kinds of literature are available to support it, and that peer review journals may or may not be part of that mix.
I repeat: We are not here to review new material. We are here to report on that which already exists. For Star Trek there are plenty of fan magazines and fanzines to report from. For Bob Dylan, you not only have DVDs but also have a whole genre of rock-and-roll magazines (such as Rolling Stone), which should have articles that back up your interpretation of the DVD. Indeed, the popular press trumps peer review (as is that case for cold fusion) as a practical matter. NOR should be consciously aware of that, but I emphasize that I do not wat the floodgates openned to the many ideas that are not supported. I assure you that for every Gregor Mendel (whose laws of inheritance languished for 40 years until the field of genetics was ready for them) there are thousands of people with ideas that do not pan out; and I would argue that until an idea does pan out, it does not belong here anyway. -- EMS | Talk 15:19, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Regarding those last two "hot potatoes."
If you reject "face validity," i.e., the ability of editors to look at a phenomenon directly and see if the article reflects it accurately, then aren't you rejecting the "apple pie" exemption that is already in NOR? I thought I had come to understand the "apple pie" exemption and that it also covered what is going on on the South Park pages, e.g., "when an article makes descriptive claims that are easily verifiable by any reasonable adult."
In applying face validity, the editors directly experience a phenomenon and then edit an article so that the words comport with their collective experience. This applies to things like apple pie as well as the way :-) is used in Internet communication. A table of such text icons could appear in the Wikipedia long before any of the editors saw one in print in a newspaper or Newsweek. (I'll bet one exists in the Wikipedia, even though I can't find it, probably because I don't know what they are called.) While a reference could probably be found to some website that displays some of the icons and their meanings, even if one were not found, if the editors felt that a sufficient number of others can easily obtain direct experience about how the icons are used and there is general agreement, then this would meet the standard for which you spelled out the underlying principle, what I had, in essence, been referring to as "the South Park Standard."
Indeed, the Wikipedia is where I would go to find such a table, before it exists in any one print or external resource. The Wikipedia is now the place where you are likely to find the most complete list of Internet abbreviations, like BTW and IMHO. Check out that page. If we require it to appear in any other source, we would probably have to delete the page and/or many, if not most, of the items in the list there. Note all the references and citations to verify the data included there. None. Indeed, maybe some of the items should be deleted, and that may be an ongoing process. But the editors, at least at the beginning and for new abbreviations, have to rely on their direct experience. Someday, someone may publish a hard copy version of such a list, but it is likely to contain errors and be out of date the week after publication.
Such lists (text icons, Internet abbreviations) are rapidly evolving and the most authoritative, complete list of their usage could only appear in the Wikipedia. What individual or group of individuals do you know of could create such a complete list and edit it back and forth to refine it before it appears in the Wikipedia? Even if such a list is created elsewhere, what organization could keep up with its rapid evolution and compete with the Wikipedia for completeness and up-to-dateness? There are certain phenomena that the Wikpedia brings into existence. To say the Wikipedia cannot include such phenomena until they appear in Newsweek is . . . unrealistic.
Furthermore, I think there is a huge challenge to any attempt to ban face validity when no other referent is available for citation. You see, face validity is the same technique we use to determine if citations are valid! It is the bedrock technique for verification. Eliminate the ability of an editor to go and see directly if what is described in an article is what the citation refers to and you've eliminated the ability to fact check at all. "But that is not what I am eliminating," you might claim.
Then what is it you object to in "if the item in question is available to direct observation by a sufficient number of Wikipedia editors, the validity of the article and its contents can be determined directly?" If an article states "the website, wwww.thispageisred.com, glows red when visited," and assuming that this fact is of sufficient importance to enough readers and is generally known in a certain subculture---but it hasn't been published in Newsweek---what is wrong with editors accepting that simple fact (that they have verified themselves) for inclusion in the Wikipedia? This is my understanding of why the South Park articles are allowed to stand with their innumerable claims with no sources: The editors agee that "the descriptive claims are easily verifiable." No one here has suggested they should be deleted. Likewise for most of the claims in the OSR article or the early Blog article.
Your critique of the last point suggests to me that the descriptive term I used, "convergent common sense," is too confusing and unclear. By CCS, I meant the back and forth process of editing and negotiating edits that eventually arrives at a descriptive article that seems to comport with reality. Like the process called convergent evolution, the particular path may be somewhat random (depending on the particlar editors involved and when they arrive on the scene), but, if human words can correspond to human experience and humans can judge the degree to which they do so, eventually the words in an article will arrive at a description that "converges" on an acceptable description that is " evolutionarily stable," so to speak.
So maybe that last term needs to be dropped or changed. But the point is that the Wikipedia has brought into being a process of evolving, seesawing (back-and-forth) editing that tends to converge on an acceptable, relatively unbiased article, through an open source process that maximizes completeness and rapid change as knowledge develops. This process is what I meant by CCS. Kriegman 01:02, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Do be careful. Much of the ability of Wikipedia to be an authority comes from its being a clearing house of information instead of an originator of it. For example, with the "text icons" or rather the smileys and emoticons, there are several web resources out there to draw from. As for changes: Those are a matter of usage and common consensus. I strongly oppose any statement that "common sense" deserves to be included. However, I can accept a statement that a consensus of the editors of a page that something is reasonable and/or appropriate gives it legitmacy. In other words, "face validity" is a community decision, not an individual one. In that form, it may be a safety valve, as it can justify certain content that a small minority may find queationable and therefore a means of justifying thier own material which lacks this attribute.
Even so, I think that in general there should be a paper trail for Wikipedia articles, even if over half of it is digital.
You keep mentioning South Park, but that page seems to have a healty "External links" section.
Simply put: If you try, you can find some documentation for anything on the Web, and some of it even now puts the Wikipedia article to shame. The cases where Wikipedia shines are the current event articles. I found the article on the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami to be a marvelous resource at the time, able to constantly integrate new sources of information and create a coherent and authoritative article on the event. On the other hand, I would be careful with the relativity articles. Hopefully the ones that I have has a hand in are fairly good now, but many others continue to need work.
Overall, I think that the edict that Wikipedians do source based research based on existing primary and secondary sources is a good one. It seems to me that there should be some flexibility in what counts as approrpiate sources based on the subject of the article and the literary environment related to it. After all, I would not rely on Science magazine to properly characterize creationism no more than I would rely on Pat Robertson to properly describe evolution (athough I would rely on each to describe their side's view of those subjects).
Perhaps my point is best made with the podcasting article. Here is something totally new and cool and suddenly popular. Yet look at the bottom on that page: It has a whole section of notes and references, making it a very well documented article.
We live in an age of information. There is no need to Wikipedia to be its ultimate source. Instead there is a need to Wikipedia to be common resource that people can turn at need, and which amongst other things will point them on towards the apprpriate primary and secondary sources for those who want more in-depth information. -- EMS | Talk 04:33, 12 October 2005 (UTC) (Modified EMS | Talk 15:29, 12 October 2005 (UTC))
In a way, I do and do not agree with Kriegman's last few points. Don't agree: I have witnessed enough conflicts here to be skeptical if not cynical about the common sense of editors, and am frankly a little scared to rely on it. Do agree: on the other hand, I think Kriegman is on to something. Maybe he and I actually disagree — I will have to await his response to this comment — but I hope that he and I may be close in this matter. However, I will put it differently. And I will take some time to do this, because it is precisely my thought-process that I want to share with people, and not just my conclusions. The way I see it, policies and guidelines have two functions at Wikipedia. First (and this is my minor point, I just want to get it out of the way), they are useful to newbies who want to accelerate their socialization into the wikipedia community. For what it is worth, I do not think our policies are consulted by as many newbies as often as I would like them to be. On the other hand, perhapos that is not such a bad thing as all of our policies, when put into practice, require nuanced interpretations and perhaps many newbies can learn more about our values and ideals from interacting with other editors than from reading our policies. Be that as it may, I think the second function of policies is they provide a text editors can appeal to when in conflict. The text provides an external (external to the editors in conflict) point of reference that may help them resolve their dispute. I am (in describing this second function) making an empirical claim: I am not claiming that this is a good or bad thing, I am just observing that this happens. I thinkmost of us can agree to this. But I will go further and say that this is a good thing, and go even further to point out what I believe is another good thing, a correlary: that policies are generally ignored when there is no conflict. Now, I know that even among people who may agree with me that this is empirically accurate (in the absence of conflict, many policies are ignored) that this is a bad thing; that we need to raise general awareness of policies, and so forth. Well, I can't really argue against such people. Since I have put some work into this policy, I can't just go ahead and say that I think people should ignore it. But this is not my point, my point is not that people should ignore it. My point is just that in the absence of conflict many people do ignore it, sometimes with the consequence that the article in question is not entirely compliant with every element of the policy. And the reason I do not think this is a bad thing, the reason I think this is an acceptable thing, is because I think when there is consensus I think we can and should be somewhat less strict about the rules. I know some people find my position irrational or hypocritical. I, however, see it merely as pragmatic. I share the concern that many people have about strict rules at Wikipedia. I believe that there needs to be room for people to act creatively and use their own judgement. I find it hard to believe that it is possible to write a rule that can and should be obeyed in every situation, and I think it is foolish to try to write a set of rules that take into account all possible situations because (1) we cannot foresee all possibilities and (2) even if we can foresee a possible situation, it may be impossible to be sure what is the right thing to do until we are in that situation, and if we tried to come up with a policy that would be uniformly and universally applicable it would be too long, overwrought, and too many people will find too many faults with it. So rather than opt for one extreme (no rules) or the other extreme (very clear and detailed rules) I opt for a third position, which is to have rules (or policies or guidelines) that are imperfect, but whose imperfections are forgivable because (1) people will not be consulting these rules all the time, and certainly will not consult them prior to every edit — people will consult them only when people are unsure as to what is the right thing to do (i.e. in times of conflict) and (2) even then the "rule" or policy provides a set of standards that people will still have to discuss and think about before being sure what the best way is to proceed. I admit that this is not a perfect system or a rational system but I honestly believe it is the most practical situation. To return to Kriegman, perhaps what I am saying is that in practice we do rely on the convergence of common sense, because we appeal to these policies only when it is clear that there is no "common" sense (i.e. when there is a conflict). To this extent I agree with him. HOWEVER, I do not think we should actually write this into the policy. to me, that would reflect just another attempt — noble yet foolish — to articulate the perfect policy. We should not say this, because the whole point of the rule, what I mzean is, the rule is only aperative when, this claim (convergence of common sense) is wrong (i.e. when there is conflict). And we do not need to say this because as long as there is convergence of common sence, no one will be called upon to read the policy anyway. Again, I know many people will think I am babbling nonsense or worse, hypocracy. But my position is principled: I am not interested in policies that, in the abstract, make sense. I am interested only in how to achieve a certain outcome. I think that the policy, for the most part as it is currently written, and given the realities of how things actually work at Wikipedia, which is that there is this semi-anarchic semi-self-regulating community of people who for the most part turn to written policies only when the semi-anarchic, semi-self-regulating M.O. is failing (e.g. a revert war), produces precisely the outcome that I think is most desirable. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:36, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Interestingly, I agree with this, too. However, I think some clarification should be made anyway because making a clarification is consistent with the pragmatic approach Slrubenstein has spelled out. The clarification is intended to make the rule more effective when it is appealed to in a time of conflict. I had the experience of the OSR page being called something it is not, OR. When the conflict proved problematic, I went to the rule and it was unclear, i.e., it could not be used to arbitrate the conflict. The clarification is proposed only for that: To improve its ability to be useful in times of conflict, not to make it perfectly clear. If you read the clarification I proposed, it would be easy to think of many circumstances in which it is open to interpetation and negotiation.
The need for the clarification is illustrated by the fact that, in a time of conflict, the OSR page was called OR and deletion was suggested. I think it is pretty clear that there is a real phenomenon out there (people trying to find a model for developing a religious belief system that parallels or imitates what they see happening with successful open source software projects and the Wikipedia). I will soon add two paper published external references; and while this discussion was going on, someone (and I do not know who) added another nascent example of the phenomenon. Yet, it is a new phenomenon and external paper print sources, which seem to be absolutely required by NOR for almost any type of article, are few.
So when the conflict arose, the unclarified rule was not helpful. The clarifications I propose would simply prevent the rule from being invoked in a knee-jerk fashion. It could still be argued that the links (especially without the external published references that I realized could be cited) are insufficient evidence for the existence of such a phenomenon or that the phenomenon is unimportant. But the challenge would have to be more reasonable than: "No articles from peer reviewed journals or books by recognised experts are referred to concerning the phenomenon of open source religion," which was actually used as part of an argument for deletion.
As I have noted along the way in this proposal for clarification, the same exact reasoning could have been used to propose deletion of the early Blog and Podcasting articles. Furthermore, the argument would apply to much of the content of the South Park articles as well as to many other pages that simply don't have a problem because an editor is not in conflict over an unrelated (i.e., not regrading OR) issue.
The editor who invoked NOR wanted to include religions such as Wicca, Discordianism, and the Universal Life Church in the OSR article. While they do not copyright their contents and thus their notions are in the public domain and freely available to all, it seemed to be an error to me to equate "uncopyrighted" with "open source" in the sense that open source is meant by people who were inspired by the success of Linux, Apache, OpenOffice, and Wikipedia to try to create open source religions. Uncopyrighted existed long before these very unsual worldwide collaborations. And it is clear from looking at the linked examples of religions that call themselves "open source" and claim to be built on that specific model (unlike the three religions the NOR editor wanted to add) that they were consciously modeled on these recent Internet open source phenomenon, not on having uncopyrighted scripture (which all traditional religions have, i.e., many major versions of the Bible and the Koran have long had their copyright expire, if any ever existed).
But instead of focusing on that issue, the editor attacked the article using NOR, and tried to use that to undermine this distinction (uncopyrighted vs open source) when I used it to delete his addition of those three religions. When I went to the rule, it was not helpful in the conflict as it was insufficiently clear.
So, the proposed clarification is meant to do exactly what Slrubenstein and SlimVirgin agree works. Nothing more. Please consider the specific wording of the proposed clarification. Maybe it should be changed if it is too far reaching. (Though, personally, I do not think it makes things all that clear.) Kriegman 16:19, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
OK. My attempt to retain the phrase "Convergent Common Sense" irks you as much as EMS. I'm not sure what you object to about what CCS is supposed to refer to. Apparently you don't want to even suggest that sense might be common because you know how uncommon common sense is. But, OK. Throw that out if we must. What about the rest of my proposal? The CCS part/phrasing is not necessary to prevent the problem I was having.
By the way, I had many anonymous edits before I decided that I should be up front about who I am. I wish more people would just use their names. It makes us all more honest, or at least it makes many people more polite/careful. Kriegman 19:34, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Yes, there is. Or rather, an article I originated has been threatened with deletion by someone invoking NOR who does not seem to understand what I believe has been articulated here (that is, if I have come to understand the policy and its importance correctly).
The problematic interaction over the article and the need for some type of clarification (not change) of how NOR actually operates is described above in various places, starting in the middle of this page in the section with the bolded title, "Finally, an example, Open source religion: The article that is being attacked with NOR criticisms."
If the ensuing material is too much to wade through to find the references to the conflict and how the rule has been confusing, then just go back up to Slrubenstein's last comment and your response, ending with the line about "sleeping dogs," and read from there down; the issues are summarized in what follows from that point. (In that material, OSR = Open Source Religion.)
While the following should not substitute for at least reading from that point, here's another summary: The other editor was upset by me for deleting material he felt belonged in the article and accused me of OR because I am one of the founders of a particular open source religion (true) and have an investment in the topic and its importance (true). I countered by trying to explain the difference between the inspirational effect of open source projects (like Wikipedia) that have led to the attempts to create open source religions and material simply being uncopyrighted or in the public domain. He insisted that I was engaged in OR and such a label has been placed on that page.
I came here to modify the NOR policy. In the process, I came to understand it better and to realize that OSR can be made to conform to the letter of NOR more closely and that the letter of a policy is not always meant to be followed without reasonable interpretation. I then discarded my proposed modification and suggested, what I thought was, a minor clarification so that this type of wasteful, knee-jerk invocation of NOR in an unrelated conflict would not occur (and so that I could legitimately remove the OR warning from the article). Kriegman 22:31, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
I read (both from "NPOV" page and No original research pages):
"A general purpose encyclopedia is a collection of synthesized knowledge presented from a neutral point of view." "The quality of an encyclopedia depends on its accuracy and reliability. " "The policy of having a neutral point of view is not to hide different points of view, but to show the diversity of viewpoints. In case of controversy, the strong points and weak points will be shown according to each point of view, without taking a side. "
Which sounds sensible. Compare the above with the following rule:
"If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not."
Thus, if someone digs up an original, verifyable source that directly *proves* that a common *viewpoint* is mistaken, strictly following this rule the encyclopedia should suppress the correct information and propagate the misinformation. Not only that would be objectionable (almost criminal), but also it contradicts the above rules. Obviously that paragraph urgently needs to be amended! (who has a suggestion?). - See "Schrödinger's cat" as an example of correcting erroneous popular belief.
Harald, Lausanne, 14/10/2005
I really think it makes more sense to stick to real cases rather than hypotheticals. But let's hypothetically travel back in time. It is 1906, and Wikipedia 1.0 (the version that existed on abacuses and chalk-boards) has an article on physics. Einstein publishes some pretty radical articles in 1905 but they are not generally accepted. Someone adds the theory of special relativity to the physics article. Let's say that the person is Einstein. Someone accuses him of violating NOR, and says "we can have a section on the Michaelson-Morley experiment, and we can have a section on Maxwell's equations, but this way you are putting them together is novel and unproven." Einstein replies, "No, I am not violating NOR, because I am summarizing an article of mine that was published." A general discussion ensues about whether it is in poor taste for Einstein to be using Wikipedia to promote himself, when really, we should wait until the scientific community has had time to evaluate his newfangled ideas. Someone points out that there may be a bit of hubris on Wikipedians' part, thinking that Einstein is really promoting himself by putting his admittedly published paper argument in Wikipedia, because no physicicst or physics student turns to Wikipedia as an authority. For three days a few people argue over how important Wikipedia is, until everyone agrees that in the future more people will read wikipedia, as soon as Jimbo buys a much larger abacus. Einstein puts his summary of his article back into the Wikipedia article. Someone deletes it again, just putting "NOR" in the edit summary. Einstein reverts the deletion, writing in capital letters "THIS REFERS TO A PUBLISHED ARTICLE." Someone points out on the talk page that this is not really an NOR issue because Einstein is right, it is a published article, but there is an NPOV issue because the article now presents Einstein's view as the truth. Another editor edits Einstein's paragraph down from five sentences to three, and adds "this theory has not achieved general acceptance by physicists." Einstein adds, after not, "yet." Someone deletes the "yet" and Einstein writes, on the talk page, "You are the ones engaging in original research, because you are claiming physicists do not accept my theory. What is your proof? Has some survey of physicsists been published?" The editor replies "I know because I am Max Planck." People are not sure whether or not to believe this user, and someone tries to find out if his chalk-board was purchased in Berlin, which would narrow the identity of the editor down. Someone else says "look, there is no published survey, but let's be reasonable. The article just came out. It hasn't been cited anywhere yet." Einstein deletes "this theory has not yet achieved general acceptance by physicists" and replaces it with "Einstein's theory represents the most recent scientific work on this topic." SOmeone reverts that and writes on the talk page that it doesn't matter whether there has been a survey of physicists true, but we have to comply with NPOV and this is the simplest and most reasonable way to handle that. Someone else adds to the talk page a message to Einstein, that if he can accept the "not achieved general acceptance," then everyone else will accept including his summary of his published article. Another person tells Einstein just to be patient, that if he is right physicists will figure that out eventually, and Wikipedia is an ongoing project and the article will of course continue to be edited over the coming years (and at an even faster rate, if Jimbo buys us more chalk). Einstein writes "Okay, I can wait. After all, time is relative!" The next day, Einstein puts double-brackets around "time" and starts working on that article (and promptly gets into an argument with a very young Martin Heidegger, but the argument turns out to be over style and not content). Slrubenstein | Talk 19:50, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Given that it was a joke, your answer is entirely sensible. Your point, "if he had bothered with it it would have been to make sure that the articles on the Michelson-Morley experiment, the Lorentz contraction, and (possibly also) the work of Henri Poincaré were correct so that special relativity could be coherently discussed when the time comes" is actually, I think, very constructive because it gives editors who are coming into conflict with NOR and feeling frustrated, a task that they might be qualified to do and could achieve some gratification by doing. My question: should something like this be put into the NOR policy (specifically, as a suggestion to those editors who feel thwarted or frustrated by our NOR policy and ownder how they they might contribute)? As to your comment "note the comments of Harald88 above" I am afraid I do not know what you are talking about; the above discussion is pretty complex. Should we just assume that you and I agree in principle and do not need to extend this discussion, or can you give me a clearer idea of what specifically is at stake, in the section of the discussion your reference, that I may or may not have anything to add to? Slrubenstein | Talk 20:50, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
See the above discussion point 10.
The following text is a bit obscure and can be misunderstood:
"If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not."
It appears on the page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research (under the header "Disputes over how established a view is"),
as well as on the page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view (under the header "Undue Weight").
Based on the above discussion I propose to add a clarification, as follows:
"If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can create evidence for it or not!
Instead it is the job of Wikipedia to report that which is believed to be the truth, and if there is a controversy about what the truth is then Wikipedia is obliged to report on that controversy."
(Compare also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_is_a_featured_article : "comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral") Harald88 20:05, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
-- EMS | Talk 23:04, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
EMS, I honestly am not trying to be a pain in the ass. But can you please restate your proposal? There has been a lot of discussion going in different directions, and I don't think I know precisely (and concisely) what youa re proposing. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:31, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
[someone had inserted another subject header, which obscured the issue]
Well, the last sentence is a serious issue for me, because the last sentence is making a point that is different from and unconnected to the first sentence. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:18, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Maybe ems57 wanted to use the opportunity to add something that he wants to clarify... and he thinks that it doesn't matter so much where? ;-) Harald88 18:04, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Section reads: Primary sources...such as...transcript of a public hearing...
Can this be clarified to include
declassified information, for example, declassified transcripts of closed door hearings now held in the public domain, or
FOIA documents, etc. Thank you.
nobs
15:57, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
To "descriptive claims that are easily verifiable by any reasonable adult [need no secondary sources]," I added as an example of such a claim "the sun rose in the sky this morning." I also added to "any reasonable adult," the words "without specialist knowledge." And I added a bit about accuracy, so the paragraph now reads:
In order to emphasize that this is the exception, not the rule, I repeated in the next paragraph that we publish on the basis of verifiability, not truth.
I did this because an editor today wanted to use the descriptive-claims paragraph to add material from a website on the grounds that any reasonable adult could verify that the material was there by looking at the site. However, not any reasonable adult could verify its accuracy. I feel relucant to add the "accuracy" rider because it takes us away from our "verifiability, not truth" principle, but then I suppose that's the point of the apple-pie exception: that in some cases commonly accepted facts may be published, though I'm still uncomfortable with it.
Also, I added the words in bold to this section: "In some cases, there may be controversy or debate over what constitutes a legitimate or reputable authority or source. Where no agreement can be reached about this by the majority of editors on the page, the article should provide an account of the controversy and of the different authorities or sources. Such an account also helps ensure the article’s neutral point of view."
I added that because the paragraph implied where there was any controversy whatsoever about sources, an account of it should be added to the article. This would mean that LaRouchies could insist every article contain an account of what LaRouche says about X, and why he isn't being allowed to say it. ;-) The "majority of editors on the page" qualification provides a safeguard. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:53, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Slim, I'm concerned that your addition would allow minority views not to be included at all and would allow "editing by gang". Editors who wish to privilege certain sources need only acquire "a majority of editors on the page" (IOW, email their mates and get them to back them) to disallow a source. Personally, although I understand your intent (to disallow the insertion of views of people who just wander by and have an opinion) and support it (as you know, in Rachel Corrie, I deplore the inclusion of a blogger's view of Corrie's death solely on the basis of the blogger's being Jewish, and believe that our policy should definitely be written in a way that disallows that; but not in this way because on that page you have the majority but are wrong to consider Balint "reputable" in the sense that she is qualified to have an opinion (because that's at the root of it: you want to disqualify LaRouche's sundry opinions because he is no more qualified to hold them than any other observer)), I don't support policy backing for subjective measures for inclusion of views, whatever the reality on the ground is. You are opening the door for yet more votes. For instance, you can exclude David Icke's views on his own opinions simply by holding a poll to decide that he is not "reputable" (effectively this is what you did do on that page, but here you're writing policy to back it and that worries me, because I for one don't agree with you that a person's view on their own views is of less weight than others' views, even if one believes they are lying, misguided or stupid, because, remember, the truth or accuracy of what they say is not in question). Okay, while you are confident that you will be able to raise majorities to support your exclusions of views you don't want represented, what happens when the LaRouchies wake up and realise that all they need do is sign up a hundred of their cadres and they can junk your sources? Do you recognise the danger in that? Editing by consensus (in the true meaning of the word) is a good means to prevent pages from being hijacked by gangs. I urge you not to rewrite policies to encourage editing by majority instead, and to see the danger in it. Oftentimes, those in a majority simply do not realise that on other occasions they might be in a minority. The same is true of those who hold power: they all too often don't recognise the possibility of their disempowerment. -- Grace Note.
-- Philip Baird Shearer 10:32, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
The page needs to be edited to reconcile the NOR policy with Wikipedians who create primary sources by snapping a photo of something:
Tempshill 23:27, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
I think photos can in effect constitute "original research." Here is what I think the policy should be: If an editor adds a photo toillustrate a point that is already made in the article, if that point itself does not violate NOR, then neither does the photo. However, if the editor adds a photo to make a point that is not already in the article, and that has a verifiable source, then the photo does violate NOR. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:46, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, if you and other editors think that the current policy as stated covers the hypothetical I just gave, well, I guess then we do not need to change the policy! Slrubenstein | Talk 16:33, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Do you mean hypothetically, or on Wikipedia? On Wikipedia, I honestly have not tried. And I don't think I need to — all that matters is whether the policy is written in such a way that it would cover this situation if it ever came up. But if you mean hypothetically, well, Let's say I took a photograph of a famous politician while/she was looking distracted, and added to a page along with the caption "X is often easily distracted at public events" I would call that original research. Or if I wanted to argue that I had discovered a new species of rodent, and had a photograph to prove I had seen an anomolous rodent, and put it in the article on rodents and claimed this was a new species, well, that would be original research. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:07, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
There is no reason why an NPOV violation cannot also be an NOR violation. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:23, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Let's take a concrete example ... what wording of the policy would tolerate the continued existence of the three images now associated with spoon? One image is from a Wikipedian. One image is from a free online resource of images. One image is from the US Government. Let's set aside the complications inherent in interpreting facial expressions and take care of a simple case first.
I would propose the following text insertion directly after "data, statements, concepts and ideas that have not been published in a reputable publication;":
These seven words would seem to unlock the box some of us see Wikipedians in. It is quite safe to say that a person photographing a spoon and saying "this is a spoon" would be an example of an observation that non-unique and corroboratable (looking at the picture I can safely say, yes, that is a spoon and I've seen one like it on most days). The facial expressions matter is something altogether different. This observation could very easily be either unique or so sparsely experience as to be practically unique such that a person looking at the photo would not be able to corroborate that in fact that expression was seen in the named circumstance. Such a photo does not pass the test - it cannot be corroborated and it is a practically unique experience. Now, this criterion only applies to information from Wikipedians added directly to Wikipedia and not to news services or other sources of record (just to be pedantically clear).
The seven words are something of a skeleton key in that they don't merely open the photo box. I took a brief look up the page here and saw a reference to a dispute over where Billy Joel lived. In the end of the thread there essentially these seven words were invoked in spirit; prior to finding of sources that corroborated the personal observations of a personal acquaintance of Billy Joel, only sources that contradicted him were found and it was a case of "you say one thing but evidence says something else - and we don't know why that evidence would be wrong" (paraphrased), but once sources were found that agreed with the person's personal experience, all was right with the world; in other words the person was no longer in a "he said - she said" situation but had corroboration on his side. My gut says "add the seven words" and turns a little bit at addition of a section for the present purpose. I think User:SlimVirgin's reminding us to word it carefully need not be construed to mean word it exhaustively ... in this case I think that more words are not a better course to take. Seven words seems about right. Courtland 04:56, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
How about editors who distort standard reference works? An experienced editor has told me there's no Wikipedia policy on academic dishonesty.
I've tried to reason with two such people on the Joan of Arc article. To give an example, the context here is the fate of Joan of Arc shortly after her capture. The duke of Burgundy's men captured her. A few months later the English bought her from the duke of Burgundy. These editors say French king Charles VII tried to ransom her. Every part of the footnote is false:
The above citations actually say:
These distortions were not created in ignorance. When the fraudulent footnote was in its infancy I posted an excerpt from one of the same books they cite. I excerpted Morosini's actual journal entry with Pernoud and Clin's subsequent comment (pp. 97-98):
Pernoud and Clin speak for the academic consensus.
One of these two editors has been sitebanned and posts from an anonymous IP address. I requested mediation after I found a note where the other one admits to fabricating a nonexistent source document. Admin deleted that edit but has not moderated. These editors refuse to cite sources for most of their strange assertions. I don't want to put myself in trouble with the three edit rule.
I'm new to Wikipedia. What's your advice? Durova 05:18, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
I think that photos, which are intended to make a specific point, should not be uploaded to Wikipedia unless they have been previously published by a disinterested, reputable 3rd party.
Flikr.com, weblogs, partisan political web sites (dailykos, freerepublic, etc) and such are not acceptable, but commercial news organizations and commericial publishers and to a lesser extent, non-profits would be ok. There is simply too much opportunity out there to stage photos, for example:
Clearly it's a staged photo intended to make a point. If the control parameter of "intended to make a point" is not enforced, the excuse regarding the above scenario would be "I found the trash & signs in the parking lot and merely snapped the photo". Such assertions could not be disproved, opening a pandora's box of scheming opporunities.
Rex071404 216.153.214.94 05:52, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
No, I do not. The uploading and attempted use of a "loaded" photo is prima facie of bad faith. Those who do it, are rogues. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 00:09, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
After a week with no serious objections and a lot of "well, duh" comments, I added the "Original pictures" section clarifying that Wikipedia editors are still encouraged to snap photos or draw diagrams and upload them, and this doesn't count as OR.
The John Kerry bra photo poster inspired me to further clarify that (a) uploaded photos that are otherwise original research are still banned; my example was somebody who draws a diagram of a hydrogen with extra particles in the nucleus because he thinks there are; and (b) all uploaded photos still are covered by Wikipedia's other guidelines and policies, notably factual accuracy and NPOV.
Thanks all for the discussion. Tempshill 21:19, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
SlimVirgin commented when he deleted a sentence about it (from Tempshill I think), that we don't have a factual accuracy policy. But any self respecting encyclopedia should have such a policy! Thus: 1. Is that correct (is that accurate, pun intended!) 2. If so, where to launch a proposal for such a policy? Thanks, Harald88 23:05, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
You know, this might be an occasion to look at the verifiability policy and see if it needs any fixing up. In the past year we have tidied up the NOR and Cite Sources policies. I know SlimVirgin has put some good work into Verifiability. I hope it is clear and makes sense to Harald. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:40, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
This seems like a common practice, though perhaps there is a nuance not apparent to me in the comment. Is the idea that "it is in poor taste" to argue for your own theory on a talk page, so as to influence the weight it is given in an article, in contrast with
Comment appreciated -SM 21:19, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Hi, SlimVirgin, but can you comment on the four (one against, three for) points above? -SM 12:54, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Several (largely unregistered) editors have apparently simply been adding things to two lists of examples (on Wise Old Man and, until recently Hero) as they pop into their heads. Would unilaterally deciding that "Johnny Tsunami's Grandpa" and "Peppy Hare" are the Wise Old Man as defined by Jung count as original research? Or that a character in the Epic of Gilgamesh counts as being a "Wise Old Man in popular fiction"!? elvenscout742 22:22, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
This definition of OR, right at the outset of the article, is not apt:
First, this defines original research (boldface) in terms of something different which is also called "original research," which is confusing. For purposes of this discussion, let me distinguish them, so the above definition is:
This is still inadequate. What's intended is: Don't use Wikipedia to publish your own OR2. But you shouldn't publish your friend's OR2 either.
So all reference to whose OR2 it is should be scrapped, because it's irrelevant.
One might argue that any OR2 appearing in Wikipedia is always OR1, since it was found and placed there by a Wikipedia editor. But that's misleading. OR2 might be some gossip that everyone is talking about. If a Wikipedia editor reproduces the gossip, which he learned effortlessly, it doesn't seem like "research."
This comment does not apply to the draft rewrite of the article, which has eliminated the problem.
— Urielw 13:26, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
From the article:
Why "untested"? Isn't a tested theory that has not been published in a reputable publication also original research? Why not drop "untested"?
— Urielw 13:26, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
There's a proposal at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#References_title_misread_as_non-web_External_links to change the References header to "Sources", and External links to "Further reading". So far, the proposal has been accepted by all the editors on the page, but because Wikipedia:Verifiability is a policy page, I'm putting it out for further discussion before changing it.
The reason for the proposal is that using "References" and "External links" is confusing. Sources are supposed to be listed under References, and any further reading is listed under Further reading or External links. But many editors think that any external links, whether used as sources or not, should go under External links, so then they list any material that isn't online, like books, under References, even if not used as a source. To cut through all this confusion, the proposal is to change the headers to Sources and Further reading, which are self-explanatory, and don't make the online/offline distinction. Comments would be welcomed. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:04, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
Agree to change
Disagree to change
I'm going to move the votes above to Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#References.2Fexternal_links_name-change_proposal. Hope that's okay. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:47, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
I would like to know where we stand with regards to disputes about the accuracy of external links. As I understand it, original research means something that someone just "knows", whereas external links mean that something is researched. If the external links are disputed, then this is a dispute about verifiability, and assertions of original research are incorrect. If an article about something is verified by links to its official web sites, then I would suggest that that does not count as original research. If the article is then verified as notable by referencing third party reviews, alexa rankings, and noting important historical significance, then I do not think that either of these rules should apply. Case in point in the discussions for the Vfd of planes of existence (chat site) where assertions have been made that it is original research in spite of over 50 references, similarly with the Vfd of lintilla (chat site). I do not think that it is appropriate to make such assertions in these cases. I think that they can be misused to try to steamroll votes, and that they probably were used in this way in these cases.
I would like to see the policy modified to prevent such misuses. Zordrac 14:34, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Old section title: Taking an article with a proposal and inviting others to modify it. The original author modifies the article before others do so that his or her proposal becomes an "example" inside what could become a neutral point of view article with well organized references.
Will it be ok to add an adjective to a regular, well known term as to be descriptive of a "category" of a certain thing, such as "Distributive" Income Tax, even though the meaning of the adj. + term, though utilitarian and good for comprehension purposes, hasn't been spoken in those same words?
See Distributive Corporation Tax —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kmarinas86 ( talk • contribs)
What happens when a fact can be verified by any Wikipedia user by performing a simple task? In The Warden (software), I added a statement that Warden is also in Warcraft III, Starcraft, and Diablo II. The problem is that there is no source for this anywhere but on Internet message boards of dubious quality. However, this information is actually verifiable, despite the lack of sources: if you open Warcraft III's game.dll, Starcraft's Battle.snp, or Diablo II's D2Client.dll in Notepad, you can search for the string WardenClient.cpp, proving that Warden is in these games as well. ( World of Warcraft's WoW.exe also has this string.) -- Myria 06:27, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm having problems with the "no original research" policy, particularly when it comes to wanting to include tables in articles. For example on Poker probability (Texas hold 'em) a table of probabilities for hands is obviously appropriate. However, to take a table from a recognised expert is probably a copyright violation. Attempting to disguise the fact just makes it plagiarism. Generating the table yourself is original research. Similarly, what do you do when there is one excellent source which says all there is to know on a topic? Does your article just become "See the following article"? Do you offer a summary of the article, citing every sentence back to the original source? Do you say, "According to ..." and provide a series of quotes instead of a genuine article? What if there are no "reputable sources" on a topic, simply because reputable authors don't write about such topics? Computer games and strategy, cheating at various sports, etc etc? Is google a source? I would like to say in Paris that this city is frequently referred to as "The most romantic city in the world". Google says that 92% of pages containing that phrase also contain "Paris". Whereas only 1% contain "Venice", for instance. This seems to "verify" that the claim is correct. How on earth would you find a reputable source that also verifies the claim? (Note here the 'claim' is that people call Paris that, not that Paris is actually romantic...) Responses very welcome! Stevage 14:23, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I can imagine only two cases where one would rely on one source. First, it happens to be the only source you know. In that case, just provide the proper citations, and add a message to the "talk" page that you invite other editors to add to what you wrote drawing on other sources. Second, you are writing about a question or issue that, for the moment, only one person has raised. In that case, you can write something like, "Recently, x has argued that ... The following section draws heavily on her recent book, in order to provide an accurate account of her argument..." or something like that. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:05, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Maybe it would help you if you just bear in mind that the point is to prevent our own views from entering articles. Reread the policy from that perspective and see if it makes more sense. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I am not saying the policy cannot be improved (but, since what you read is the process of a very long collaboration between editors, raise your proposed changes here first, and allow for much discussion) — but Wikipedia is really not meant to be the place for publicizing unpuublished research. For all I know, Stephen Hawking wants to add to our article on black holes some new musings he has been having. I sure don't question their importance, but this just is not Hawking's own blog or personal webpage. He has to publish it in a respected publication first. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:45, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I have two questions that need answering, even though they've probably already been asked.
Thanks for answering. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 22:04, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
This is a bad policy and should be withdrawn. It's just too semantically vague, which inevitably leads to time-wasting debates when somebody invokes the policy. It was plainly instituted to keep out long, developed personal theories or points-of-view, but it is now being used to attack even simple observations of phenomena and written matter-- the sort of basic observation which simply cannot be avoided in the construction of sentences. I vote for a vote to delete. JDG 09:51, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
At most, I can see the value of adding a sentence or two to the apple-pie test, to address JDG's concern. But this is one of the oldest Wikipedia policies; it is certainly much clearer than the original formulation. Moreover, as the number of contributors grows and grows this policy becomes more important than ever. I agree fully with SlimVirgin's comment above. Look, if any conflict over whether someone is violating NOR or not ever makes it to the ArbCom – hey, let's say ever makes it to formal mediation – then I will take JDG's concern more seriously. I have yet to see a clear case where this policy was uncondintionally preventing an article from becoming better. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
On this page: Talk:"Lucas_Bashing"_phenomenon#Fundamental_challenge_to_sourcing this guy is claiming that "no original research" should not or does not apply to fan culture. Is it possible to make explicit mention that fan topics like Harry Potter and Star Wars articles are not exempt from the sources requirement? These articles have the most problem with original research IMO. Borisblue 19:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
The ArbCom has yet to finalize the new "priveleged expert" exemption [2] based upon Nobs01 and others case, yet I note the change has already been made official here with little discussion [3]. nobs 20:09, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Is there a Category or some list to include articles that (suspected to) violate WP:NOR? I just came across NPR and Commercialization which appears to be someone's school paper copied into Wikipedia. I don't think it necessarily needs to be deleted (it has references), but at least needs major cleanup, needs to adhere to WP:NPOV, and moved to conform to the Manual of style. --- Aude 05:41, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
So... all information in this encyclopaedia either has to be of an undeniable basis (e.g. humans are bipeds) or backed up by a reputable publication?? I hope Wikimedia would establish a "Wiki-infoshare: The (Truly) Public Encyclopedia" or something like that soon -.- (The last sentence is meant to be slightly sarcastic, by the way.)
Problem One
Let me point out a problem with this policy: The policy page recommends that so-called original researchers publish their findings in a journal or reputable publication first, and then post them on Wikipedia. The problem is... there are lots of everyday observations that would simply be too trifling for release in such a journal but would be beneficial to readers of Wikipedia who might simply not be familiar with a particular environment or point of view. (It is also my opinion that NOTHING is too trivial or trifling to be included on Wikipedia, a limitless resource.)
For example, if I were to post a line stating that the majority of Hongkongers are ill-mannered by western standards, this would almost certainly be deleted because I'd be accused of (1) having a non-neutral point of view and (2) not backing myself up with a reputable authority on the matter. The fact is that everyone who comes or returns to Hong Kong after some time in the western world would undeniably concur with my observation, which would morever be rather useful to those who intend to visit our city.
What's your take on this?
Problem Two
I read above that even eyewitness testimony and accounts are prohibited. What sort of rule is this???
Even the user who stated this prohibition above admitted: "I say this with some sorrow, because clearly there are some topics where you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that some newspaper article, or publicists' statement, is wrong."
I would like a lengthy explanation and justification of this counter-progressive policy, especially in light of the proposed remedy I shall detail below.
Proposed remedy
The loudest argument in favour of the existing policy would perhaps be: "It's better to be safe than sorry." I agree, but their are clear alternatives to an unreasonable all-out ban on original research and eyewitness accounts.
1. Remedy for original research: Original research should be permitted if the author puts in a note stating that certain information might be observation-based or limited to a particular geographic area. This note could take on a standardised form similar to the spoiler warnings commonly seen in Wikipedia articles on works of fiction. Example (based on the spoiler warning):
Original research: Observation-based deduction, regional inference, or unpublished research follows.
2. Remedy for eyewitness accounts: As above, eyewitness accounts should be permitted if the author puts in a note making clear that the information is considered undeniable by the author but based on an individual's own observation and not obtained from a publication. Example:
Eyewitness account: Information based on an individual's own undeniable observation follows.
I would appreciate your comments on my viewpoints and proposed remedies to the problem. Please do not respond, as some of you have above, with blanket statements concerning "what is prohibited" and "what is allowed". I'd like to have a discussion contesting the rules themselves and not what is allowed under the current rules.
Thanks in advance for your input! -- Lapin rossignol 10:24, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for your explanation of this policy, Slrubenstein. I stand rectified on my usage of the word "undeniable" and my "single eyewitness" stance. Of course, I still stand behind the remainder of my viewpoint.
Incidentally, you failed to address the remedies I suggested for this problem. These remedies are an integral part of my viewpoint, and without them in force, my argument would be greatly weakened due to its liberal attitude that may possibly result in "a deluge of unverified claims". With my remedies in force, however, readers could easily distinguish between established facts and such claims. Therefore, it would be greatly appreciated if you and other Wikipedians here could please consider the remedies I suggested for the problem.
(P.S. Please do not try to turn me away from Wikipedia by suggesting other online venues. Let's have a discussion here. Contrary to what you may think, Wikipedia policy does allow discussion over its core elements. Certainly, they may be uncompromisable in practice at this moment, but they may be pondered over in search of a better solution, no? ^.^) -- Lapin rossignol 02:43, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
I retract my stance on permitting eyewitness testimony for current events. I have read the explanations for the NOR policy in more detail, and I now agree that articles on current events should abide by the existing policy because in any case, current events are most likely to be covered by publications and most likely to be pounced on by unverified claimants.
However, I still would like to see a softening of the existing policy towards observation-based conclusions.
Thus, please consider the remedy I proposed for such observation-based conclusions: Instead of an all-out ban on them, a warning like the following should suffice...
Observation warning: Observation-based deduction or regional influence follows.
This warning may not be used for current events or specialist topics (i.e. discipline-specific matters requiring professional research). I now believe that the existing NOR policy is best for such topics. So, with my softened stance on the matter, I would appreciate your further feedback on my suggested policy improvement. Thanks a bunch! -- Lapin rossignol 03:45, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
To Slruberstein: Aww, there's no need to apologise, but thanks a lot for that ^.^ I feel guilty whenever someone apologises to me, haha, so you've got me at a soft spot :-p. Hmm, I'll reply in full later, when I've read the policy page in more detail and thought over things (and their consequences) a bit, but here's what I can say now in response to the above:
"Nothing more than a statement that the associated content is in violation of our policies." ... Well, I'm proposing a modification of these very policies, so whether my suggestion contravenes them is really a moot point, no? (And don't worry, I'd do no such thing as violate a policy. I'll debate policies, challenge policies through my words, yes, but until policies are changed- and they might never be- I won't do anything that the existing rules prohibit.)
To Stan: And thanks for "kibitzing", or in my words, contributing to the discussion :-p. Haha, my example on behaviour in Hong Kong was a rotten one. Anyway, I remember my A-level days last year... spending two whole days in the university library to find sources for my final research paper, whew! >.< Quite a lot of effort, but certainly necessary for academic papers and more specialised/technical Wikipedia articles. Considering the sort of trivial "observation-based conclusions" I have in mind, however, it's really a very, very roundabout way to get at stuff when the evidence is right in front of your eyes, I must say!! Heh :-) -- Lapin rossignol 02:06, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Lapin rossignol, I would bet that most "observation-based conclusions" (and to be honest, you mean "personal observation-based conclusions," since one of the tests of a scientific theory is its ability to suggest possible "observations" from which one would draw conclusions; the observations must thmselves be verifiable (or reproducible) and the conclusions falsifiable. My point is, most conclusions expressed in any encyclopedia article are "observation-based," just notin the way you mean)you would make could actually be found in verifiable sources. If so, why not cite those sources? Doing so could only help readers, and make the article stronger. And if there are no verifiable citable sources for your "observations," with all due respect I suggest you think long and hard about why that is the case. The reasons why may very well be the same reasons for not including them in this encyclopedia. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:30, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Heh, you know what, I'm going to drop this cause as soon as I get somewhere with my campaign to eliminate the criterion of notability. Almost all of Wikipedia is against me on my NOR reform proposal anyway, so my arguments here serve no purpose. In the debate over notability, at least, Wikipedia is pretty much divided 50-50. And plus, I take a personal interest in that issue but not in NOR, so I'll let all of you here win on this one and breathe a sigh of relief. Thanks to you all for debating with me and contributing to this discussion whilst my fire was still burning ^.^ Lapin rossignol 10:29, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi Uncle G, I reverted that edit again because you're introducing footnotes. It's not the extra quotes I'm concerned about, just the deletion of the embedded links. When I have time, if it's all right with, I'll put back the extra quotes but give the sources as links. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
A very interesting discussion is taking place at Media circus ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Stbalbach ( talk · contribs) has claimed that the inclusion of events in a "list of media circuses" that's in the article can only be done by citing a source that has referred to them as a "media circus", or else it's a contributor's opinion, and original research. I'm advocating that this is not the case, since "media circus" is not a standardized, nor an official-on-any-level term, but rather a general characteristic of an event receiving more media attention than would be reasonable, or necessary. I'm particularly enphasizing the fact that "media circus" is a term in English, but it's general parameters (too much media coverage) can happen anywhere, but it would be next to impossible to find a source saying "this is a media circus" about an event taking place outside of the English-speaking world. Well, best if anyone interested would read the discussion going on here. Then all the points of view being expressed can be read and reflected upon. Regards, Redux talk 22:23, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
That's something key here: the definition in our article about the term "media circus". Everything else is constructed/inserted having that logic as a starting point. The article explains it as something that can be objectively observed by the reasonable man (hence my quote). Curiously enough (from my perspective), both Stbalbach (on the article's talk page) and you guys here are addressing the term "media circus" as something subjective, that would require a subjective and personal analysis to be verified. But that's not what I'm drawing from the article at all. So I'm wondering if the problem isn't that the article is unclear, or maybe just plain wrong. Because I'd not be having this discussion if I understood that calling a situation a "media circus" were the same, from an analytical point of view, as calling it "tricky", "unbelievable" or what have you. Assuming that the article is right, however, SlimVirgin just brought up something I had said over at the article's talk page: it' just opinions. But it's just opinions all along. There's no official definition of a "media circus", in the sense that there are no standardized parameters to determine one. In that sense, the bulk of the article would also be reflecting a user(s)'s opinion (those users who wrote it, of course), or, more accuratelly, their understanding of this expression, "media circus". That's quite interesting, since the article says The term is used in a number of ways, including as a pejorative description by critics of the media and/or partisan sides in the event (...). But everybody seems to understand it as peremptorily pejorative, and thus that calling something a "media circus" signifies a subjective analysis (which, without an external source, would be original research).
Is the article wrong then, is that it? But if it's not, then I don't see it as a subjective opinion at all (that would be if we were implying any context associated with the term), but rather as a term that defines an objective situation, and one that can be easily verified by the "reasonable adult".
Redux
11:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Redux, I think you are missing everyone's point (but Older/Wider and Slim Virgin, correct me if I am mistaken). What constitutes a "media circus" is not something everyone agrees on. Moreover, the phrase is used rhetorically in an inherantly POV way. What I mean is, when people call something a jmedia circus they are not just naming something in a matter-of-fact-way (like, "Oh, that is an oak tree"). They are calling it a "media circus" in order to cast aspersions on either the object of media attention, or the media themselves. It is simply not up to Wikipedia editors to make this judgement. But Redux, let me go one step further. Let us say just for the sake of argument that you are right that all reasonable people agree as to what a media circus is, and can tell when something is a media circus. If this were the case, shouldn't it be very easy for you to find a verifiable source? And if you can easily find a verifiable source, why insist on inserting your own opinion when you can provide the source and in the process comply with three policies? To summarize: if you cannot find verifiable sources identifying something as a media circus, then I would consider that evidence that you are wrong about the "reasonable person" claim. And if you can find verifiable sources, you should use them. You suggest that this is a phrase used in the English-speaking world. If you want to add to the list of "media circuses" something that happened in Ukraine or Japan, it is worth researching whether they have in their own language an equivalent for "media circus." And if they don't, all the more reason to find a verifiable source, because you would be making an intrinsically POV claim, namely, that English speakers view it as a media circus. Well, if that claim is accurate, you will be able to find verifiable sources. And if you can't, the claim is not accurate. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:36, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Can someone please answer this hypothetical question: Suppose a scientist publishes a simple algebraic expression, and claims that when evaluated, the expression equals 15.89. I spend a few minutes with a calculator and I verify that it does indeed equal 15.89. Have I done "original research"? I believe the answer is no; instead, I have come up with some "verifiable information" (because anyone else with a calculator can also verify that the expression equals 15.89). Thanks, Anonymous, 20:33, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your replies, Jkelly and Stevage. Here's the issue: said scientist's theory contains an algebraic expression that makes a quantitative prediction. Said scientist claims that when the expression is evaluated, you get a value that closely matches experimental results published by CODATA. I used a calculator to verify that the expression did indeed evaluate to a value that closely matches the CODATA experimental results, as claimed. So I stated in the article that the prediction closely matches the experimental results, but maintained a NPOV by explicitly stating that the scientific community has not yet reached a consensus about whether this close match is due to a correct theoretical basis, or "luck." Another user deleted what I wrote, saying that the scientist's claim hasn't "been verified in any published source," and that my verification of the claim -- which, I must stress, could be done by any middle-school algebra student -- constitutes "original research." I say it's not "original research"; to the contrary, it's "verifiable information." Who is correct? Thanks, Anonymous, 02:02, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Jimbo stressed [4] that
Thanks again Stevage. Let's see if I understand. If Jacques Chirac predicts on Jan. 11 that "the sun will rise tomorrow," I guess it would be against Wikipedia policy to later write, "the sun rose on Jan. 12, as Chirac predicted." Right? Anonymous 22:36, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, verifiable calculations and proofs may be original research, but sometimes it's necessary to fabricate this kind of thing to facilitate presentation or to avoid copyright issues. Just act in good faith, don't make any objectionable claims that are either questionable in accuracy or contradict accepted scientific knowledge, add extended justification details to the talk page where necessary, and you're not likely to get OR cited on you.
In this case, though, there's no need to prove that the scientist's claims are accurate, as long as they are verifiable. If there's reason to doubt the scientist themselves, other verifiable information to this effect could be added, but let the reader judge who to believe. Deco 00:05, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I am increasingly worried by the fact that some people here seem to think that what passes academic peer review must be true. There are actually examples where people have generated random sentences using a computer program and got their paper accepted in a peer-reviewed journal! Much of what is published in peer-reviewed journals is controversial, otherwise nobody would be interested in publishing it in the first place!
A Draconian measure would be having a "moving wall" which meant that articles younger than x years (maybe 3 or 5?) could only be discussed by giving an alternative view to the "novelty" element of the publication (since any hypothesis has flaws - theories can be useful, not true - this should not be difficult to do, and in most cases, the peer-reviewed literature will only have the ). Otherwise wikipedia will itself be seriously prone to citation bias, where only extraordinary new things will get written about, much of which will prove wrong a few years down the line. There is at least some virtue in conservatism! There are a few editors here who have a habit of digging out off-the-wall papers and editing their contents into articles straight away.
The policy discusses what reputable publications are, but a peer-reviewed journal would have to be very young (and hence not yet reputable) to have never published a false claim!
I don't particularly favour the idea of a moving wall, and will write again when I come up with something better, but there should be a guideline on managing this problem. If anyone else has ideas, I'd be more than glad to hear them! - Samsara 17:31, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Harald88, your model works well for articles that are being watched by many people. Publicising the conclusion of a published article in a less visited wikipedia item, without checking for alternate points of view (in the published literature), can have serious consequences, however. Remember that all you need for your article to pass as "peer-reviewed" is to get two favourable reviews. Maybe those reviewers just happen to agree with you, but the rest of the community may have serious reservations. On wikipedia, we would be stuck with the minority view until someone knowledgeable enough to raise an eyebrow comes along, and (hopefully) gives a more balanced discussion.
What you may also be unaware of is that when you submit articles to peer-reviewed journals, you are often asked to give a list of suggested referees, usually a number between five and eight. You can also ask for particular people to be excluded as referees. So in reality, you exclude those who you know are hostile to your work and put all your friends down on the "suggested" list. We have to realise that this has consequences for wikipedia! - Samsara contrib talk 14:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I know that personal interviews are considered original research, and thus are not allowed as a source. But what about personal interviews that were done some time ago for the purpose of publication elsewhere? Can I cite my own published work?
Specifically, several years ago, I worked as a newspaper reporter. During that time, I did interviews with a few people whom I believe should have articles in Wikipedia. Since that information was published (albeit under my byline), can it be used? (The subjects never disputed the accuracy of what I wrote.)
-- Michael J 01:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
"One of the keys to writing good encyclopedia articles is to understand that they should refer only to facts, assertions, theories, ideas, claims, opinions, and arguments that have already been published by a reputable publisher."
The basic implication here is that Wikipedia will only promote propaganda. The facts regarding law in the United States are very easy to verify. But the above rules have a very serious stultifying effect on criticisms of the legal system in the USA.
There is no doubt that a large cross section of the American public believe that lawyers and the legal system have a bad smell. The problem is that the pro-lawyer arguments are published in force by reputable authority and publishers. This is because the status quo has a very serious interest in maintaining itself.
The arguments against the legal system are much more difficult. This is proven by the fact that at present there is no effective criticism of the legal system and the lawyers in Wikipedia. The apologists for the lawyers are relying on this particular rule here to squelch all criticism.
It seems to me that it is far better to have a poorly written and poorly researched criticism of lawyers and the USA legal system than no criticism at all. A badly written criticism of the lawyers and the legal system will only get better with age. No criticism will only remain that which it is, propaganda. LegalEagle1798 00:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Since making my initial post, I have read the project page more carefully and the basic problem here is that all of Wikipedia is original research. If you remove original research, you have WikiArchive. Once primary sources and secondary sources or whatever are edited or paraphrased that turns them into original research. There is no turning to the right or the left of this. The issue is not whether an article is original research, for they all are, but only as to degree.
All the articles in Wikipedia are original research but most of them are accepted as properly written according to the rules for practical reasons. If this rule were to be strictly followed Wikipedia would not be possible. Certainly, for example the mathematics articles in Wikipedia are original research. There are uncounted numbers of mathematics sources, and selecting the ideas and form that goes into Wikepedia is original research. If this is true for mathematics, it must be true for every subject and it is true for every subject.
In articles that involve propaganda this rule takes on an insidious character. For example in articles that involve the law and the lawyers this rule enforces censorship and denies criticism. If propaganda is allowed in Wikipedia this makes Wikipedia a tool for propaganda. The apologists for propaganda can always censor all criticism by simply labeling it original research. This will always have effect since everything on Wikipedia is original research, but almost by definition propaganda will be original research to a lesser degree than any criticism of propaganda. This must be true because the status quo will have more legitimacy than anyone or any thing critical of it. LegalEagle1798 06:47, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I want to ask a question, as I don't know how to react. User:Vald adds his own translations of poems to the articles on Russian poets, e.g., here. I'm not a native English speaker; please clarify whether this may be classified as original research and whether the quality of his translations is sufficient to be kept. Or, perhaps, such poems should be moved to Wikiquote? I don't want to offend a potentially valuable contributor, so I'm asking someone more knowledgable to look into the matter. -- Ghirla | talk 13:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it should be called "original research." I've seen several people think that it means reporting information from primary sources. Many times I've been accused of original research for doing that --not making synthetic arguments or anything like that, but simply paraphrasing a quote from a primary source and providing a reference link for it. A lot of newbies think the rule against original research means that only research from secondary sources is allowed. "Original research" should be called "unsourceable research" or better yet, "unsourceable assertions." It would be much more readily understandable as to what is meant. RJII 04:12, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I am relatively new to Wikipedia but I also read carefully the policy, which is a good combination to have a fresh opinion on this question, and I also think the title is far from expressing the core of the policy. However, I think the alternative "No unsourceable research" is not really better. The key point is that this policy is not only useful to suppress viewpoints that are not well established, but also and more often to preserve the integrity of well established viewpoints. For example, the sentence :"Joe, which is well known to have been convicted for sexual abuse against young children [ref], says that every young child should do whatever any adult ask. [ref]" does not attack the integrity of any well establised viewpoint. However, consider the following: "Joe, a catholic priest [ref], says that every young child should do whatever any adult ask. [ref]" If given its context, this last sentence appears to present the catholic viewpoint, to preserve the integrity of the catholic viewpoint, it must be sourced in a reputable publication for the catholic viewpoint. For this example, such a source does not exist, I think. Note that Joe might be the same person in both sentences. This means that we are not forced to suppress the viewpoint of Joe here, but only to present it in a different context. This example illustrates that the most important purpose of the requirement for a reputable source is not to suppress information, but to preserve the integrity of well established viewpoints. The above example was about the catholic viewpoint, but the same principle applies to the scientific viewpoint. Perhaps it is even more often the case that we need to protect the integrity of science than we have to protect the integrity of a religion, but the principle is universal and applies to all established viewpoints, religious or whatever. In particular, it is clear that what constitute a reputable publisher depends on the content that is sourced and how and in which context it is presented. -- Lumière 21:06, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Recently the Template:Game of Go position, which is like the chess template generates a Go board at a specific position for articles, was changed to use an original coordinate system. There are several systems used in the literature and on Internet servers most of which share a number of features but none of which look like this. I complained on the talk page (but did not revert) that it strikes me as original research (even though personally I think it is probably easier to follow), it would be incompatible with other published accounts of games such as the one in this article ( Cho Chikun) a reader going over a published account and analysis of the game would have a hard time checking out version for correctness or simply using the two together. Is this original research enough as to be reverted? Dalf | Talk 07:07, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
It is wrong to have a general requirement for a reputable publisher that is independent of the content and the way it is presented. The policy already indicates that the definition of reputable publisher is different for academic contents than it is for less rigourous contents. So the idea that the requirement depends on the contents and the way it is presented is there, but it is not clear enough. This is a very important aspect of the policy and it should be presented very clearly. For example, if a content is clearly the viewpoint of the catholics (the religion) and it is presented as such, a publication from the Vatican is perfectlty fine to source that viewpoint. However, if the Vatican itself enters into a scientific debate, just because the debate itself as some scientific pretention, then the Vatican's opinion in that debate automatically gains some scientific pretention as well and must be sourced in a reputable independent scientific publication. I don't think this is clear enough in the current formulation of the policy. -- Lumière 18:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
See also my comment in #Change the name of "original research" to "unsourceable research". -- Lumière 21:09, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Someone added to "secondary sources": "This should include websites." That's unclear and likely open for discussion; thus I put it here for clarification. Harald88 20:28, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Can someone get rid of the "this page has been cited by..." from the top of this talk page? Yes, it's all nice to give ourselves a pat on the back, but it's really irrelevant and counterproductive to anything we're trying to achieve here. Maybe these citations could be collected somewhere else? Stevage 21:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Can someone explain to me in simple terms what is the connection between the division Primary/Secondary sources and the other division Original/Not Original research? -- Lumière 21:39, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Also, is the term "sources" in the expressions "primary sources" and "secondary sources" the same as the term "sources" in the expression "reputable sources" used in WP:verifiability? If yes, can a primary source be a reputable souce? -- Lumière 21:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I am confused. If the primary/secondary source division has nothing to do with original research, why exactly do we have a section about it in a policy about original research? -- Lumière 02:09, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I am still confused. Maybe if you just explained with an example why people have to understand the primary/secondary source division to understand how the no original research policy works, i.e. to understand the rule in itself. Maybe it is not needed to understand the rule in itself, but it is some kind of motivation behind it. If that is the situation, it is a motivation that I have a hard time to understand, but I would like to understand it. -- Lumière 04:04, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I think I understand now. There is just one sentence that you wrote that I believe is incorrect: "all original research is primary source material". This did not help, but it is not what confused me originally. One thing that confused me originally, but not anymore, is that the two following sentences are not in contradiction, but appear to be in contradiction: "[using] a primary source need not be original research." and "Wikipedia is itself an encyclopedia and should exclusively be written as a secondary source, not a primary source.". The basic point here is that it is fine to use reputable primary sources in a wikipedia article, but the overall article itself should not be a primary source, which means that it should be more than just a simple collection of primary source materials without any analysis, generalization, etc. However, the thing that confused me the most orginally is that there is a folk belief in the Wikipedia community that no orginal research means only that all contents must have a reputable source. From what I understand now, it is possible to explain this main rule of the no original research policy without making any reference to primary/secondary source, but there is an additional rule in this policy: an article that is presented as a primary source, even if it contains only reputable primary source materials, is still not acceptable for inclusion in Wikipedia. --
Lumière
14:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Now that I believe I understand, I would say that the current organization and formulation of the policy should be improved. In particular, the additional rule is not the most important and it is confusing to essentially begin the explanation of the no original research policy with this rule. There should be earlier in the text two or three sentences that present the wholeness and mention that there is a main rule and an additional rule. Better, I would even suggest that we move the additional rule and all references to the primary/secondary source division into a separate policy. --
Lumière
14:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I read again the policy, and I realize that it is not what I explained in the striked comment above. I am still confused. I guess what confuses me is that most of the policy simply say that we must have contents with a reputable source and most people seem to be believe that this is what "no orginal research" means in practice. So, why do we need to refer to the primary/secondary source division? -- Lumière 14:41, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
The above is a cut and paste of a comment that was written before by Friday. Friday, I hope you do not mind that I took your comment out of context, but I wounder if this a part of the explanation that I am looking for? -- Lumière 15:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Let me give my interpretation of Friday's comment by adding what I believe was implicit in this comment:
Is this a good interpretation? Clearly the addition of the two "reputable" makes sense. The addition of "that is not entirely..." also makes sense because clearly we should hope that a wikipia article will be used as a secondary source by others. If this interpretation is correct, then I can unstrike my striked comment because it is what I previously understood. -- Lumière 15:54, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Also, one can observe that Friday's comment makes no formal use of the distinction between primary and secondary sources. It is formally equivallent to:
Clearly, there is something implicit behind the last "source". This is what my interpretation provides. However, my interpretation distinguishes primary and secondary sources. Wikipedia is not intended to be a primary source at all. It is not intended to be a secondary source that is supported through internal review. Instead, as a secondary source it must be supported by external reputable sources. This interpretation is also consistent with Deco's explanations. So, I start to believe that it might be correct. Any opinion? -- Lumière 17:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I have a problem with the "Where no agreement can be reached about this, the article should provide an account of the controversy and of the different authorities or sources." Can someone provide examples to illustrate what this means because I do not think that we can implement this approach in a way that is acceptable in an encyclopedia. The point is that a discussion on sources will be controversial and totally off topic. Also, the sources that must be used to support the arguments in such a discussion are unlikely to be easy to find, and whatever sources will be found will most likely be not more acceptable than the sources that are discussed. Should these other sources also be discussed? This can go forever. This approach seems totally unrealistic. Such a discussion is necessary, of course, but it does not need to be a part of the article. If there is no agreement, the editors should use standard means such as Rfc. This is much more reasonable and can only improve the quality of the outcome because it calls for additional expertise. -- Lumière 23:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Fortunately, in many cases there is little ambiguity about what constitutes a reputable source. For example, the policy is reasonably clear about what is a reputable scholarly publication. -- Lumière 23:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I added some text describing the motivation for NOR. Please review for accuracy and add any suitable citations that you know of. The idea is to simultaneously describe why NOR is necessary and give a clear-cut, concrete of example of the sort of thing it prevents, while giving a little history too. If there's strong opposition to this addition it's okay to remove it. Deco 00:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
The above paragraph was just added to the section "Why do we exclude original research?" of the policy by an anon IP. I took it to this talk page because I think it should be discussed. The first problem with this proposal is that when you start to explain that the theory is not serious, you are doing original research. There is a much more serious problem because, as it is stated now, this proposal says that this ridiculous story can be added in a serious article about the expansion of the universe. I do think that the above paragraph leads to a valid point, but clearly many issues need to be clarify. As I try to argue before (see #The way the policy is setup is not clear.), the solution is to consider that what is a reputable source depends on the contribution and its context. For example, it makes no sense that this ridiculous story polutes an otherwise serious scientific article. This is taken care if we use the fact that to add a contribution in a scientific context, a reputable scientific source is required. There is no real issue that this ridiculous story is added in an article about strange stories. -- Lumière 21:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
As counter-intuitive as it seems, I'd like to note that there's a built-in bias against providing sourced research on Wikipedia. There are a number of Wikipedia "editors" who do little or no searching for sources, but rather try to prevent the sourced research that others have found that conflicts with their POV from being added into articles. They'll claim it's a "misinterpretation" of the sources, so the researcher/editor is relegated to simply providing direct qoutes. Then the POV-motivated critics come along and claim that the quotes are taken out of context, and claims of "original research" are renewed. This applies to both primary and secondary sources. God forbid adding any explanatory editorial among the quotes at all, lest there are claims of "original research" there as well. So, you can't have an article with all quotes, you can't have an article with no quotes, and you can't have an article with any explanation of sources or quotes. Ultimately, the editor is taken to arbitration and he is banned for "original research." Even for the most honest of editors, it's a no-win situation if original research is claimed. There must be a better way. RJII 21:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
RJII, I followed your link to your arbitration. I just read quickly the arbitration page. I did not have the time to follow links inside that page. From an external perspective, your case looks good. I personally think that Wikipedia is very hard for any new comer that comes with a view to defend. The opponents tend to attack you every time you break a small rule, and many times they even refer to rule that are not official. When one is under constant attacks, some of these attacks being very rude, one can easily lose his temper. I see that you did not lose your temper, perhaps a little. IMO, you are doing fine! -- Lumière 20:20, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
There is another bias against sourced research - sometimes a new article is created which includes external links and/or references, and the article is voted for deletion — because the voters think it is copied from the source(s). If the contributor had neglected to add references, the article would probably have been less likely to be deleted! I know several newbies who were turned off Wikipedia when this happened to articles they created. ··gracefool | ☺ 01:03, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Copied from the section "The role of expert editors". I think that the purpose of this sentence is just to summarize what was said in the section, which is that experts do not have more right to present original research than any other editors. I think we should be more direct to the point. The fact is that experts do play a special role in Wikipedia articles. We still need them to understand source articles and present their content fairly with no original research. It is fine that a few experts on a topic determine together that some source articles are well represented in some WP article on that topic. A non expert will have to understand these source articles before he can argue against them. In particular, a non expert cannot use his own ignorance to argue that most of the content must be replaced with exact quotes from these articles. This will significantly reduce the quality of the article and discourage these experts from contributing in Wikipedia. IMO, we have to count on the fact that many experts will be interested in this article and check it for neutral point of view and especially for no original research. There is a tag to call for expertize on a topic. Perhaps we should mention it in that section. -- Lumière 05:40, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Lumiere, not to be rude, but in the past 50 edits as of now, 33 are from you, and I don't see a single substantive suggestion. Some were questions, which I hope have been answered to your satisfaction. Many of the remainder seem to be commentary with no clear focus. Would it be possible for you to muse in your head, rather than on this page, then if you find you have a clear suggestion for improvement to post it here with your reasoning? It would help people to understand what suggestion(s) you may actually have. Thanks - KillerChihuahua ?!? 14:06, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Someone is deleting a claim that a person is a member of Sigma Xi, the honorary Scientific Research Society, so I emailed the Society to make sure and they responded that the person is indeed an active member. They don't have a printed book where the names are listed --it's all in a computer database. What do I do? How can I cite it? Is this original research? I'm sure the editor will continue deleting it, unless I have a way to cite it. RJII 03:17, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Draft proposal: Change
to
We should perhaps even add a new sentence (just before the last sentence) to invite non expert editors to not interfer when to the best of their endeavours the expert editors respect WP policy. -- Lumière 07:10, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
My mistake if you had the impression that it was a poll! The purpose of this draft is to stimulate thoughtful comments. BTW, this section has no real policy content. Even the fact that expert editors did not receive any previlege is redundant. It could be moved to a guideline. There is no need to vote. -- Lumière 14:51, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Who is to say who is an expert and who is not an expert? Further, ONLY references to sources count. If I can disprove an "expert" by googling something I know very little about and can find a GOOD source that proves the expert wrong, then that source is what matters and not who is an "expert". Interpretation differences must also be about finding futher sources that define the terms, provide context, etc. WAS 4.250 18:04, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
The phrase "original research" originated primarily as a practical means to deal with physics cranks, of which of course there are a number on the Web. The basic concept is as follows: It can be quite difficult for us to make any valid judgment as to whether a particular thing is true or not. It isn't appropriate for us to try to determine whether someone's novel theory of physics is valid; we aren't really equipped to do that. But what we can do is check whether or not it actually has been published in reputable journals or by reputable publishers. So it's quite convenient to avoid judging the credibility of things by simply sticking to things that have been judged credible by people much better equipped to decide. The exact same principle will hold true for history
What an embarrassing statement. "practical means to deal with physics cranks" sounds like wikipedia is one of those flame-ridden usenet groups. This is also undoubtedly insulting to whoever get labeled as such person. Please raise the bar of civility here. This isn't helping it.
The whole paragraph sounds to me like wikipedia editors are some "counter crankism unit" in a holy war against the evil "charlatans" or "crackpots" or whatever. Note that many of the so-called "cranks" honestly believe in their theories and have spent a lot of time developing them. ( Alchemy was just as "crankish" but it inspired developments in "real science")
Such hostility is really useless. Politely asking "please show me a journal where your work is published (in accordance with the wikipedia policy)" will do the job just as well. -- Anon84.x 20:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Here's a recent "real life" case for you to analyse. In the Bigfoot article, User:Beckjord has presented his published theory that Bigfoots might actually exist: (let's ignore whether this is actually true or not)
Of course, over the history many such theories were made by many researchers. The question is, how much prominence should be given to Beckjord's theory?
The NPOV policy gives a vague principle in which if a theory is "significant minority" it should be mentioned. But what exactly does "significant minority" means? is it significant minority of the general population? of wikipedians? of experts?. And also, what makes a minority "significant". What makes a view significant? are there answers to this questions covered by real policies, and not wikpedia's "street rules"? -- Anon84.x 22:21, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
If editors want to engage in "conversations" rather than gathering consensus for specific proposals for the improvement of this policy, I would suggest they susbcribe to the mailing list or handle these conversations on IRC at #wikipedia-en. Thank you. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:24, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
This edit relates to the overall organization of the policy and its connection with other policies and guidelines. Lumière 11:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Keepers of the policy needed. I'm amazed that people are actually voting in an AfD that it's not that important to avoid original research, and keeping an article that is pure original research is ok. They're obviously uninformed voters and an anon's aggressive wording is not helping thing, as some voters are voting to be contradictory to the anon. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Longest streets in London. - Taxman Talk 16:29, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I just had a look at the vote and arguments there. Perhaps people working on this page should take a keen look too. I would contend that reading distances off a map is no more original research than citing a book written in French. Someone has gone out and measured streets, made notes, and then translated that information into a map. Which is supposed to be an easy to use, accurate, graphical representation of that information, just as words printed on a page represent information devised by someone who strung those words together. A different language, but both do exactly the same task. Now it is being argued that because something is represented in a drawing instead of words, it is an inadmissable source. English is a pretty repetitious language, only 26 letters. So what about Chinese? If I have to get out a dictionary and look up every single character to see what a text means, does that invalidate it as a reference? can't cite Egyptian Hieroglyphics, because only 100 people in the whole world can read them? I bet a lot more people can read a distance straight off a map than can read those. Sandpiper 01:28, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
This is weird! When you follow the wikilinks for primary and secondary sources (which are provided in the project page), the explanation of these concepts that you obtain is only meaningful in the context of the work of historians. This is weird because we are not only constructing history when we create Wikipedia. - Lumière 04:03, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
"If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;"
"If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia""
I agree - this is the sort of thing editors on a given page should try to work out on a case-by-case basis. If they cannot reach consensus, then there is probably a deeper problem in the discussion and more specific guidelines will not help. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:36, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Katefan0 reverted an edit I made to the article that contained multiple changes. Because she did not instead simply edit the changes she disagreed with, I'm not sure what parts were objectionable. I've modified and restored my edits, and am commenting here on some specific parts of my changes, to further discussion.
Thanks! - O^O 00:22, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
I am the one who pointed out this edit to O^O, and I also noticed that it was not really discussed in the talk page. Nevertheless, the sentence
is perfectly fine. As Slim pointed out, it appears to contain an inconsistency, but actually it does not. This sentence makes perfect sense, and it was the policy for months. Here is why it makes perfect sense. The analytical, evaluative, etc. content of an article is its essential content. Every thing else are just basic ingredients that are used in this essential content. Because of its evaluative, analytical, etc. aspects, the support for this essential content should be secondary sources, not primary sources. This is not in contradiction with the fact that we can also cite primary sources because, while reporting what is published in secondary sources, it is very natural to cite primary sources, the basic ingredients. Therefore, I think that we should keep the sentence as it was for the last months. As it was, it conveyed an important understanding. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 22:14, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I understand that removing "secondary" from the sentence can help remove an apparent contradiction, but it also remove an important understanding. Therefore, instead of removing it, we should simply add a sentence that says that it is normal to also cite primary sources when we report what was published in reputable secondary sources. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 16:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
I completely disagree if you mean that we can report on this official trial transcript, used as a primary source, without any secondary source to provide the context. In accordance with policy, you would have to avoid any interpretation, any evaluative claim, etc. on top of this official transcript, if you want to include it without a secondary source to support this context. This is almost impossible and not what we want to do anyway when we report on such a primary source. You miss the point that "used as a primary source" means used as a basic ingredient without any interpretation, evaluative claim, etc. on top of it. By definition, you must have a secondary source to provide this context. An example where this context is not provided would be an article that is only a list of primary source data, without any interpretation on top of this list, but this must violate What Wikipedia is not, I think. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 16:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
In view of the above discussion, it seems necessary to clarify what is the usefulness of the expressions primary source and secondary source in the policy. Below are the only three occurences of the expression "primary source" or "secondary source" in isolation in the policy, as recently modified by User:SlimVirgin. The significance of these two expressions relies entirely on these three occurences:
I claim that the two expressions "primary source" or "secondary source" have an unclear significance in the policy, unless we keep the sentence
which uses the expression secondary source in isolation. Please prove me wrong by explaining the significance of the expressions primary source and secondary source as expressed in the three above occurences of the expression "primary source" in isolation in the policy. Note that in the next section I argue that the sentence Original research that creates primary sources is not allowed. can be replaced by Original research is not allowed. This means that only the last two phrases determine the usefulness of the expressions "primary sources" and "secondary sources". - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 04:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I understand that the policy distinguishes between (1) primary-source material and (2) generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of information or data. I understand that primary-source material can be sourced in primary sources, but not generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of information or data. The required sources for this other kind of material are by definition used as secondary sources, not as primary sources. In other words, this other kind of material is secondary-source material. I understand that we can cite a primary source such as an official trial transcript to include some primary-source material in the article, but we cannot provide any generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of this material, that is, you cannot provide any secondary source material to discuss this primary source material, unless you provide a secondary source to support it. The problem is that such a secondary source material is necessary to see how the primary source material fits in the article. Therefore, you cannot have the primary source material without an associated secondary source material to provide the context.
If the connection with the article is implicit, it is the equivalent of an implicit interpretation of the primary source material, and this interpretation is secondary source material. For example, the use of such primary source material to create an insinuation is not allowed. An insinuation is very bad and against policy. For example, as a primary source-material, an official trial transcript says nothing bad about the defendant. For example, this transcript can be used as a criticism of a witness in the trial or of the trial itself in an article that is in support of the defendant. A reference to this transcript in the context of a criticism of the defendant corresponds to an implicit interpretation of this primary source material. Whatever is insinuated from a trial transcript or any other primary source material should be explicitly stated and sourced in a secondary source, or else the primary source material that creates the insinuation should be removed. The same is true for any implicit secondary source material, insinuation or not, that is normally created when a primary-source material is added in an article. Therefore, [the essential content of] the article normally reports what is already published in secondary sources. The exceptions are the articles with no significant implicit or explicit secondary source material such as the apple pie and the current events articles.
I would be interested to know which are these articles that only report on primary sources. Could you please provide the wikilinks? They might be examples similar to the apple pie article, which would not be a contradiction. There is also the possibility that they are controversial articles that violates [my interpretation of] the policy. Obviously, there are plenty of articles that violate the policy, and the articles you have in mind could be some of these. Note that the sentence "Wikipedia is a tertiary source" entirely supports my point. However, my point also stands by itself using common sense and the definitions of primary sources and secondary sources, and this is much more important.
BTW, it is clear that a tertiary source can also provide links to primary sources. For example, it makes no sense to request that a review article, say on molecular surface, cannot give a reference to some original pictures or any other form of primary sources that are important ingredients in the secondary sources that are reviewed. Certainly, primary-source material remain interesting and can be cited in a tertiary source. This is not at all in contradiction with the fact that a tertiary source reports on secondary sources. The logic is simple and easily understood. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 13:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I guess they are not tertiary sources, but they are considered exceptions in the policy. I do not suggest that we delete these articles. The worst case scenario will be to look harder to find secondary sources when the analysis or evaluative part starts to become more important. I think we are in agreement. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 19:59, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Just to continue, there are movies and books that are highly controversial. I understand that, as you clearly pointed out, they are not the pages that you are thinking about. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 20:25, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Let us consider the following paragraph.
IMO, the part "primary and/or secondary" in "primary and/or secondary sources" is uneccessary. It is important to go directly to the point and remove any uneccessary expressions such as "primary and/or secondary" whenever possible. If anyone see a real purpose to "primary and/or secondary" in the above, let me know what it is. Otherwise, I propose to remove it. We obtain:
Moreover, IMO, the first sentence
is implied by the simpler statement
Some original research creates primary sources, but original research may also create secondary sources. Any original research is not allowed. It cannot be wrong to replace a statement by another one that contains all the information that is provided in the original statement. Therefore, I suggest the followoing:
If there is a any difference (in terms of what is allowed or not allowed by the policy) between this paragraph and the original paragraph, let me know what it is. Otherwise, I propose that we use the last version instead of the original version that contains uneccessary expressions.
Note that the proposed paragraph has nothing to do with primary and secondary sources. Moreover, it would fit very well at the beginning of the section "What is original research?" We obtain:
In this way, the purpose of the second paragraph is to clarify that, even though new interpretation, analysis, etc. is not allowed, it is fine to collect and organize information from existing sources. Looks good to me. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 04:11, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, and because it is a modification at the presentation level that does not change at all the meaning of the policy, I will implement it. Of course, whoever thinks that we have missed something, can discuss it here. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 19:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Consider the paragrah:
I have no idea what is the purpose of the terms "authority" and authorities in this paragraph. They suddenly appear out of nowhere and they are not mentioned anywhere else in the policy. Perhaps the objective was to refer to the authority of the adherents to a view. It is indeed important to consider how prominent (and authoritative) are the adherents to a view, but this is a part of the Neutral point of view policy, not of the no original research policy. To keep the focus on the no original research policy, I propose to remove "authority or" and "authorites or". We obtain:
Any objection? - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 21:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
For the record: I categorically object to every suggestion Étincelle/Lumiere has made, and indeed will make in the future, unless I specifically state I endorse. I cannot waste my time opposing every specious suggestion made by this individual because of his phrasing, which implies if there is not a specific oppose voiced it denotes consent. Silence denotes opposition insofar as my position. KillerChihuahua ?!? 21:11, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
What is the problem? Someone understand what is going on? Is it that I am not a member of the gang or something like that. Should I pass some kind of initiation or test to be part of the gang? I know it is not because I am only a three months old editor because some people have been editors for very long and have met the same problem as me as soon as they tried to improve the policy in an intelligent way. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 21:29, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Don't be mistaken. This edit is not a reversal of position. Perhaps that he was just afraid that I could accuse him of obvious personal attacks, but the essential attitude did not change. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 22:00, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
In view of the above discussion, it seems necessary to clarify what is the usefulness of the expressions primary source and secondary source in the policy. Below are the only three occurences of the expression "primary source" or "secondary source" in isolation in the policy, as recently modified by User:SlimVirgin. The significance of these two expressions relies entirely on these three occurences:
I claim that the two expressions "primary source" or "secondary source" have an unclear significance in the policy, unless we keep the sentence
which uses the expression secondary source in isolation. Please prove me wrong by explaining the significance of the expressions primary source and secondary source as expressed in the three above occurences of the expression "primary source" in isolation in the policy. Note that in the previous sections I argue that the sentence Original research that creates primary sources is not allowed. can be replaced by Original research is not allowed. This means that only the last two phrases determine the usefulness of the expressions "primary sources" and "secondary sources". - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 04:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I understand that the policy distinguishes between (1) primary-source material and (2) generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of information or data. I understand that primary-source material can be sourced in primary sources, but not generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of information or data. The required sources for this other kind of material are by definition used as secondary sources, not as primary sources. In other words, this other kind of material is secondary-source material. I understand that we can cite a primary source such as an official trial transcript to include some primary-source material in the article, but we cannot provide any generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of this material, that is, you cannot provide any secondary source material to discuss this primary source material, unless you provide a secondary source to support it. The problem is that such a secondary source material is necessary to see how the primary source material fits in the article. Therefore, you cannot have the primary source material without an associated secondary source material to provide the context.
If the connection with the article is implicit, it is the equivalent of an implicit interpretation of the primary source material, and this interpretation is secondary source material. For example, the use of such primary source material to create an insinuation is not allowed. An insinuation is very bad and against policy. For example, as a primary source-material, an official trial transcript says nothing bad about the defendant. For example, this transcript can be used as a criticism of a witness in the trial or of the trial itself in an article that is in support of the defendant. A reference to this transcript in the context of a criticism of the defendant corresponds to an implicit interpretation of this primary source material. Whatever is insinuated from a trial transcript or any other primary source material should be explicitly stated and sourced in a secondary source, or else the primary source material that creates the insinuation should be removed. The same is true for any implicit secondary source material, insinuation or not, that is normally created when a primary-source material is added in an article. Therefore, [the essential content of] the article normally reports what is already published in secondary sources. The exceptions are the articles with no significant implicit or explicit secondary source material such as the apple pie and the current events articles.
I would be interested to know which are these articles that only report on primary sources. Could you please provide the wikilinks? They might be examples similar to the apple pie article, which would not be a contradiction. There is also the possibility that they are controversial articles that violates [my interpretation of] the policy. Obviously, there are plenty of articles that violate the policy, and the articles you have in mind could be some of these. Note that the sentence "Wikipedia is a tertiary source" entirely supports my point. However, my point also stands by itself using common sense and the definitions of primary sources and secondary sources, and this is much more important.
BTW, it is clear that a tertiary source can also provide links to primary sources. For example, it makes no sense to request that a review article, say on molecular surface, cannot give a reference to some original pictures or any other form of primary sources that are important ingredients in the secondary sources that are reviewed. Certainly, primary-source material remain interesting and can be cited in a tertiary source. This is not at all in contradiction with the fact that a tertiary source reports on secondary sources. The logic is simple and easily understood. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 13:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I guess they are not tertiary sources, but they are considered exceptions in the policy. I do not suggest that we delete these articles. The worst case scenario will be to look harder to find secondary sources when the analysis or evaluative part starts to become more important. I think we are in agreement. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 19:59, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Just to continue, there are movies and books that are highly controversial. I understand that, as you clearly pointed out, they are not the pages that you are thinking about. - Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 20:25, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Contrary to the above, in my experience nearly all original publications about certain subjects (which I assume to be "primary sources") contain, using the same phrasing as above, "analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of information or data".
With that interpretation, "secondary sources" necessarily should mean "generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation" of analysis and/or interpretation by such primary sources.
Simply put (but only as a rule-of-thumb), in my interpretation primary sources contain and/or provide the simple facts (data) as well as analysis and possible interpretation, while secondary sources contain alternative analysis, interpretation and viewpoints.
Consequently, as most(?) primary sources provide not only the bare data but also interpretation and context (this is certainly the case with mainstream science articles, as such is generally required for good papers), in many cases no or little such secondary sources are required, or even useful. Secondary sources are wirth mentioning in case of notable disputes and differences of opinion, which generally are discussed in secondary sources. Secondary sources require notability.
Because of the differnt possible interpretations of what is meant with "primary" and "secondary", and the obscure usefulness relating to this subject of NOR, I think that Lumiere's proposals to eliminate much of that jargon makes perfect sense.
BTW, it may be worth to include (cite) more of Jimbo's explanations. From reading his remarks I think that he was pretty clear about his motive for NOR as well as what he had in mind, and it appears that this is slowly being forgotten, with the risk that the potential quality of articles may be affected. Harald88 19:38, 7 March 2006 (UTC)