User talk:Vassyana/Sources proposal

This proposal was revised. The working draft of the revision is found at User:Vassyana/Sources proposal/Revision. It has no been imported to the main draft. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vassyana (talk • contribs) 03:29, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

Quibbles

I don't have a firm opinion here yet, but I do have one quibble. Bede dod not write a "History of England" he wrote The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is not quite the same thing. I also don't think that Bede is the best example for your distinction between primary and auxilliary sources. To quote our article "After AD 596, documentary sources, which Bede took pains to obtain throughout England and from Rome, are used, as well as oral testimony, which he employed along with critical consideration of its authenticity.", which sounds a lot like your description of a secondary source. Dsmdgold 02:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Bede is wikilinked. Title of work is corrected. I generally avoided the argument of whether Bede, Tacitus, et al are primary or secondary sources. Please note that the standards for secondary reliable sources in this draft include being current, or up-to date. Under this proposal, Tacitus and Bede would be considered auxiliary sources are they are historical, or out-of-date. Vassyana 04:02, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

For reference

• Wikipedia:Classification of sources

• PSTS[1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vassyana (talk • contribs) 23:29, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

Other criteria

I honestly appreciate the motive behind "reliable" sources, but I have lingering NPOV concerns. That said, I think there are other criteria that are more clearly in line with NPOV, arguably as important as reliability, and in my experience actually greater sources of conflict. Specifically:

• notability (I think it allows for more diverse views to be included than the current description of "reliable", and it can still be measured)
• relevance - many times POV pushers fight their battles by using sources that are just not relevant to the topic.

One last thing: I think one of the major threats to the quality of our articles is not the choice of sources used but the ways many editors misrepresent them either through a misinterpretation or selective quotes (i.e. an incomplete representation, or a misinterpretation by taking something out of context). If we really want to revise our policies concerning sources, I think how people use sources - and I don't just mean using them to promote their own views or the author's views, but how sources are drawn on for quotes or summarized in ways that may seem to present a publisheed author's view, but in fact misrepresents it ... these issues too should be on the agenda somewhere. Slrubenstein | Talk —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slrubenstein (talk • contribs) 15:56, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Very good so far

Thanks for taking the effort to do this, it looks very good so far, though may have other input. As far as the NOR policy goes though, "I" think it would make much more sense if this was the basis for a "guideline", and not as a replacement for the NOR "Sources" section. The NOR page could reference this new "Guideline" in regards to sources, and if there were any objections or problems with this, then the discussion and edit wars can take place here, instead of on the NOR page. Just my thopughts on the matter. wbfergus 16:57, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! It generally seemed agreeable to most people who took the time to read it over. I think you're right that this probably is not appropriate for the Sources section. This addresses the issue in more depth in terms of sourcing that the NOR page should. I'm collecting my thoughts for the NOR page alone. For the portion that deals explicitly with reliable sourcing, I raised the ideas of relevance and recency/credibility on WT:RS. This really seems better as an essay (and perhaps later, a guideline) talking about using sources in compliance with V, RS and NOR. It could probably be expanded and revised somewhat to take NPOV into fuller account. If this became a guideline, I would say it would about how the three core content policies and the dependent guideline work together in the use of sources, or a similar focus. I'm marking it as an essay, but I'll be taking the appropriate ideas and bringing them up at policy/guideline pages and working on expanding/revising this essay towards the goal of a source use guideline. Thanks for your thoughts! Vassyana 18:05, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

You are much better at this than I would be, but I have a couple other thougts that may help. If this can eventually become a new replacement for the entire "Sources" section on NOR (and probably other related policies and/or guidelines), it may be beneficial to include some of the existing definitions and examples from the existing pages, Primary source, Secondary source and Tertiary source. Some of those definitions and examples were beneficial to me, but some work would need to be done to figure out how they can be compressed into two categories. I'm thinking about linking the proposal from the rough draft I have for a NOR replacement. Maybe if people can see what I envision for that page, it may make a little more sense to them, after all, I don't think I actually changing the policy, just how it's presented, which is convoluted. wbfergus 12:00, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Auxiliary sources

I'm not comfortable with the word auxiliary, mainly because it seems to result in a "false accuracy", technical feel. Why not just say other sources? Wikipedians like their jargon, and I feel that if you get this change through (and I think it is a great simplification getting back to the point of sourcing) I can just see people citing WP:AUX jargon. Keep it simple. Spenny 16:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)