Wikipedia talk:No original research/Archive 54

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RfC on the relationship between the sourcing policies and guidelines

Input would be appreciated at an RfC to ask whether the sourcing guidelines (such as CITE, IRS, MEDRS) should make clear that the core content polices take priority by saying something like: "In the event of inconsistencies between this page and the policies, the policies take priority, and this guideline should be amended accordingly." Please see the RfC here at IRS. Many thanks, SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 23:45, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Resolving tension between WP:NOR and WP:Plagiarism

Shortly after WP:Plagiarism was promoted, it was suggested the new guideline be relaxed so as not to cause a conflict with WP:NOR. Since then, prohibitions against both Plagiarism and OR have been tightened. Taken independently, tightening either may be beneficial, but by tightening both policies we create a situation where its hard for editors to avoid violating one policy or the other. A recent high profile case that saw an arb retire has been diagnosed as resulting from the tension between WP:NOR and WP:Plagiarism. To guard against this happening again and to make it easier for less experienced editors to write articles without violating policies, maybe we could add a sub section to this policy defining "Good synth" - ways which one can legitimately combine information from multiple sources into single paragraphs and even sentences, which make it much easier to avoid plagiarism and often also for editors to provide informative context for the reader? Alternatively, I guess we could downgrade this policy to a guideline, though this would be a shame as WP:NOR is considered a big reason for the success of the project. FeydHuxtable (talk) 19:34, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I added the suggested sub-section, no objection to it being reverted if any dont like it or think it needs more time for discussion. FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:22, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

There are no bylines on articles in Wikipedia and if a reader tries to check the history for who contributed what to an article, that information is very obscure and difficult to find, so how is plagiarism an issue since editors essentially aren't given credit for their contributions? Seems like any problems between the questionable guideline WP:Plagiarism and WP:NOR have been introduced by the former guideline and that is where the corrective effort should be. --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:32, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree but there seems to be lots of editors who think plagiarism is a big deal, even when the source being closely paraphrased is cited. There might be side benefits in qualifying the guidance on Synth as sometimes it seems to be over applied at AfD discussions as an excuse to delete articles that dont contain original thought. FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:57, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi Feyd, I think this would need to be discussed more widely. It's not entirely clear what kind of thing the second example would refer to. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 09:12, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

==Combining complimentary sources==

Wikipedia does not publish original thought but it does welcome original writing. Providing editors avoid advancing new positions, drawing from multiple sources to support even a single sentence can be a good way of avoiding plagiarism while providing readers with a broad encyclopaedic presentation of a topic. Sources can be complimentary in various ways . A simple example would be when multiple sources provide a fuller picture when taken together, such as when source A points out the reaction to a particular event in one country while source B covers the reaction to the same event in a second country. Another example would be when source A provides an authorative statement of a particular sub topic while source B provides a straightforward definition of a supporting concept that will help the average reader understand, but which source A omitted as it was written for those who already have basic knowledge of the field in question.

I agree that there are problems with the way WP:NOR is being interpreted, and WP:SYNTH is especially troublesome when interpreted incorrectly. I think there should be a few examples of how combing sources is legitimate. Some of the situations where we may need to combine sources to make an understandable and coherent article are:

1. Explaining jargon. Several sources, especially academic journals and high-level textbooks, are targeted towards a far more advanced audience than the average Wikipedia reader. While using these advanced sources in an article is perfectly acceptable, it may be necessary to explain the more technical aspects, possibly using a less-advanced source. Combining an advanced source A with a less advanced source B to explain the technical terms is not original research by synthesis because you are not advancing any new or original ideas not already found in source A. You are merely explaining them in more layman terms.
2. Recognition that two sources are on the same topic. When I wrote the article on SM53 trams, some sources called them "SM53", others called them "Høka". They are the same thing. Recognizing that fact, and deciding to use both sources for the article is not original research.
3. Decisions on the organization of material. If you have plenty of source material where the information can be neatly and encyclopedically summarized in a different form than the source material, then it is not original research to do so, as long as you are not inventing any new information or misrepresenting the source material. Some time back, someone argued that we were not allowed to add Barack Obama to the List of presidents of the United States until someone published such a list with Obama on it; that idea was soundly rejected.
4. Trivially simple interpretations. These are usually so non-controversial that they are no more original research than routine calculations. To source "Alberta borders on Saskatchewan to the east, British Columbia to the west, the Northwest Territories to the north, and the US state of Montana to the south.", it should be enough to point to a map of Canada where the provinces are marked. Even though combining your vocabulary knowledge of compass directions along with the map of Canada to reach this conclusion is technically a kind of synthesis, this is not what WP:NOR was designed to prevent.

To summarize: This policy prohibits original research, but it does not prohibit research. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:21, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi Slim and Sjakkalle, Sjakkalles Point 1 is part of what the second example refers to. It would also refer to pointing out for the reader what a particular phrase means in context, where the authorative source has assumed the reader has the experitise not to need an explanation. We could add something like this:

To illustrate the above, consider a case where we wanted to add the follow information from source A to our article on Capital control: "Flight taxes have attracted more opposition than any other form of capital control" . This is a strong statement about the world, so ideally Source A should be from a top tier source such as a reputable journal. A second editing consideration is that a bright but non expert reader might assume flight tax refers to a tax for travelling by air. So the sentence we add to our article might include a definition of what fight tax means in this context: "The most controversial form of capital control has been the flight tax – a measure where governments confiscate a proportion of an individuals or company’s money if they choose to move it out of the country." The definition of flight tax might be sourced to a standard text book or alternatively the sentence could even remain cited just to source A as the definition could be viewed as common knowledge.

To avoid bloat in the main policy, maybe we could have just 2 -3 sentences about combining complimentary sources, and then include some of the suggestions from myself and Sjakkalle in a sub page? FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:51, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• Cant see how the Sources section already offers guidance on combining sources to support a single sentence? In fact it says "with each statement in the article attributable to a source {singlular} that makes that statement explicitly" . If we allow at least a small part of the Policy to offer some positive advice on how to combine sources, it should come across in a more friendly way to newbies and be more likely to gain buy in. Also it will help avoid repeats of the unfortunate recent cases where prominent editors have been permabanned or retired due to overly close paraphrasing of single sources. FeydHuxtable (talk) 18:12, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Please don't keep adding this, Feyd, unless there's agreement. What does it add that we don't already say, e.g. here: "Despite the need to attribute content to reliable sources, you must not plagiarize them. Articles should be written in your own words while substantially retaining the meaning of the source material." SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 20:51, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

It would add clarity; not every editor is going to interpret the sentence you quote as saying its acceptable to summarise in the ways suggested in WP:Combining Sources . Is it okay to link the essay to the see also section? FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:45, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Is there a gray area between primary and secondary sources?

I'm having a disagreement about an article I revamped about a controversial conservative commentator named Heather Mac Donald. Another editor is challenging my additions, claiming that when I quote Mac Donald, it's a primary source. Here's an example:--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:14, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

“ Secular conservatism. Mac Donald identifies herself as a secular conservative, and argued in USA Today that conservative thinking is superior to liberalism by virtue of the ideas alone, and that religion should not affect the argument. ”

What I'm wondering is: is this an instance of a strictly primary source? Consider that Heather Mac Donald is a commentator. USA Today is a newspaper. USA Today chose to print Mac Donald's views. It's not like Mac Donald wrote something on her own website and I'm quoting it. Rather, there's a reliable publication (a secondary source?) printing Mac Donald's views, saying, in effect, that her views (while controversial) are important, worthy of print, relevant to debate on this topic. If USA prints unreliable or boring commentators, it could lose circulation and respect. Isn't USA Today adding a little weight to the source here? But at the same time, I agree quoting Mac Donald is not a true secondary source -- it's not critic X said Y about Mac Donald (which we all agree is best). My question is: isn't this a case where the source is in that gray area between primary and secondary?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:14, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Here's the problem from another angle. How can any of us write any biographies (particularly about commentators) without ever quoting what the article subject says? As a writer, I'm trying to describe Mac Donald. Why is she notable? Her views. What views are they? Well, what? Here I'm stuck -- if I'm forced to rely only on what other reviewers SAY are her views, I don't think that would be a reliable way to describe them. Why not quote her directly? I think it's perfectly acceptable to have a mix of her views, and views of others (ie real secondary sources), in a mix, and assume that the reader is intelligent enough to know which is which.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:14, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Look at current WP articles on commentators. George Will, Jim Cramer, Liz Cheney, Maureen Dowd, Bill Maher, Jonathan Alter, Charles Krauthammer. These are generally good articles. And they ALL have references quoting the commentator saying something. And not just sporadic references, but MANY references. George Will said this. Bill Maher said that. And I think the references are helpful. IF the "no primary sources" rule is strictly enforced, most of these articles would have to be gutted. What I'm saying is that the de facto standard, particularly regarding biographies on commentators, is that it's perfectly reasonable to include direct quotes when handled responsibly, that it requires judgment, while I agree that secondary sources are preferred.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:14, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

That's a misstatement of the dispute. If one is merely quoting a source, then a primary source is sufficient. However if editors cannot analyze primary sources and draw conclusions from them. Further, the issue in dispute is whether large parts of the article, including entire sections, may be based exclusively on summaries of opinion columns written by the subject. My view is that NOR says that articles should be based on secondary sources, and that primary sources should be used only for illustrative quotes or details. An editor picking and choosing which of her numerous of printed columns or opinion pieces to summarize is a form of OR in itself. We should rely on secondary sources to indicate which of her opinions are noteworthy, and then we can use primary sources to flesh out our discussions of them.   Will Beback  talk  00:57, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

To discuss how this policy applies to the Heather Mac Donald article, please continue the discussion at the No original research/Noticeboard. Thanks--SaskatchewanSenator (talk) 01:46, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that the Primary/Seconday/Tertiary attribute is overemphasized in wp:ver/nor......this is by a policy that does not even talk about objectivity or creditability of the source with respect to the statement that used it as a cite. For example, as a statement of what a person's views are, their self-statemant on this is the best possible source, and 99% of time secondary source coverage of such a statement will only degrade the information. North8000 (talk) 13:32, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:04, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. Let's take the example of a person whose views change over time. Articles written at the end or beginning of their career could be inaccurate sources for their core views. In other cases, especially politics, a person may say one thing and do another, and their writings alone would give an imperfect picture of their real views. Third, a writer, especially on a deadline, may devote an entire column to some issue that they hardly care about. For us to pick out that column and treat it as equal to views expressed frequently would be a distortion. In short, there are multiple ways in which the commentator's own statements may be poor sources for their opinions.

This really should be on the noticeboard. If no one objects I'll move it there.   Will Beback  talk  22:10, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I was not commenting on the particular dispute, I was just commenting in general. North8000 (talk) 10:25, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

As was I.   Will Beback  talk  04:25, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

A Question.

Now, how can we say that all original research is unreilbe? If Newton were to have made an article about his discorvies on gravity today, it would have been deemed orginal research by this policy.

The current policy would suggest that in order for one's own findings to be used, he or she would have to formally have a official scientific or otherwise related investigation by a known organization to look into the matter, and in the current day and age, the likelihood of this occurring is slim.

I do NOT think we should remove this policy, but I think there should be changes. Perhaps a submitted forum detailing what research occurred and what the findings were, and have it reviewed by admins or other appointed users, and if it is deemed reliable, it can be used in an article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.132.79.61 (talk) 00:36, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

The 'original research' policy applies only to editors in Wikipedia. It isn't saying scientists shouldn't do research! See WP:5P for a quick summary of the main policies on Wikipedia. Dmcq (talk) 00:46, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh I think you are referring to someone on Wikipedia sticking in what they figure out without having it checked outside. Wikipedia admins are not qualified to check such stuff and don't want to. Wikipedia's aim is to produce an encyclopaedia of already known stuff. It isn't a research lab. Yep you really do need to read WP:5P Dmcq (talk) 00:52, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

source both secondary and primary

A source being sometimes secondary and sometimes primary is, I think, good to recognize. I propose clarifying this in the policy. What do you think? Nick Levinson (talk) 20:13, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Done. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:16, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Reopened because undone by another editor on the ground that it should be discussed here, so the discussion is now reopened and comments reinvited. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:52, 3 November 2010 (UTC) (Corrected link: 05:59, 3 November 2010 (UTC))

I think if we were going to add something like that, it would have to be very succinct. The more examples we give the more confusing it may seem to new editors. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:38, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I actually don't think any of that is necessary--primary/secondary sources are already defined as "Secondary sources are second-hand accounts, at least one step removed from an event." That already encompasses all of the examples you give--it shows that level of sourcing is based only on a relative comparison of the source and the event. Thus, the examples you give in your proposal are already covered, since each of them is not separated from the "event" by "at least one step". If there are instances where that is not being handled properly, I'd say it can/should be raised at WP:NORN or other venues. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree; I found the paragraph very long and hard to understand. To me it seemed to muddy, not clarify. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:44, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Jayjg. WP:RS/N is also a useful space to discuss particular issues. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:58, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I edited the draft. As user Qwyrxian misunderstood the purpose, I rewrote the first sentence to clarify it. The examples are gone and formatting conforms to what was done in the policy page edit. Stating policy informs more editors than does case-by-case noticeboard review of instances, since most editors don't read noticeboards if they don't have something pending there, but many read policy pages. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:10, 4 November 2010 (UTC) (Added a link: 04:18, 4 November 2010 (UTC))

The confusion over primary/secondary is used as an excuse for misrepresentation. It needs to be clarified precisely, at length. Wooden Object (talk) 08:50, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Can you please give us an example of this misrepresentation?--SaskatchewanSenator (talk) 22:59, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I want to confirm that, like SaskatchewanSenator, I'd like some evidence that this is actually a problem. To me, the policy as currently written already completely explains this in sufficiently clear detail, by defining primary and secondary in terms of "separated from the event by at least one step". I accept, though, that I may be just reading it differently than others, but I'd like to see some proof of this before changing the wording. Without some evidence that this policy is regularly being misinterpreted, I don't support adding more information to policy. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:08, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

User Wooden Object, any suggestions? If people deliberately misrepresent the primary/secondary policies, they will anyway, and you'll need other remedies, such as mediation. But are they simply misunderstanding the policies and can you describe some common misunderstandings where clarifying the policy would help well-meaning editors?

User Qwyrxian, I see your point but it requires a fairly subtle reading of the policy to see it that way. The policy as now written appears to assume that a source is always primary or always secondary, regardless of how it's used. Under it, it seems, we need only look inside the source to determine whether it is primary or secondary, because where it will be used would be irrelevant. However, an editor pointed out elsewhere that one source could be either primary or secondary depending on how it is used in a given Wikipedia article. I agree, but the policy doesn't explicitly say that. For example, suppose the Washington Post had published a statement about what stories are newsworthy enough to publish, the Post is then a primary source for a Wikipedia article about the Post, but would remain a secondary source about, say, a Presidential election. The relevance of usage is what needs clarification in the policy.

Nick Levinson (talk) 03:07, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Everything in your draft proposal is already in the policy. For example, a secondary source becoming a primary one when, "The source's author, editor, creator, or leader is the subject of the use." Another way of saying that is that primary sources are close to an event, or involved in it. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 03:18, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

No. This is about a secondary source that becomes primary for its use. That's not clear in the policy. If a book relies at second hand on primary sources and analyzes them, it's secondary. But if the literary style of that book is the subject of the WP article, then the same book is primary. That ability to be both is what is not clear in the policy. Some editors may be used to that concept but it's not explicit in a reading of the policy and thus won't be clear to many editors. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:33, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

We could add to the end of that section something like: "Whether a source is a primary or secondary source is not fixed. A book by a military historian about the Second World War might be a secondary source of material about the war, but if he includes details of issues he was involved in—his own war experiences, for example—it would be a primary source of material about those issues."

I hesitate a little to do this, because we're potentially opening a can of worms. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 01:52, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:No original research/Archive 34#Autobiographies a book such as Willim Slim's "Defeat into Victory" can be both primary and secondary, it depends on what it was that he was discussing. -- PBS (talk) 02:14, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, good example. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 02:17, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Your proposal is good, but before using it I'm interested in the can of worms you're concerned about, to see if it can be resolved. Could you be specific? Nick Levinson (talk) 04:17, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Another example of confusion: [1] Oo Yun (talk) 13:22, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Something to consider... if you stick to the source, and don't interject conclusions, analysis or interpretations that are not contained in the source ... it really does not matter whether the source is primary or secondary (or a mix of both). Blueboar (talk) 14:15, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

We can't paraphrase a primary source to save space, because that is often taken as interpreting beyond what the source says. Quotes to say the same thing are often longer. So the distinction is useful. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:45, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

The can of worms I was thinking of was people arriving with different examples, or with examples of how a secondary source can become a primary source for historians with the passage of time. If the addition remains succinct I'd had no problem adding it, but if it starts to get extended and confusing it would do more harm than good. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:26, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

All of that is too complicated and too formal. I propose to remember what was the initial reason for separation of the sources onto primary, secondary and tertiary. The reason was that the WP articles must be based on the opinions of reputable professional scholars, not on our own opinions and interpretations. In connection to that, Wikipedians are not supposed to take some archival documents, find some quotes and draw conclusions based on that; similarly they cannot open a Results section of some scientific article, take some observations made by an author (a professional scientist) and give their own interpretation of these results. In both cases we can rely only on the interpretation of these facts (i.e. historical documents or experimental observations, accordingly) made by the authors of these works. The next question is if we really can rely on these interpretations? I would say, it depends on who are the authors of these articles. If these articles have been published in top level journals (which means that they have passed a very stringent peer-reviewing procedure), or they are being extensively cited by other authors, or they have been written by reputable scholars (i.e. by the scholars whose other works are being highly cited), then we can safely use these sources, re-word what the authors say and add to the article. For example, the Einstein's or Heisenberg's articles are primary sources by formal criteria. However, it would be a stupidity to claim that their works, per policy, "may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them." Of course, a person unfamiliar with physics can misuse them, but in that case s/he equally can misuse the textbooks of Feynman or Landau which discuss Einstein's or Heisenberg's ideas.
In summary, I propose to think about clarification of the policy, because current division on primary, secondary and tertiary sources equates the articles written by such scientists and scholars as Einstein, Toynbee or Popper with the works published by PhD students or even with archival documents.
To avoid possible misunderstanding, I do not propose to abolish the "Primary-Secondary-Tertiary" rules, however, they must be interpreted in more commonsensual manner.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:30, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with everything you say, Paul, but I would add to it that the issue is not only whether we can correctly interpret primary sources. It's that the very act of choosing which primary source to cite, or which bits of which primary source to highlight, can also amount to OR -- for example, by highlighting partial or non-notable sources. That's why we prefer to use secondary sources that we hope will offer a good overview. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 02:22, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Disagree with: "it would be a stupidity to claim that their [Einstein's or Heisenberg's] works, per policy, may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.". I think this remains a worthy caution. Scientific articles, especially old ones, can be very terse, not in standard language, and not intended for a non-expert audience. I have tried reading some of Einstein's pivotal work, and I certainly wouldn't want to encourage that material being used directly without care. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:48, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

@ SmokeyJoe. Every good thing can be misused. Probably, Einstein's articles are not the best example, because his language is really somewhat obsolete. However, the same is true for most hundred years old sources, including purely secondary ones. In any event, if I replace Einstein with Stephen Hawking or Yakov Zel'dovich, will you have any objection to what I say?

More concretely, the following fragment of the policy:

" Primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements that any educated person, with access to the source but without specialist knowledge, will be able to verify are supported by the source."

is misleading. It implies that only interpretation of primary is not allowed in Wikipedia, whereas the same is true for other sources: we cannot draw conclusions from any type sources that are not explicitly stated there. In actuality, the issue is not in which source is primary and which is secondary, but which source can be just quoted and presented as an opinion (or supplemented with commentary based on what other sources say), and which source can be reasonably re-worded and presented as an established fact. In my opinion, present division of the sources onto primary, secondary and tertiary does not give an answer on this question.

A good research article (formally a primary source) which is written by an outstanding scientist may contain much better commentaries and interpretations of facts than a poor review (a secondary source) or an encyclopaedia (a tertiary source) published by some questionable publisher. In connection to that, it would be better to make less stress on "primary-secondary-tertiary" classification, but on reliability of the sources. Of course, it is necessary to outline the sources that always should be treated with cautions (archival documents, witness' testimonies, memoirs, experimental observations, statistical data and some others), however, all other sources should be treated mostly based on their quality (publisher type, peer-reviewing procedure, reputability of the author, etc).--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:42, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

PS. Taking into account that many editors who work on, e.g. history WP articles are not aware even of the details of the peer-reviewing procedure, impact factors and similar terms, current policy sometimes leads to serious confusion and unneeded conflicts, when absolutely odd sources are being contraposed to the top level articles written by leading scholars. It is highly desirable to make policy much less abstract and more "user-friendly".--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:57, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Respecting a source that can be either secondary or primary within the existing three-way division, I propose inserting the following into the policy page: "Whether a source is a primary or secondary source is not fixed. A source could be secondary for one issue in Wikipedia but primary for another issue in Wikipedia."

It would have no examples. It would end the paragraph on secondary sources, since secondary sources can be used with less caution than is required for primary sources. In the paragraph on primary sources, at the end I would add, "(For a source that may be both primary and secondary, see below on secondary sources.)"

Nick Levinson (talk) 04:57, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

That would make a policy more vague and abstract, whereas it is already too abstract and vague.

In my opinion, the policy should explicitly state that academic sources have priority over other sources, so they (especially the articles published in top scientific journals or books published by top universities) should be treated based on somewhat different criteria than other sources. --Paul Siebert (talk) 05:08, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Two separate discussions are going on here. One is on whether to redefine the difference between primary and secondary or perhaps to replace it with a different classification. The other is on whether to clarify that a source in one classification in one use in one WP article can be in the other classification in another use in WP. These discussions overlap, but they should be kept separate. If a new classification is adopted or if the distinction between primary and secondary is changed, the issue of fluidity at the boundary would remain.

I suggest we separate the discussions.

Assuming we do, how would you firm up the proposed edit about one source fitting two classifications? Do you believe examples are important? One editor opposes them and I think most WP policies do not provide examples, perhaps because most people don't need them and they lengthen policy statements, making them less likely to be read and relied upon. Is there another way you'd firm it up?

As to the matter of how to classify sources, perhaps you can help translate your comments into an operational proposal for a rewriting of the policy. I already understand the existing policy to be very close, perhaps entirely conformant with, what you seem to be proposing. To avoid infringing copyrights, we're generally supposed to paraphrase sources except primary sources, and thus we inherently and necessarily interpret. By quoting a primary source for less than its entirety we of course inherently interpret it but then we risk infringing and we're not supposed to be that dependent on primary sources, and, consistently with that, WP favors secondary sources. In effect, under existing policy we already have a small amount of permission to interpret a primary source and more leeway to interpret a secondary or tertiary source, and interpretations of all sources are limited in degree. Anyone with a reasonable nonspecialized education should be able to verify that a statement is supported by its cited source (if they happen to have access to it) and should be able roughly to determine the source's reliability. The good research article by a good scientist that states "much better commentaries and interpretations" is quotable for its commentaries and interpretations under existing WP policy for primary sources (subject to the infringement limitation, which WP policy can't reduce). Any low-quality source can be edited out of WP without much loss when better-quality sources exist, so low-quality nonprimary sources can be deleted. Misinterpretations of any kind of source don't belong in WP and can be edited out.

I'm also not sure how your standards for reliability would affect reporting in WP of significant minority views, since, almost by definition, the most reliable of refereed sources tend to shun dissents that are not new. Impact factoring has utility but also has been legitimately challenged, raising an additional question relevant to reporting the minority views.

Scholarly books and articles I've read, probably not in the same fields in which you read or in the same quantity, rarely give details of the peer-review process to which they were subject. Publishers' guidelines for authors do at a general level, but the details of peer review affecting a particular source are usually not available to WP editors nor to WP readers seeking to determine WP's editorial quality, so those details aren't very useful in writing WP policy about judging source quality.

Policy already favors higher quality in sources for controversial points and moderate quality suffices for hardly-controversial points. "Good and unbiased research, based upon the best and most reputable authoritative sources available, helps prevent NPOV disagreements." That a proton is an atomic particle can be sourced to a tertiary source of reasonable reliability because the fact isn't likely to be questioned, but whether matter can travel faster than light (I thought it couldn't but I've just read an astronomer's book saying it can) and doubts against the fundamentals of string theory probably need higher-quality sourcing, whether secondary or primary.

Misuses of the existing policy, especially deliberate misuses apparently motivated by hostility to article content or authorship, often seem to be due to amateur misunderstandings of the policy, as when an argument is that primary sources can't be used at all and so an entire WP article section is deleted. That kind of misuse probably won't change simply by rewriting the policy; it already precludes such arguments. Misuses grounded in good faith can be helped by clarifying the policy without changing it.

Perhaps it would help if you would give an example of a primary source (as presently defined by Wikipedia) that you think should be interpretable with the relative liberality allowed for secondary sources and an example of a secondary source (as presently defined by Wikipedia) that should be interpreted no more than is allowed for a primary source.

I'd like to separate the two discussions.

A minor point: I assume you meant David P. Landau, not Landau in der Pfalz, Germany.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 08:54, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I am pretty sure he meant Lev Landau, see Course of Theoretical Physics. Hans Adler 11:25, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I want to comment on "It implies that only interpretation of primary is not allowed in Wikipedia, whereas the same is true for other sources: we cannot draw conclusions from any type sources that are not explicitly stated there." I suspect that part of this is because we have a one policy fits all disciplines. Paul please see my comments back in January 2009 in "A new approach to the PSTS question", as to why I think there is a difference between interpretation of primary and secondary sources. -- PBS (talk) 22:35, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I edited the page based on the foregoing discussion reflecting separate issues (definitions of secondary and primary, fluidity between both, and reliability) with the edits being only about the fluidity that opened this topic (this section), a desire to avoid examples, and a lack of recent responses. With respect to fluidity, I hope this works. With respect to reliability and definition, I'll leave those discussions to other editors. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:59, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

While this discussion has been going on, I've been involved in a separate discussion which boils down to the question of whether an item published by a source not considered to be a reliable secondary source is considered to be a citeable primary source for the purpose of supporting an assertion that the publisher in question did publish material contained in that item. This was discussed here at RSN, with a conclusion which I think boils down to "yes". However, my understanding of that conclusion hasn't been accepted on the article's talk page. Changes in the article as the RSN discussion was underway have mooted the question there, but it seems to me that this point could use policy clarification here. Also, as a related matter, the term "reliably published", used here in two statements of policy re primary and tertiary sources, needs to be clarified. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 08:00, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Wmitchell's question is a spill-over from Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories, where editors debated whether a WorldNetDaily piece could be used as a primary source to support a proposition about what WND was claiming about Obama. As a more extreme (and perhaps therefore clearer) example, LaRouchies used to distribute a charming bumper sticker, "More people died in the back seat of Ted Kennedy's car than at Three Mile Island". In theory, the bumper sticker may be used as a primary source to support a statement about what the bumper sticker says. No WP:OR there, but three potential pitfalls. First, without a secondary source we cannot show WP:WEIGHT or relevance to any particular article. The bumper sticker probably doesn't belong in an article about the Chappaquiddick incident or the Three Mile Island accident, and without a secondary source we cannot be sure. Second, paraphrasing the statement creates the potential for "original analysis", forbidden per WP:PSTS. We could not, for example, cite the bumper sticker to support the statement that "LaRouche Supporters pointed out that the fatality rate of Ted Kennedy's car is higher than Three Mile Island". That's not what it was saying, really. Third, taking the statement at face value as a claim of fact may miss the point, particularly when the statement is made for purposes of advocacy. One could not reasonably say that "LaRouche supporters said that..." They didn't say anything. They printed a bumper sticker. A reliable secondary source would clear that up. Going back to the WND quote challenging Obama, paraphrasing it or taking it at face value runs the risk of giving it credit as a factual claim that WND was seriously advancing, when in fact it may have been more like the bumper sticker, just some words put in print to get a result. - Wikidemon (talk) 09:45, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be a formatting problem with the edit which inserted the material above. If that could be corrected, I think it would improve clarity. (I don't have objection to this portion of my comment being excised once that apparent formatting problem is corrected)(problem has been corrected)

I think that the argument made above goes outside of the purview of this policy. If a publisher published an item saying XYZ, it is not OR to cite the published item to support an assertion that that publisher did publish an item saying XYZ.

Re the clarification of the term "reliably published" requested above, on consideration it seems to me that it ought to be reduced to "published". If not, the precise meaning of the qualifier "reliably" should be explained. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:33, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Dude, it doesn't matter, the question is contrived. If I write an article about Dragons living under Lake Huron without any citations, it's OR. If someone writes a blog post entitled "Dragons Living Under Lake Huron", I can't base the article Dragons living under Lake Huron on it because of WP:RS, and I can't base the article Blogs asserting that there are dragons living under Lake Huron on it because that's OR. 184.59.23.225 (talk) 07:00, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Talk pages by size

Please see the new page Wikipedia:Database reports/Talk pages by size (to be updated weekly). This talk page ranks 18th, with 12509 kilobytes. Perhaps this will motivate greater efficiency in the use of kilobytes.
—Wavelength (talk) 21:54, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Very interesting. Oh dear I just have to see oe of these surveys and I want to know more, e.g. what article has the smallest article size/talk page size ratio ;-) Dmcq (talk) 23:08, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

You can make a request at Wikipedia talk:Database reports. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:34, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Query

I may begin serious work on the Glyptemys genus article. The genus of turtle has only two species: the bog turtle and the wood turtle. If I wrote a sentence like "In the past, Glyptemys turtles were forced south by encroaching glaciers from the north," could I provide two in-line citations that don't directly say this but rather, one for a source that said bog turtles were forced south and a second, different one that said wood turtles were forced south? Would this be an acceptable way to construct the article?--NYMFan69-86 (talk) 00:26, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be marginal, and an easy solution would be to say that "both species of Glyptemys turtles were forced south...." --Nuujinn (talk) 00:36, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Okay, but the general concept (using two separate sources to generate one [sort of] new thought) is fine? Thank you for the reply, NYMFan69-86 (talk) 04:34, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to take so long. I think in this particular case one would probably not be challenged on it, but one would be on a slippery slope. --Nuujinn (talk) 15:00, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Template: Religious text primary, and Template: Primary sources

A TfD discussion has recently been opened on template {{Religious text primary}}. The TfD is currently fairly balanced in terms of bare !votes, and (as of today, Monday morning) still has about 24 hours to run. The template in question generates the text:

This article uses one or more religious texts as primary sources without referring to secondary sources that critically analyze them. Please help improve this article by adding references to reliable secondary sources.

Those bringing the TfD claim it represents POV-pushing of a particular view. They also submit that any valid purpose of the template can instead be served by template {{Primary sources}},

This article needs references that appear in reliable third-party publications. Primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please add more appropriate citations from reliable sources.

I don't want to pre-judge the outcome of the TfD, but it seems to me that one thing that the basic {{Primary sources}} template maybe doesn't do so well at the moment is to make it concrete what it is that, underlying WP:PSTS, we believe that secondary sources can bring to our articles. This is not just verification of the text of the primary source, but also critical assessment of its reliability, significance, broader context, etc.

So, regardless of the outcome of the TfD, I was wondering whether (for cases where it was more generally commentary on reliability, significance, broader context that would enhance the article; rather than simple verification that this is what the primary source says) it would be appropriate to add an option to Template:Primary_sources to put this over, to give text something like

This article uses one or more primary sources without referring to secondary sources that critically analyze them. Please help improve this article by adding references to reliable secondary sources.

I am cross posting this message to both WT:PSTS (as this is the page that 'owns' the PSTS policy); and to WP:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard (since in many ways this is more a POV/NPOV issue than an NOR issue -- that seems to be how both sides in the TfD discussion are framing it, one side seeing critical assessment as a POV that ought to be there included in any article, part of the fabric of what a reputable secondary/tertiary work such as WP aims to be; the other side seeing any such call as pushing in itself a particular POV, and therefore not neutral.

So: Would extending Template:Primary_sources to allow it to generate text as above be consonant with the aims of the project? Or would it be POV-pushing, and (potentially) reinstating content deleted by due process? I thought I should seek advice. Follow-ups probably best centralised, I would suggest here at WT:PSTS. Jheald (talk) 12:10, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

The Primary sources template in its present form is bad because it uses the useless term "third party", and because it confuses the concepts of third party and secondary source. (I know "third party" appears in WP:V; I don't recognize WP:V so long as that term is present.) A third party source can be primary (for example, Consumer's Union tests a product; reports of tests are primary sources, but Consumer's Union is sort of a third party, although since they bought the product, you could call them a second party). Conversely, first party sources can be secondary. For example, if a manufacturer issued a press release critisizing internal inconsistencies in a Consumer's Reports article it would be a secondary source because it is analyzing a primary source. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

To the presenting question, it wouldn't overturn a presumptive deletion consensus to add the text to Template:Primary, because your proposed text omits the word "religious", which is the biggest sticking point. (Casting about for an argument different than either mainstream, I chose "delete" in that the adding of the word "religious" creates unnecessary temptations for editors to claim to do one thing while attempting to do another.) Without the word "religious" you have a whole 'nother question. But to the next question, my initial leaning would still be against the wording being very useful, though, because the case it describes, where there are truly zero secondary sources, is unnecessarily limited-use, and unnecessarily easily foiled by adding a single secondary source to a very primary article. Further, a number of (mostly) in-universe articles do wind up with primary sources and no (or few) secondary, and these too are encyclopedic; at risk of getting myself in trouble, I hold up Biblical Sabbath as an example, although more secondaries are of course welcome. I prefer the current template with its "add more" language that permits editors to negotiate when "enough" has been reached, rather than a template that permits a single insertion to be held up as satisfying removal of the template, leading the opposite party to cast about for a new template and wind up at :Primary anyway. JJB 04:50, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes

According to WP:BLPPRIMARY, some primary sources can never be used at Wikipedia; for example, "Do not use public records that include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses." So, I would like to insert the word "sometimes" into this policy: "Primary sources that have been reliably published may SOMETIMES be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them." Without this word, it sounds like primary sources can always be used as long as you do it right. Dare I ask? Any objections?Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:33, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Good catch, and assuming consensus I'd say yes with more explicit wording, like "Primary sources (exclusive of private personal details)". Of course since the link is about "public" records one of them is a bit of doublespeak, but that's the way it is. JJB 04:55, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. How about: "With certain exceptions, primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them." I don't think we need to spell out all the exceptions in this sentence. After all, there are more exceptions than just for private personal details. A diagram of the security mechanisms protecting Fort Knox would be another example.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:02, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I oppose this specific wording, and the general concept of qualifying the statement. The problem with this specific wording is that "certain exceptions" implies there is a definite list of exceptions, but the list is not provided. You should not expect an editor to hunt through the talk page to figure out what might be intended.

One problem with the general concept is this is the No original research policy. Relying on a reliable primary source is never original research; to alude to vague exceptions implies it might be. Another problem is the policy already has this paragraph in the lead:

"No original research" is one of three core content policies, along with Neutral point of view and Verifiability, that jointly determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in articles. Because these policies work in harmony, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should try to familiarize themselves with all three.

That covers the perceived problem. We can't repeat all the other policies in every single sentence or this policy becomes unreadable. Jc3s5h (talk)

Perhaps: "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been..." Blueboar (talk) 14:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay that would improve the paragraph.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I am concerned that we could find ourselves putting "unless restricted by another policy" at the beginning of every other sentence. However, since the BLP policy specifically mentions primary sources, I would reluctantly go along with it in this case. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:22, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm... are there any other policy/guideline pages that restrict primary sources the way WP:BLP does? If this is a purely BLP restriction, then I could see us being more explicit and saying: "Unless restricted by WP:BLP, primary sources that have been...." Blueboar (talk) 13:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The less explicit wording would more flexibly allow for future policy changes. Also, there are various current policies besides BLP that restrict use of some primary sources (e.g. some self-published stuff in an article about a dead person, or some primary sources published at blogs, et cetera).Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, then we should not specify BLP. No problem. Blueboar (talk) 17:02, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

FollowIng reliable sources

I would like to add the following (not in allcaps of course): "DO NOT USE PORTIONS OF PRIMARY SOURCES IF MOST RELIABLE SECONDARY SOURCES THAT REFER TO THEM INDICATE THAT PUBLISHING OR REPUBLlISHING THEM WOULD BE IMPROPER." So, for example, if a reliable primary source publishes bomb-making instructions, and a reliable secondary source covers the story but says that repeating the instructions would be unwise, then Wikipedia wouldn't repeat them. This may be relevant with reference to outfits like WikiLeaks.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:05, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Oppose. Why? We can judge for ourselves. Anyway the Wikileaks stuff has been checked quite well. Plus anyone wants to find bomb making details they can quite easily. Even without the internet I saw quite a bit like that years ago like how to form things like shape charges. Dmcq (talk) 23:37, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

People can also find personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses already. That doesn't mean it's okay for Wikipedia to make it EASIER to find such info.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:21, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

See WP:CENSORED. I thought the stuff about shape charges was interesting and educational and a major part of Wikipedia's mission is to document such stuff found in reliable sources. In fact just looking now I see there is a page Shaped charge and quite rightly too and probably one of the references gives the bits of mathematics about it. Dmcq (talk) 01:29, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I have no objection to using primary sources at Wikipedia in articles about how to make shape charges, or use plastic explosives, or make outfits for suicide bombers, or build nuclear weapons in your basement, or contaminate your city with anthrax, EXCEPT to the extent secondary sources indicate that publishing those primary sources would be inappropriate.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:35, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

If a reliably seondary source says that then very possibly it is notable enough to go in the article. Dmcq (talk) 13:47, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I question whether there is a need for such language... is this a realistic concern? Can we get an example of an article in which this proposed rule would come into play? Blueboar (talk) 14:15, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Deciding to forbid publication of certain kinds of information that can be verified in reliable sources (whether primary or secondary) is outside the scope of this policy. I believe WP:NOT would be a more appropriate forum. You could propose a statement like "Wikipedia is not a source of dangerous information". Jc3s5h (talk) 16:46, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Agree with that. Or maybe the village pump about policy at WP:VPP. This is definitely the wrong page and we'd have to just uphold the policy of no censorship. Dmcq (talk) 17:49, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Do you think it's censorship when WP:BLP says: "Do not use public records that include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses."?Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:00, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Beware of these things, as it can easily introduce subjective point of views. Even the word dangerous needs to be used carefully to the extreme. For example a creationist source may consider information about evolution to be dangerous for the soul/welfare/afterlife of those exposed to it. In any case, if anywhere I agree WP:NOT would be a better place. Arnoutf (talk) 11:55, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Images

This is incorrect and need to be reworded. "Because of copyright law in a number of countries, there are relatively few images available for use in Wikipedia". On the contrary, more images have been taken in the past 5 years than in the past 150 years. Flickr hosts over 1 billion images, most released under a free license. The math doesn't add up, so it needs to be reworded. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 10:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Calculations using well known mathematics is not original research

Calculations using well known mathematics is not original research for the purpose of Wikipedia editing. The types of calculations which are taught in Calculus and in textbooks on Calculus are not original research. These operations include differentiation, integration, and partial differentiation. If I state in a Wikapedia article that the derivative of x raised to the power n where n is a positive integer equals n times x raised to the power (n-1)
(i.e.${\operatorname {d} x^{n} \over \operatorname {d} x}=nx^{n-1}$ ), that is not original research. Some object because of the fact that not all persons understand Calculus. But that is not a proper basis for objection. The important fact is that Calculus is well known and there are a significant number of people who do understand this discipline. Is there anyone who does not agree with this. RHB100 (talk) 21:30, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

The rule for the derivative of $x^{n}$ is indeed not original research. However, in more complicated settings even well-known formulas can be used to make bizarre conclusions (trust me...). It's not clear from your post what actual situation you are talking about, but that information is necessary for anyone to give a reasonable response. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:53, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Or to put it another way... while the formula itself may not be OR, applying that formula to a given situation or a given set of data may be. Blueboar (talk) 00:48, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Blueboar, why on earth do you say "applying that formula" might be original research? CBM, you can make mistakes using basic arithmetic. But errors can be corrected. Just because an error is conceivably possible is no reasong to dumb down Wikipedia by refusing to use Calculus. RHB100 (talk) 01:17, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

If you don't give enough information for people to know what you're talking about, how do you expect any sort of reasonable answer? — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:19, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

An example is ΔT, the difference between mean solar time and atomic time. Although the properties of a parabola are not original research, deciding to model ΔT with a parabola would be. Jc3s5h (talk) 02:26, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I provide what is perhaps a better example of how the tools of calculus can be used to make a statement which is not original research.

Given the function, $\ f^{(k)}$ or more explicity, $f^{(k)}\left(x^{(k)},y^{(k)},z^{(k)},b^{(k)}\right)$ defined by

$f^{(k)}={\sqrt {(x^{(k)}-x)^{2}+(y^{(k)}-y)^{2}+(z^{(k)}-z)^{2}}}-b^{(k)}c-p$

where x, y, and z are constants.

The four partial derivatives are:

${\frac {\partial f^{(k)}}{\partial x^{(k)}}}={\frac {(x^{(k)}-x)}{R^{(k)}}},$

${\frac {\partial f^{(k)}}{\partial y^{(k)}}}={\frac {(y^{(k)}-y)}{R^{(k)}}},$

${\frac {\partial f^{(k)}}{\partial z^{(k)}}}={\frac {(z^{(k)}-z)}{R^{(k)}}},$

${\frac {\partial f^{(k)}}{\partial b^{(k)}}}=-c$

where $R^{(k)}={\sqrt {(x^{(k)}-x)^{2}+(y^{(k)}-y)^{2}+(z^{(k)}-z)^{2}}}$.

I say that the operation of going from the function, :$f^{(k)}$ to the partial derivatives does not require any reference for justification and it is not original research since it is a straightforward application of Calculus with which many but perhaps not all Wikipedians are familiar.

I think I Have made this fact clear. Do you agree? RHB100 (talk) 21:42, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

No I don't agree. Where you are going to matters just as much as where you are coming from. Some straightforward intermediate calculations as explanation are okay where straightforward depends to some extent on the context, but the result must be something that is documented in some source. About the most one can do about the result is change the letters used for variables or change feet to meters. Dmcq (talk) 23:18, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Dmcq, where I am going to and where I am coming from do not matter in the slightest. The only thing that matters is going from the function, :$f^{(k)}$ to the partial derivatives. Now can you pont out any error in this operation? If you cannot point out any error and cannot point out anything that is not understandable then the operation requires no source. RHB100 (talk) 02:30, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

The statement that it "does not require any reference for justification" is technically against WP:V; however, it would also technically be satisfied with a calculus text that gave sufficient general principles for an unfamiliar but capable reader to verify the partial derivatives. In that sense, I think jumping from the principles to the given equations is technically not OR, although you do have the WP:BURDEN of sourcing the text if asked (see Principia Mathematica#Quotations). But questions such as these are very often "loaded" in the sense of being a subpoint of a larger debate, usually findable on reviewing the poser's contribution history (which I haven't done here). It is usually very helpful for that larger environment to be brought in, because it gives the context of any other editor that may have objected, and may resolve the question of what the editor's actual objection is if not OR. JJB 02:53, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

If a person proves a new result it is original research even if every step is impeccably proved using high school arithmetic. There is an exemption for routine calculation to get things like meters from feet. Conventionally also an intermediate calculation can sometimes be provided as an explanation of why something is true and it can be considerably more complicated, though great care needs to be taken it really is right. This isn't a routine calculation in the meaning of the policy so yes the context of where it is going matters a great deal. If this is a final result not citable to a source then it is original research. And on a strict reading it would be original research anyway. Dmcq (talk) 10:05, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

All this hinges on the meaning of "new result." The idea (I think) about citing the rules of differentiation is that anything done by so applying them does not create a "new result" because everything that leads to that result existed prior to the operation. It is surely pertinent to be concerned about whether the result, whether or not painted as new," is pertinent within Wikipedia in the context where it appears. Pertinent and useful. (In the past I have pointed out, using simple arithmetic and an awareness of the proper temperature scale for thermodynamics, that a 1 degree Celsius increase in AGT is less than a 0.4% increase in AGT. I have not ever seen that anywhere other than where I have myself stated it. The idea behind pointing out this mathematical fact is that it tends to suggest the foolishness of those who claim that man, by his actions, cannot cause significant global warming. 0.4% is small, but it is apparently significant. whether r nt this still appears in Wikipedia I do not know. That is something of concern to editors, not to me.)

The operating idea behind NOR as now structured (and for the past couple of years, too) seems to be that editors of Wikipedia are very often flawed creatures with possibly either evil or anti-factual or blundering agendas but that the writers of secondary sources are not so flawed. OK, I can back off a bit and regard the policy being one of "Well, if there's an agenda being followed that's the sin of the author of the secondary source (or whatever source), not of Wikipedia - and that's our goal: we don't commit such sins." That's a bit easier to accept. I can see real merit in that. There's also still quite a bit of a flavor of this entire policy mess being a rather poor attempt at preventing improper content, poor in the sense that instead of really defining improper content it attempts to postulate ways in which improper content may be created, perhaps even has been created - and then make a blanket prohibition against a perfectly valid form of intellectual activity because it is sometimes misused. (I assert that if every form of intellectual activity hasn't been misused it is abundantly clear that nearly every one of them has - and that includes forms of activity not prohibited by Wikipedia policy. This is uneven, unfair: Wikipedia by its present policy singles out some forms of activity as being unsuitable because of misuse but does not apply the same logic to all forms of activity. When the policy opposes synthesis it appears that what it really opposes, as far as the examples go, is false synthesis, inaccurate/inappropriate synthesis. But as written there is no distinction made: all synthesis is bad. There must be times when an encyclopedia editor can rightly synthesize ideas from different sources in a way that clarifies but does not create anything actually "new." The synthesis combines ideas in a way that provides the reader a clearer, perhaps sharper insight. I am confident that when Einstein wrote for the Encyclopedia Britannica he was not hobbled by any such ill-formed policy. I understand that Wikipedia editors aren't Einstein, but many of them are (must be) well-versed in their fields and entirely competent to make a synthesis that informs. It may be a novel way of presenting information but it is not truly new information: the value of an encyclopedia arises entirely from how well it presents information. I would rather have a policy that is not so hugely prone to giving power to nit-pickers to enfeeble the content. I favor letting those who actually know a subject use all their skill to expound that subject. (I am not referring to myself. I don't edit, on grounds that include lack of competence and proneness to inserting OR. I accept the prohibition of OR, I embrace it, I apply it to myself. That does not mean I find the current policy to be the best possible policy.) Minasbeede (talk) 04:21, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the comments of JJB are useful and provide a good understanding of the problem. I think the comments of Dmcq are ridiculous and untrue since there are many trivial calculations which produce new results which are in no sense original research. I agree with JJB that adding a calculus reference is desirable and woulod satisfy the requirement for verifiability. A reference to partial derivatives is also desirable. I think these references would also satisfy the requirement for sourcing. RHB100 (talk) 22:36, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

How about giving the context like JJB asked for? That's what I was also asking for. Is this a result that is not in a source or is it some intermediated calculation to explain things? Dmcq (talk) 23:11, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that this source (Langley, R. B., "The Mathematics of GPS," GPS World, Vol. 2, No. 7, July/August 1991, containing 4 equations, figure 3), together with Press, Flannery, Tekolsky, and Vetterling 1986, "Numerical Recipes, The Art of Scientific Computing" (Cambridge University Press), warrants the presence of the section that was removed with this edit.

In my understanding of wp:NOR, this entire section looks like a classic example of wp:SYNTHESIS: a contributor uses a number of standard mathematical techniques (—partial differentiation being just one of them—) and the physical aspects of the GPS-system, to apply the NR-technique (explained in one source), to some equations (cited in another source), to produce a result which is not found in any source, but which might of course after peer review be published in a scientific journal, and/or even deserve a place in a good textbook on GPS or scientific computing.

Furthermore, and of course independently of the context of this example, the policy wp:CALC seems to be pretty clear: "This policy allows routine mathematical calculations, such as adding numbers, converting units, or calculating a person's age..." so partial derivatives, which is just one aspect of this particular example, doesn't seem to belong in the category of routine mathematical calculations as it was intented by the policy makers. It would be nice for many technical contributers (like ourselves) if we would be able to enlarge that category to indeed include, for instance, differentiation and integration, but I think the category was kept deliberately confined to the most elementary techniques, simply to avoid our articles being flooded with the original research of good-faith (but alas less competent) non-technical contributors. We could try to change the policy, but I don't think we will succeed, and, personally, I would not support such a change. DVdm (talk) 23:50, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I have just reread the paper by Langley. It is clear that what I wrote in the section removed by DVdm is mathematically the same as Langley's paper. Where Langley has talked about linearization, I have taken partial derivatives to produce the linearized equations, clearly the same thing mathematically. Langley has talked about Newton-Raphson, I have provided a reference which covers Newton-Raphson and explained it. This is not the so-called WP SYNTHESIS, I am just providing more useful references. To satisfy DVdm that it was not original research, you would have to engage in plagiarism. RHB100 (talk) 22:29, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

And I have to disagree. The paper does not give an end point in mathematical terms. The calculations you made cannot be counted as anything except original research without some citation. Please just say in your own words what the sources say. For instance an article on trigonometry gives a series for cos, one can't then say that's how cos is calculated, and in fact it isn't calculated that way on computers. Dmcq (talk) 08:48, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I just stuck 'Mathematics of GPS' into Google Scholar and there's a whole lot of papers and books there with as many equations as one could ever desire. There is absolutely no need for trying to figure it out yourself and sticking in your deductions. Dmcq (talk) 10:12, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

It looks like the article already has a well sourced synopsis of the main points of the Langley paper in the section Global_Positioning_System#Methods_of_solution_of_navigation_equations. I don't think there's much to add. DVdm (talk)

Having read that section I've got to agree it already includes all the relevant information that's given by the Langley paper without extrapolating into original research. I don't see the Langley paper as justifying anything extra. Dmcq (talk) 18:08, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with RHB100's sentiment, although one can argue with the particular example given here. I have pointed out quite a few times that the present policy actually promotes errors of the kind we want to avoid, due to a lack of good guidance on how to edit technical scientific content on Wikipedia that requires a lot more than mere routine calculations. There is now a de-facto "don't ask don't tell policy" in force, which is not good at all. That's why I wrote up WP:Editing scientific articles, but this was voted down for Wiki-political reasons that have little to do with the content of the essay. Count Iblis (talk) 16:08, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

If you truly believe that piece of tripe was voted down for "Wiki-political reasons that have little to do with the content of the essay" you are more delusional than I dreamed possible. 71.139.21.148 (talk) 16:50, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

One typical problem with the above example was that a contributor tagged the section for clarification, and opened a talkpage section (titled "Multidimensional Newton-Raphson for GPS - Can't make heads or tails of it", now archived here). Upon this request RHB100 was ready to start providing clarification of his own work in order for the user to make heads and tails of it. So, since first we need sources, and then perhaps some clarification can be given, I tagged the section for proper sources. Upon the source request RHB100 added the two sources, specifying that the equations in the section are based on the equations in the sources. So here we have wp:SYNTHESIS and wp:OR. As it became clear that the section equations were not present at all in the any of the provided sources, per policy I removed the section as a classic example of original research. DVdm (talk) 16:58, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I think DVdm is being entirely too strict here. I would also like clarification on this point: what is the reasonable boundary of the WP:CALC exemption to the requirement for a source? The wording of the policy allows single subtractions and multiplications by well-known constants. I suppose the affine mapping between temperature scales is also allowed. But what about applying the area of a circle formula ("this telescope has an effective mirror diameter of x.xx m (xx.x m² area)") or other things? For elementary mathematics (e.g. converting the volume-of-sphere formula from 4/3 πr³ to 1/6 πd³), you could probably find a citation to an elementary mathematics textbook, but for more advanced or unpopular material, the authors assume a certain mathematical competence on the part of the reader, and it is very likely that mathematical rephrasing is un-verifiable in the narrow sense: there is no published reliable source that explicitly describes, e.g. the high-school algebra transformations between one author's notation and another's. Is doing this translation a forbidden synthesis of the published paper and a high school mathematics textbook? I would prefer to think it is a special case of wp:ETRANS. As that policy states, a sourced translation is preferable, but a wikipedia editor's translation is acceptable if its accuracy is not disputed.

As I see it, verifiability is a question of degree of burden on the verifier. We want it to not only be possible in a theoretical sense, but actually practicable, to verify the statements in WP from the sources. It makes no sense to me to accept a citation to a hard to find out-of-print book, but forbid pedestrian mathematical transformations. This is exactly the sort of paraphrasing which is completely acceptable to the verifiability policy. So I'd like to expand the accepted boundary of wp:CALC considerably. It's not like basic math is going to change.

The issue of remaining within the bounds of the source material is probably relevant, and again seems to match current practice: adding intermediate steps or otherwise bridging gaps is routinely accepted, but extrapolating (even if completely justified by mathematical logic) is much more questionable.

But even when extrapolating, I feel it is quite permissible to go beyond DVdm's hyper-narrow interpretation of the rules, which suggests that to plug (sourced) parameters for a familiar object into a published formula to make an illustrative example would constitute improper wp:SYNTHESIS. 71.41.210.146 (talk) 00:25, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

If you think that "verifiability is a question of degree of burden on the verifier", then you should read wp:BURDEN. DVdm (talk) 00:34, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood what anon claims when he states "verifiability is a question of degree of burden on the verifier". He does not mean that it's up to the verifyier to find sources. He claims that wether or not we should consider a statement sufficiently sourced should depend on the burden we place upon a verifier trying to verify the fact cited. Taemyr (talk) 02:47, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps that is what anon had in mind, yes, sure. But I do agree with this part of wp:BURDEN: "It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find sources yourself that support such material, and cite them." I have always interpreted these reasonable efforts as intended to be made by the reviewer. Usually when I see a possibly questionable assertion, I make the effort. Failure then either results in a cn-tag if the assertion has been sitting untagged in the article for a considerable time, or in a removal with a wp:UNSOURCED edit summary, sometimes flanked by a talk page warning.

But perhaps anon is partly referring to a current discussion on his talk page and prevously on an article talk page. Anon whishes to add an alternative formulation to a formula in the context of a sourced calculation scheme. Form the algebraic point of view, his formula is clearly correct and equivalent, but (1) well beyond what is intended with the current formulation of wp:CALC, and, (2), more importantly, it is not at all clear whether the alternative mathematical equation is indeed "computanionably" better or equivalent, and that is why a solid source is needed.

I think that broadening the currrent narrow scope of the wording of wp:CALC would result in effectively endless discussions on talk pages with many participants (— up to now there's only anon and myself —) about whether a particular expression is or is not to treated as original research in a particular context. DVdm (talk) 11:09, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Agree with DVdm. The calculations may be okay but they may not be what the source intends. We need to see a source giving a result similar to what the editor has put in. Without that it is original research. This is how the editor would go about it, it doesn't say how it is done. Dmcq (talk) 11:50, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

In terms of synthesis, original research, and routine calculations, let me first state that current guidelines completely disrespect the context of a topic and disregard what may indeed be a triviality facing the complexity of the topic. I do not want to go into detail here, for lack of time, but you may consider an opposite example like a+b-a=b, which may be covered by WP:CALC as a routine calculation for most articles but is certainly a non-trivial calculation for an article discussing the algebraic axiomatic system. Anyway, regarding discussion about this edit, I agree that the anon's proposed change is "trivial", correct, and an optimization (failing to see how an additional variable would be required), but this is not the point. The point is that the respective section is about numerical stability and not optimization. If it were about optimization then the anon's change would not be a trivial routine calculation out of context because it would influence an implementation, and thus falls under WP:original research and needs to be cited. As it is about numerics, there is no point in mentioning a "trivial" optimization that "a large fraction of programmers will see for themselves" [anon's words]. Nageh (talk) 13:12, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Note in response to Nageh's "failing to see how an additional variable would be required": the cited scheme uses 4 variables (a,b,c,q). In the modified scheme one less multiplication is needed, but the separately calculated value b/2 is used twice, so it must be stored somewhere. A programmer might declare a new variable (say h), calculate 1/2 b, then store it in the reserved place for h in order to fetch and re-use it later on. Now it depends on the hardware architecture and on the compiler how this is treated. Some compilers will try to keep such results in a free CPU-register (if available), and some will send the new value to memory. There is the question of the efficiency (and the availability) of harware multiplication (some CPU don't have that). There is the question whether the hardware has sufficient cache. There is the question whether the compiler is equiped to do optimisation. There are many questions and it is not at all clear that saving one a multiplication at the cost of having to store an intermediate result would be an optimisation. There might be (and in my experience there was indeed) a very good reason why the cited author has chosen that particular approach. When that author is cited, we have no business pretending to be able to "do it better", so to speak. DVdm (talk) 14:45, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you mean. You are right, and for the case at hand we would need a reference anyways. Nageh (talk) 15:40, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I have a disagreement with DVdm about a particular edit, and the associated detailed research of policy led me to this talk page, but I'm not trying to drag that in here. I agree that wp:CALC does not apply to that particular edit. The discussion here is more of what appears to be a basic philosophical disagreement.

Regarding the risk of endless discussions, while that's a point in favour of a simple draconian rule, the efficiency of dictatorship is not sufficient reason to choose it. I think I see a reasonable rule, which also reflects current wp:CALC enforcement practice: interpolation between steps in a source or between sources (converting to common notation, etc.) is broadly accepted, but extrapolation beyond a source requires much more caution.

This seems to be a simple generalization of policy in other areas: paraphrase and rearrange, but don't go beyond the source material. That seems clear enough.

However, even extrapolation has its uses. As an example of what appears to be currently acceptable, when I extensively rewrote "Ziggurat algorithm" in 2007, I deliberately chose a different index convention than the source paper, because I thought the source was confusing. (It numbers the layers 1..255 top to bottom, with the last layer numbered 0; I placed layer 1 above layer 0 with 255 on top.) I consider this a standard piece of editorial rephrasing, not worthy of comment, but the mathematical transformation is, as far as I know, original and not verifiable from an external source.

I believe most people with enough mathematical background to understand the algorithm in the first place would agree that storing a couple of lookup tables in reverse order does not change the fundamental algorithm. But I'd be curious if a policy pedant would delete that section on the grounds that it's wp:OR. 71.41.210.146 (talk) 19:33, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Removal of referenced material

I'd like to add a line to this policy that says, "Removal of relevant, reliably sourced and neutral material from an article is a form of reverse original research, and such material should not be removed from articles without the deleting party explicitly demonstrating why it is either irrelevant to the article, poorly sourced, or biased." Ghostofnemo (talk) 02:20, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't agree with that change. The general principle that all significant viewpoints should be included is definitely correct, and is expounded in WP:NPOV. But I have seen too many instances where editors insert something dubious to an article, based on some esoteric source, and then treat the inclusion of the source as a kind of magic that prevents anyone else from removing it. I would prefer not to have policy pages encourage that sort of editing, which is already tendentious enough in my experience. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:38, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Carl, that addition would cause problems. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 03:50, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Deciding on what points are worth mentioning and what points are not in order to create articles that are easy to understand because they are concise is source based research, not original research. Jc3s5h (talk) 04:16, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

It seems odd that we have a policy to keep shoddy material out of articles, but no policy to protect well-sourced material, which can be Ninja edited out (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ninja#Edit_ninjas ) for dubious reasons. Ghostofnemo (talk) 16:17, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Quit forum shopping. This has already been turned down here, on ANI, on various article talkpages, WP:VPP and probably other pages. There was already an extensive discussion of this on VPP a few weeks ago where it was turned down. Please stop wasting editors' time.--Terrillja _talk 17:01, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your WP:Good faith contribution to this discussion. Ghostofnemo (talk) 17:08, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Good faith was lost back at your 4th or 5th place you proposed the exact same thing.--Terrillja _talk 17:15, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I see - you aren't bound by the same rules as mere mortals. Ghostofnemo (talk) 06:12, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Such an addition would not be appropriate because numerous other policies also determine what can be in articles. For example, I can provide a pretty good, reliable source for the name and phone number of the majority of residents and businesses in any major US city (that is, the local phone book(s)). Nonetheless, I could not add such information per WP:NOT. Similarly, WP:DUE regulates the level of sourced opinion that may be in any given article, based upon the importance of that view in the real world. Finally, regular editorial consensus has a play as well. For instance, we could provide exact, second by second summaries of every movie or paragraph by paragraph summaries of every book we have articles on, and it would all be sourced (to the book or movie itself); however, standard editorial practice is to not due so, as such treatment is not encyclopedic. Finally, if the rule said that everything sourced had to stay, that would mean we would need to keep false information as well--I mean, I can find reliable sources (academic journals) supporting all sorts of science that we once thought was true, but now don't. We don't want an encyclopedia article to list every false start and temporary mistake. So we both cannot and should not have a rule that says "everything sourced can always stay." Qwyrxian (talk) 06:39, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

If you'll carefully read my proposal at the top of this section, it does NOT say "everything sourced can always stay". How about this: "The removal of article content that is relevant, reliably sourced and neutral is a form of reverse original research, and is highly discouraged (see WP:NPOV) unless it clearly violates a Wikipedia policy." Ghostofnemo (talk) 06:58, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

It is unnecessary cruft. And relevant can be be misunderstood without further qualification as meaning whatever the person thinks is relevant rather than something that discusses the topic of the article, and neutral can be misunderstood as meaning the cited source is relevant rather tan that it is used in a neutral way. Dmcq (talk) 09:28, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it's necessary, because I've seen people delete solid stuff for very dubious reasons. As it stands now, there doesn't seem to be a policy to prevent this. People seem to misinterpret "bold" editing to mean they can whack stuff they personally disagree with. I've seen editors (plural) argue that the news media has been duped, and so the editors are deleting material (which is sourced with mainstream sources like the BBC) because THEY know what is REALLY going on! Regarding interpretation of words, well in that case all policies are pointless because they can be misinterpreted. "Thou shalt not kill" seems very straightforward, but there are all kinds of clever exceptions, aren't there? Ghostofnemo (talk) 10:52, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Here's an example of editors overruling the news media: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:MY_Ady_Gil/Archive_1#Arbitrary_break

I'm not sure what you want me to see. I read it and it has you wanting to put rammed in to the article instead of involved in a collision and others rejecting that as being disputed and then finally someone says it could be put in if that is said in some newspapers and it is attributed to the people saying it. That last sentiment is about right and follows WP:RS. So what exactly is your point and what has it got to do with this policy? Also if you really want to quote precedent you want to show where editors decided by consensus a policy was wrong and they needed to invoke WP:IAR and this definitely doesn't show that. Dmcq (talk) 11:37, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I concur, and that conversation does not demonstrate a need to change the policy. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:42, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

The news media were reporting that the Ady Gil was rammed, but the editors decided that was untrue and deleted it.

I just did find a policy that kind of addresses wholesale deletions at WP:PRESERVE. Ghostofnemo (talk) 01:58, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Cherry picking, "I didn't here that", and beating a dead horse. Nothing else really needs to be said. I understand that being proven wrong can hurt the pride (it has happened to me) but it is time you move on. Please use this energy to improve the topic area.Cptnono (talk) 06:18, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

There is a citation in the article to a newspaper saying it was rammed. Others say otherwise. As the talk you pointed out above says it would probably be okay to say the protestors say it was rammed and cite that newspaper. It would be wrong to just say it was rammed with such evidence without some court saying so. The article already says there is a dispute about what happened and points to the differing accounts. Dmcq (talk) 09:36, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

We don't say what did or didn't happen in Wikipedia - we cite reliable sources, or at least that is my understanding of how it is supposed to work. But some editors obviously think they know "the truth" and feel privileged to over-ride the sources and deleted or alter sourced material to fit their personal beliefs. That's why we need policies like WP:PRESERVE, and why it should be pointed out in this policy, too. Ghostofnemo (talk) 12:48, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Ghostofnemo, what you are proposing is fundamentally different than other Wikipedia policies and guidelines, including the ones that you are (IMHO incorrectly) saying are the logical complement of this one. For particular material, other policies and guidelines set up criteria that must be complied with for inclusion. You are proposing a "must stay in" policy for particular items. I that that structurally, this would make a mess out of things. North8000 (talk) 14:15, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

The sources show that some people say it was rammed. Others say it wasn't. The article says there is a dispute and among other citations it has one to where they say it was rammed. What exactly is your problem with that? Dmcq (talk) 14:51, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Something that Ghostofnemo may not have noticed is that WP:PRESERVE does not say material "must stay in"... in fact, it explicitly notes that there are situations when we should remove material. It notes that: "Several of our core policies discuss situations when it might be more appropriate to remove information rather than to preserve it."

So... the question becomes, is this one of those situations when it is appropriate to remove the information? What policy provisions support removal? Blueboar (talk) 15:01, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I found this too, from Arbcom: 'Removal of sourced edits made in a neutral narrative is disruptive' 8) It is disruptive to remove statements that are sourced reliably, written in a neutral narrative, and pertain to the subject at hand. Passed 5 to 0 at 05:54, 10 December 2006 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Hkelkar#Removal_of_sourced_edits_made_in_a_neutral_narrative_is_disruptive Ghostofnemo (talk) 19:20, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I find Arbcom findings largely unpursuasive because

• The findings are written to be understood in the context of a particular dispute and may be hard to apply to other disputes unless one reads the entire dispute carefully.
• The remit of Arbcom is resolving disputes not writing good articles, so their findings may not constitute good advise on writing good articles.
• Writing good articles requires sticking to the main points intended to be brought out in a particular article, and not going off on tangents. This may require the ommission of reliably sourced material.

I find the particular finding mentioned can be difficult to interpret because "made in a neutral narrative" might or might not mean material of marginal relevance to the thread of the narrative may be removed. Also, does "pertain to the subject at hand" mean the material must be appropriate to the chosen subject matter and chosen depth of presentation of the article, or may any material that has something to do with the general topic be jammed in? Jc3s5h (talk) 19:55, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Just because something can be sourced, doesn't mean it belongs in an article. Far from it. WP:V, WP:OR and WP:NPOV all need to be taken into context. This is especially true with contentious material in controversial articles. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:59, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

• Against It's poor editing to incorporate absolutely everything. And the phrase "reverse original research" is a pretext.[2] Professor marginalia (talk) 20:01, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Hasn't this discussion gone on far enough? It doesn't look as though we're likely to add this. Dougweller (talk) 20:13, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the Arbcom stuff is a link from WP:TEND, which is Wikipedia policy. Ghostofnemo (talk) 23:47, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

And under 'Characteristics of problem editors", (from the policy that you linked): "You often find yourself accusing or suspecting other editors of "suppressing information", "censorship" or "denying facts"', "You find yourself repeating the same argument over and over again, without persuading people.". Sound familiar?--Terrillja _talk 00:00, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

There's also an interesting section in WP:PRESERVE that, oddly, GoN forgot to mention. "Several of our core policies discuss situations when it might be more appropriate to remove information rather than to preserve it. WP:Verifiability discusses handling unsourced and contentious material; WP:No original research discusses the need to remove original research; and WP:UNDUE discusses how to balance material that gives undue weight to a particular viewpoint, which might include removal. Also, redundancy within an article should be kept to a minimum (excepting the lead, which is meant to be a summary of the entire article, and so is intentionally duplicative). Libel, nonsense and vandalism should be completely removed, as should material that violates copyright." Ravensfire (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

In addition to the above points, there is a core structural one. You are basically proposing a "must stay in " policy. I.E. that material meets one particular criteria, then it must stay in, irrespective of all other considerations. Such would be a mess. Maybe a good thought to keep in mind, but not as a categorical policy. North8000 (talk) 01:32, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

The removed material I've complained about was sourced, neutral and relevant. It was not original research, was not giving undue weight (it was repeatedly mentioned by the news media), it was not redundant, libelous, nonsense or vandalism, nor a copyright violation. It WAS contentious, because other editors wanted to keep it out of the article! I'm not saying all material must stay in, but I'm saying if material is relevant, well-sourced and neutral, it should not be treated like vandalism, with zero protection. Ghostofnemo (talk) 07:53, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

You may have a valid complaint that the material was taken out. You may have a valid thought that the policies should make it more conducive for proper resolution of such matters without going to larger lengths. (mediation, noticeboards etc.) I just think that particular proposal is not a good one. North8000 (talk) 10:22, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

What were these materials that were removed? Please supply diffs to the article which show the behaviour you are complaining about. As I said above I could not find anything in the reference to the talk page discussion a year ago that was particularly worrying. Dmcq (talk) 11:23, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Here is one that just happened recently. This editor, who I don't believe has done any editing on this article until this deletion, showed up and deleted a block of text from the 9/11 conspiracy theories article. The result is that the lead in to the article talks about how most civil engineers support the mainstream account, but the engineers and architects who disagree are now not mentioned, and this is the conspiracy theory article: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=9/11_conspiracy_theories&diff=400614077&oldid=400592539 Ghostofnemo (talk) 12:59, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) Your problems lies with WP:FRINGE and is best discussed at the appropriate noticeboard. Provide the diff and ask if that would be against FRINGE or WP:UNDUE. Leave your soapbox at the door. Vassyana (talk) 14:21, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

GoN, despite your strident, repeated statements, your material in earlier reversions was deemed as WP:OR by MULIPLE noticeboards. It doesn't matter if you don't want to hear that, that material was OR and removed for that reason. Ravensfire (talk) 14:37, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

That latest diff looks like a proper application of WP:BRD to me. The discussion is ongoing. I see no case for anything there. Dmcq (talk) 17:56, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Is this example really OR? Do you think it warrants removal in light of WP:PRESERVE and the Arbcom ruling? How is repeated removal of this different from vandalism? Ghostofnemo (talk) 01:38, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of your feelings, this is not an appropriate venue for that discussion. --Nuujinn (talk) 01:55, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

The topic under discussion is whether or not this NOR policy should included a prohibition or caution about the deletion of referenced material as a form of original research. If the editors involved believe that the removed material is actually OR, then I am barking up the wrong tree. I don't believe it is. BTW, thanks for the advice Vassyana, I've posted this particular incident to the noticeboard you suggested. Ghostofnemo (talk) 02:17, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I think your suggestion is a recipe for disaster. It's often enough of an uphill battle removing obvious synthesis, leading editorial arrangement, and statements not fully supported by the accompanying citations. All of these, and other similar NOR violations, would become nigh impossible to address with a prohibition or advice against removing cited material as OR. (For the record, I'm not making any comment regarding your specific situation, only commenting regarding your suggestion as a general matter.) Vassyana (talk) 14:30, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Reject WP:OR is usefull as a specification for non neutral points of view WP:NPOV, however adopting this proposal would put the burden of evidence for removing biased but referenced text with the removing party. In my view referenced text can be removed quoting any relevant policy (ike undue or npov) and editors (and page watchers) are mature enough to do this responsibly without this kind of policy cruft. Arnoutf (talk) 17:45, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

The example before us would seem to indicate otherwise. If the edit is not supported by the referenced source (or sources), then a biased edit can be removed on those grounds. But if the edit is supported by the referenced sources, then you're calling the sources biased, and you'd have to challenge the sources - you'd have editors second-guessing reliable sources and removing material based on their own personal opinions. I can provide more examples of these types of deletions of referenced material if you like... Ghostofnemo (talk) 00:50, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:TEND Under "Characteristics of problem editors": "You often find yourself accusing or suspecting other editors of "suppressing information", "censorship" or "denying facts"', "You find yourself repeating the same argument over and over again, without persuading people.". Sound familiar?

You keep arguing the exact same thing. Adding diffs of what you see as the problem isn't going to change that you are the only one who sees a problem. Perhaps in the future the rest of us will see a problem and look to change it, but that time is apparently not now.--Terrillja _talk 00:55, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Here's another example from the Tokyo Two article: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tokyo_Two&diff=371327477&oldid=371318876 Ghostofnemo (talk) 00:56, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:DEADHORSE Another diff doesn't change the fact that no one else agrees that this change is necessary. Another hundred diffs do not change the fact that the underlying changes you want have been emphatically turned down.--Terrillja _talk 00:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Here's one from Peter Bethune: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pete_Bethune&diff=365323353&oldid=365225337 Ghostofnemo (talk) 01:04, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

This is a dead horse. Quit beating it up.--Terrillja _talk 01:15, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Since you're one of the editors involved in these deletions, I think we have to take your opinion with a grain of salt. Ghostofnemo (talk) 06:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:TEND. WP:DIVA. Since a number of uninvolved editors have stated multiple times that nothing was out of process and they agree with the removals, apparently my opinion is the right one.--Terrillja _talk 14:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

So exactly with how many grains of salt should we take the opinion of a person who is primarily involved and takes things from forum to forum? Dmcq (talk) 14:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I think there's a need for a policy on this. I'm trying get clear policy that protects referenced material that is relevant, well-sourced and neutral from questionable deletions. So far, I haven't succeeded, but the problem has not gone away either, so I keep trying. Ideally, the editors involved would be reprimanded for vandalism, but that doesn't seem to be happening. Next time, I may try posting the deletion on a vandalism noticeboard. Ghostofnemo (talk) 07:06, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I think you probably have found most of the tricks in WP:Civil POV pushing out for yourself already but it might be helpful in your quest. Dmcq (talk) 10:10, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Just what I've come to expect - instead of substance, instead of trying to defend the three questionable deletions I've given examples of, and explain how these deletions improved the articles in question (as opposed to slanting them by omitting neutral, factual information), the best you guys can do is throw mud at me personally. Please grow up. Ghostofnemo (talk) 11:44, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh the irony, GoN - you've been slinging mud at editors over this for months now, despite every forum you've tried rejecting your views. You've been correctly pointed to the OR/SYNTH, NPOV and UNDUE policies multiple times. Your "neutral, factual" has often been judged anything but. The policies DO cover the scenarios you mention - with exception that you don't like . Edits that use synthesis, give undue weight or serve as a coatrack should be removed. Ravensfire (talk) 15:29, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Ghostofnemo , please put down the stick and step back from the bloody patch of ground where what used to be horse long ago rests. There's no consensus here supporting your proposed edit. --Nuujinn (talk) 15:50, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Without (I hope) reviving this debate, nor(I hope all will forgive) pretending to have studied everything above, let me offer a more direct way to view the inappropriateness of the proposal. It is article material which is, or is not. original research; an act of editing cannot be, in and of itself, original research (or research of any kind, for that matter). Seen this way, the proposal makes no sense. EEng (talk) 18:01, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Against. While it is certainly true that biased deletion can be a problem just as biased addition is, there are other valid reasons for deleting material. Plain old TL;DR is one reason to prune an article. "In popular culture" sections often collect 100% accurate trivia that could stand to be pruned. 71.41.210.146 (talk) 19:50, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

We're not talking trivia here, though. This is more like people deleting material they wish to suppress for some reason, for example that Peter Bethune was hooded terrorist-style after his arrest by Japanese police: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_James_Bethune&diff=365323353&oldid=365225337 Apparently an inconvenient truth that some editors didn't want in the article. Ghostofnemo (talk) 13:27, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:PSTS

In many cases primary sources, such as the "Foreign Relations of the United States"-series,[3] "Documents on British Foreign Policy"-series,[4] & etc. constitute the official (declassified) documentary historical record of major government policy decisions and diplomatic activity. These sources frequently contain editorial notes written by the official historians that provide interpretations, or provide the official analysis on the subjects as supplied by the original authors themselves.

The current wording of the policy implies that all interpretation, analysis, or claims must be referenced to a secondary source - or that any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source. Can we incorporate a clarification in the text of the policy that it is alright to quote or summarize interpretations and analysis contained in the primary sources with proper in-line attribution? harlan (talk) 18:01, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

The commentary you talk about would be secondary source material (it is not part of the original, primary document). But, in any case, the policy relates to interpretations by a Wikipedian... not interpretations by those outside of Wikipedia. Blueboar (talk) 18:29, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

NOR concerns

I have some NOR concerns here, on the talk page of Commodity fetishism. I did post something at the NOR notcieboard, but I think different people watch this page, and they have a backlog. You guys understand the polcy best and are most committed to it and I woud appreciate it if any of you have tim to review and comment on this case. Thanks Slrubenstein | Talk 14:30, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Synthesis (WP:SYN)

I added the following paragraph to the synthesis section. Was that ok?

“ On the other hand, this principle should be used with caution and not as a way of censoring sourced facts based on a specific POV. Wikipedia is not the place for high-level analysis of results, but do not delete sourced text and rather obvious conclusions without previous discussion, just by referring to this principle. If for example source A says one thing, and from B, C and D it can easily be concluded that A apparently is wrong, a discussion on the talk page is recommended on what is the beast way of dealing with this; if A should be removed, if a low-level synthesis is acceptable or if the information should be organized in another way. ”

Mange01 (talk) 12:18, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like there are some very good ideas in there. But it's confusing to read and any significant change to a major policy should be discussed here first. North8000 (talk) 13:37, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Synthesis on Wikipedia is a massive OR problem. This paragraph does not make the issue clearer. Fifelfoo (talk) 13:41, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I found the paragraph confusing. I'll remove it if it isn't already gone. Dmcq (talk) 14:02, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

It sounds to me that they're trying to put in something about neutral point of view when there are conflicting opinions in different sources. The WP:NPOV policy talks about that. There is also the problem sometimes that one source is just plain wrong which is a bit of a pain when someone gets a bee about adding it, but fortunately it doesn't happen too often, that requires discussion and common-sense and so basically invoking IAR Dmcq (talk) 14:57, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for good comments! The background to my suggestions is that recently I have noticed several times that WP:SYNTH is used as a way of getting rid of sourced facts that someone does not like, for example that contradicts the majority POV among the authors of an article. I.m.o. WP:SYNTH should normally only be used for removing new conclusions, not for removal of sourced relevant facts. If you have another argument for removing sourced facts, then that argument should be presented. ANother point is that praxis shows that this principle is typically only used in controverial issues.

Suggestion for new formulation:

“ On the other hand, this principle should be used with caution to avoid the suspicion of POV based censorship of sourced and relevants facts. Original research such as new high-level analysis and new conclusions may be removed by referring to this principle, but the sourced facts that the conclusions were based upon should not necessarily be deleted. And if sourced facts are deleted, other arguments than WP:SYNTH should be used.

Praxis shows that on non-controversial issues, rather obvious new conclusions is often accepted. [Alternative formulation: If concensus can be reached, low-level synthesis is acceptable, for example non-controversial rather obvious new conclusions and summaries of the sources that do not constitute original research.]

”

Mange01 (talk) 02:20, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I have long been a supporter of trivial synthesis provided that consensus can be reached, albeit under a different context. In fact, a form of it is already permitted under WP:CALC. In this regard I have previously stated that current guidelines completely disrespect the context of a topic and disregard what may indeed be a triviality facing the complexity of the topic. For example, even though WP:CALC allows trivial calculations like, let's say, a+b-a=b, this may be non-trivial for an article discussing the algebraic axiomatic system.

For example, trivial synthesis may be based on simple logical relations such as transitive and total relations and basic rules of first-order logic. For example, to take an example from a current FAC, if there is a reference that says that something is true for country A, another for country B, a.s.o. till, let's say, G, then it should be permissible to synthesize that something is true for "several countries"^{[refs A-G]}. If all countries are in Europe, it should be permissible to say "several European countries". Such examples can be found in current featured articles, even though current policy precludes this.

In fact, if such simple rules are permitted, it is impossible to conclude that both fact A and not A can be true at the same time. However, given that current policy disregards truth – "the threshold for inclusion is verifiability, not truth" – I don't see how this can be solved. ;) Nageh (talk) 14:38, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Do OR rules allow counting or arithmetic?

1. The obituary of Charles Coulson in Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of London ends with a bibliography of research papers that he wrote. This extends from page 116 to 134 in the pagination of the issue of the Memoirs in which it appears. The papers are numbered [1], [2], ... By scrolling to the final page, I see the final bracketed number is [444]. Is it OR if I state "Coulson was the author, or a co-author, of at least 444 papers in peer reviewed journals" ?

2. Suppose that to prepare some insertions for a WP article, I access the electronic catalogue of holdings of a county library system, and search for books by John Henry Smith, by retrieving records for J.Smith, John Smith, J. H. Smith, John H. Smith, John Henry Smith and J. Henry Smith, cutting and pasting the information about the books that I think are by the John Henry Smith in whom I am interested, and deleting redundancies caused by multiple copies and editions. Then I determine that the number of records is 7, by counting, (or asking a 7-year old grand child to count) and state, in the article, that John Henry Smith published 7 or more books. Have I performed unallowable WP:OR?

3. Suppose I now access Web Of Science or Scopus, and search for papers by John Henry Smith. The system displays the list of citations that it finds. Also it displays "37 items found" (or words to that effect) at the head of the list. I scroll quickly through the titles. All contain distinctive words that are consistent with the work of the John Henry Smith in whom I am interested. I include the statement "John Henry Smith published 37 or more papers in peer reviewed journals." Have I broken WP:OR rules?

4.Now posit the following variation on 3. There are 215 hits, and a quick inspection suggests that 73 are by the John Henry Smith in whom I am interested. I include the statement "John Henry Smith published 73 or more papers in peer reviewed journals." Have I broken WP:OR rules?

5. Revert to case 3. The short information for each hit displays the number of times the paper has been cited. Suppose I add these and get the result 547. Can I include the statement "An indication of the impact of Smith's work is the total number of citations to his published papers. Based on a Web of Science search, this exceeded 540 at the end of the year 2010". Or does the action that enables this statement constitute OR? (And does the mention of citation count as an indicator of scientific impact violate verifiability rules by omitting a reference to article that justifies the action. Then, if I include reference to article that advocates use of citation count as criterion of impact, do I violate WP:NPOV rules. Then, if I just fall back on a string of quotations, do I violate copyright, inside and outside the world of WP?

6. Suppose I download the sets of citing papers for each of Smith's papers, and form the unions of these. This leaves a set of 511 citations. Can I include the statement "An indication of the impact of Smith's work is the total number of papers that cite his published papers. Based on a Web of Science search, this exceeded 500 at the end of the year 2010". Or does the action that enables this statement constitute OR?

7. If a reference source states "Smith enjoyed over 99 birthdays" is it OP to state "Smith lived to over 100"?

8. If a scholarly source states "Umbriago's first reliably dated large scale canvas was completed in 1503, and his last in 1563" can I state "Umbriago was at least 70 when he died", by making the tacit assumption that he was at least 10 when he started to paint large scale canvases. Would this violate WP:OR?

9. Do WP:OR rules permit a statement that locates a building by moving the cursor onto its depiction in a Google Earth session, and transcribing the relevant numerical data displayed at the foot of the screen?

10. Do WP:OR rules permit a statement that gives the distance between two buildings "as the crow flies" based on the use of measuring feature of Google Earth?

11. Do WP:OR rules permit a statement that gives the altitude of an object by transcribing the value shown in a Google Earth session?

12. Do WP:OR rules permit a statement that gives the difference in altitudes of two objects by calculating the difference of the values shown in a Google Earth session, using elementary school arithmetic?

13. Do WP:OR rules permit a statement that gives the inclination of a flight of stairs between two objects by feeding the positions and altitudes shown in a Google Earth session, into a calculation that uses division as well as subtraction?

14. Would WP:OR rules be violated by a statement that gave the inclination transcribed from a resource of Google Earth that provided this directly?

I really want to play by the rules, and there is a learning curve that may be too long for someone my age to climb just by reading the guidelines. Michael P. Barnett (talk) 22:52, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

The best way to play by the rules would be to bring specific examples here when a question arises, since circumstances often help determine what is and is not appropriate. That being said, I'll give you my opinion:

• 1) I think that would be ok, but you might explicitly mention the source in the text of the article in addition to providing a reference, something to the effect "Charles Coulson's bibliography in the Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of London lists him as author or co-author of 444 articles".
• 2 - 6) These, in the general sense, I would regard as OR, since you're doing the research.
• 7) I would simply use what the source uses.
• 8) OR, you can't assume things.
• 9-14), We'd have to determine if Google Earth is a reliable source, and I'm not sure it is. Some of these cases I would regard as OR, such as 12 and 13.

But again, we'd want to work with specific cases as they arise, and what you have above is just my gut feeling in general and thus pretty nigh worthless. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:47, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I think a number of things you said there would probably be allowed under CALC and commonsense. However they are mainly cruft, if something is interesting somebody will have written about it, they are original reasearch in the sense that nobody ever wrote anything about them. They sound uninteresting to me. The policies are not hard rules, they are what people have written down as what people do in aid of producing the encyclopaedia. Filling wikipedia with cruft does not make it into a good encyclopaedia. You should try and stick to summarizing what people have written rather than try doing research. Dmcq (talk) 23:50, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

In reality, summarization is needed for good writing and information articles, but is technically a violation of WP:NOR. The same for absolute "no brainer" deduction. When that is very obvious and absolutely uncontested, the former is the way that the higher level statements in articles are written. Written by someone who has learned from many many sources, and cited using sources that support the statement but don't explicitly say it. When it's not obvious, and is challenged by someone who sincerely questions the accuracy of the statement, then wp:syn, wp:nor wp:ver provide the quidance to take care of things. When none of the above apply (as when there are real world opponents on the subject), then the system breaks down and the imperfect rules are used for POV wikilawyering towards POV's, and you have the eternal mess that wp articles on contentious topics are in. North8000 (talk) 16:29, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Dmcq's analysis. That said, the title of the section is wrong. What you are doing is counting, but you assume that the author is really always the same person. Even if you verify that by comparing subject, publication date, etc., you are doing original research. Simple arithmetic is permitted by WP:CALC.

Regarding Dmcq's statement that "if something is interesting somebody will have written about it"... honestly, I'm reading it so often that it is starting to make me sick. With a little knowledge about combinatorics it is simple to assess that simple application of transitive or total relations amounts to a practically infinite number of very trivial synthesis that most likely nobody will ever have written about. For example, take the deeply structured hierarchies of plant or animal categorizations in biology as an example. Will you be able to find a source that states that Dichelia clarana belongs to the suborder Glossata even though it is known that Dichelia clarana belong to the family Tortricidae and the latter are a sub-category of Glossata? (Now you may certainly find sources that list the whole hierarchy, but I hope you get the point.) See also my comment at #Synthesis (WP:SYN). Nageh (talk) 18:18, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

And hardly any of that is worth sticking in. What I said isn't true as a fact but it is true as far as Wikipedia verifiability is concerned. We as editors can't just go sticking things into Wikipedia without some external proof it is interesting, which is provided by finding a reliable source that writes about it. We're supposed to be writing an encyclopaedia, not doing original research. Dmcq (talk) 18:40, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I fear I can't follow you. What I'm criticizing is that a strict ban of trivial synthesis is sometimes plain ridiculous, may preclude a good writing style, and for that reason is even ignored in current featured articles! I gave a specific example in section #Synthesis (WP:SYN). I am not criticizing verifiabilityverification per se, as you may easily conclude given that I agreed with your analysis further above. Nageh (talk) 18:48, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The WP definition of "OR" (essentially anything not sourcable to wp:ver standards) is vastly different than the real world definition which is "Original Research". :-) So in these conversations, we should make clear which term we are using. For example, "daylight came every day last week in Pheonix" is WP:OR (there is probably no source [much less wp:rs]that said that; one would have to synthesize it from sunrise records). but is not "Original Research" per the real world meaning of the term. North8000 (talk) 19:24, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree there should be something allowing the synthesis where one says some or all the countries in Europe when we have evidence for some of the countries or all of the countries. However I think that should be dealt as a case of summarizing where the individual statements have to all be specified and cited later on. There is I feel a general problem where the leads of articles are disconnected from the article because they directly reference citations rather than summarizing the article. However any change along these lines would have to be very carefully considered and discussed at the policy village pump. There are just too many editors around who try exploiting any crack to introduce some of their own theories and they'll go on and on and on arguing that it's alright and what they're saying is just a trivial calculation or not synthesis when it clearly is their own pet bugbear. Dmcq (talk) 20:18, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I was just going to post an example but I see that you understand where I am trying to go. I'll post it anyway. Suppose we have sources that say "Country X has to cut their expenditures due to accumulating debts.", where X = Greece, Ireland, Spain, Italy, etc. Why is it so outrageous to conclude that "Several European countries have to cut their expenditures due to accumulating debts." Specifically, why is it banned to state (1) that they are European countries, and (2) that they are several?

Otherwise, I agree with you that "trivial" synthesis is (too) often misused on Wikipedia articles. Nageh (talk) 20:26, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Citing oneself

I'd like to remove this section, which is a little outdated:

If an editor has published the results of his or her research in a reliable publication, the editor may cite that source while writing in the third person and complying with our neutrality and conflict of interest policies. If you are able to discover something new, Wikipedia is not the place to premiere such a discovery. This policy does not prohibit editors with specialist knowledge from adding their knowledge to Wikipedia. In fact, expert input is encouraged and experts often have specific knowledge of the relevant literature. However, as with all editors, this policy does prohibit experts from drawing on their personal knowledge without citing reliable sources. See also Wikipedia's guidelines on conflict of interest.

We could replace it with something like:

Citing your own published work is discouraged as a conflict of interest. If you have written material that has been published by a reliable, independent publisher, by all means suggest it for inclusion on the article's talk page.

Any thoughts?

SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 23:37, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

In practice, there probably are a lot of conflicts of interest when people cite themselves. However, saying that we discourage people from citing themselves may be perceived as hostility towards those who actuallly know what they are writing about. I challenge you to find any scholarly journal that discourages authors from citing themselves. I fear that the statement in its present form could be viewed in isolation to portray Wikipedia as anti-intellectual. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:07, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Scholarly journals have checks and balances that we don't have. And the analogy doesn't really hold because scholarly journals don't require neutrality, or that works cited be the most notable. In addition, writers cite themselves in their own articles, something that never applies to an article on Wikipedia.

The clause encouraging people to cite their own work is (as I recall) a few years old, and harks back to before COI became a big problem for us. If someone's work is worth citing, someone else will do it. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 05:38, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Not necessarily - it depends how much attention anyone else might be paying. I don't see anything wrong with citing a reliable source which was written by oneself - edits should be judged on their merits, not by who did them - though we could say that anyone doing this is encouraged to leave a note on the talk page saying that they've done it. --Kotniski (talk) 09:42, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

What's wrong with it is that they're more likely to cite themselves than anyone else is, and more likely to decide that their paper is more important than anyone else's. Classic COI. This is one of the many ways WP is used to self-promote. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 20:42, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

If an editor uses a pseudonym here, and wishes to cite a paper she wrote, is she supposed to write on the talk page "My real name is Joan J. and I wrote this paper..."? That would be absurd, and even asking the pseudonymous editor whether she wrote the source could be construed as a violation of the OUTING policy. So that seems like a bad idea.

I generally agree with Kotniski that we should judge sources by their apparent quality, not by trying to divine whether the editor who added them also wrote them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:50, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Agree. The proposed change would often require people to out themselves. Also this would also impair experts from writing. For example, having written the definitive source would prohibit Einstein from writing about the theory of relativity in Wikipedia. Could not write without citing, and could not cite the definitive source. North8000 (talk) 13:08, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

But someone else would do it if the paper were important. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 20:42, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Still, we can't write a policy that encourages people to out themselves. Given our anonymity policies, we can only treat COI by the duck test anyway. If someone is adding material in a way that appears to unduly promote an author or viewpoint, we have ways to deal with it that don't care whether the person is the author of the material.

Also, there's no requirement that a paper has to be "important" to be included in an article. If someyone (author or not) adds a paper as a reference to an article where the paper is clearly directly related, that's not a policy violation. If someone adds a paper to 15 articles where it is unrelated or barely related, other editors will notice and handle it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:28, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Hello Slim. I used Einstein as an extreme example, but the unintended consequence is that prohibiting citing could prohibit writing. A more realistic example is that the only way a prominent expert could (cited) write would be by citing their rival's works, which they probably wouldn't do. I know of cases where this happened, despite there being no prohibition against it, because they didn't want to risk COI accusations for the privilege of writing for free in Wikipedia. North8000 (talk)

We don't want experts here as experts, but as Wikipedians, and as such they must cite their rival's work if it's appropriate. But bear in mind that we're largely talking about unknown academics and writers here, because known people will be cited by others. What this clause does is encourage non-notable writers to use Wikipedia to promote their own work, and that's why I think we ought to get rid of it. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:53, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

When including a reference in a Wikipedia article, it doesn't matter much if the reference is cited by others or not. References published by academic presses and professional journals are presumed reliable regardless whether they are cited anywhere at all.

The language above doesn't really encourage anything. The conflict of interest policy says, "Editing in an area in which you have professional or academic expertise is not, in itself, a conflict of interest. Using material you yourself have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is relevant and conforms to the content policies." That seems perfectly reasonable to me, and the language above agrees with it. I don't see that anything encourages excessive self-citation.

Moreover, if the NOR policy were to try discouragement of all self-citation, how could that possibly be enforceable in circumstances when the present language isn't? — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:10, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll point out that I have actually been somewhat active lately in dealing with COI related to a banned user. In that situation, as is often the case, there is no way to tell who is actually adding the material. So it doesn't help to have a policy that directly bans self-publication; the key policy is NPOV. In the case I've been involved with, there is also an arbcom case that allows for stricter action that we would normally take. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:17, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

The point should surely be that other people decide whether to cite your work (and we don't just mean academic work; we talk only about "reliable publication"), just as other people should decide whether to create an article on someone. I take your point that we often don't know who is adding material, but we often do. The point is simply not to encourage it, enforceable or not.

As to whether we encourage it, we say: "If an editor has published the results of his or her research in a reliable publication, the editor may cite that source ..." To me, that says "go right ahead." SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:33, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Hello Slim. I digress, but responding on your first point, I think that it's one of the least noticed and most denied realities in Wikipedia that a whole lot of the good stuff is written first by people who know the topic and THEN its cited, including by using the expertise to select good sourcing and leave out wrong or misleading stuff from sources. I guess people's opinions here are molded by what issues they've most run across. I see contentious articles that are eternal failures because intelligent accurate writing can be kept out, (and so am sensitive to the issue of further discouraging sourcable intelligent writing) and you are seeing more situations of marginal or bad source insertions due to COI's. I think we just wander different parts of WP. :-) Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:41, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it is better to write up some guidelines aimed at all editors to help them spot problematic cases of excessive self-citations. Suppose professor X comes here to start an article on theory Y and there are a lot of citations to his/her own work. Our attitude should be that it is good to have that article and Professor X contributing here, but we also want to make sure that all these citations are really appropriate. Count Iblis (talk) 01:18, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

That's the real key here... if the COI editor is acting appropriately, following Wikipedia's rules, and contributing good material, I don't think it really matters if that material happens to include his/her own work. If they are acting inappropriately then there is a problem. We want to encourage the former, and discourage the latter. I think our current language does this. Blueboar (talk) 03:52, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Blueboar, I think the current version is superior. We have to tread a fine line here. On the one hand, we want to discourage dubious editing when there is COI, but on the other hand we want to encourage editing by people who are experts in the field, who if they are academics, would likely have published some papers in the field. I think the current version balances this nicely. The proposed version would would unnecessarily scare away academics who have published in that field. LK (talk) 04:34, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Without pretending to offer an opinion on the word change, I'll offer a few perspectives on the issue in general. I wonder if we should be committal on the question at all in the NOR policy--because so far I don't understand how it is a quandary here in terms of NOR. And because even authors of scientific papers legitimately and routinely cite their own previously published work as reference when justified, I wonder if we've clearly defined a valid rationale to prohibit the practice on wiki. Off-wiki conflicts-of-interest are mostly focused on transparency with "source of funding" (not citing oneself) because issues like citing one's own work has an overt transparency--authors of the work, like the sources cited, are identified by name. But wp invites anonymous editing, and editing-for-pay is difficult to impossible to detect (ie non-transparent) to readers OR fellow editors. So predictably here rather than enforcing "transparency" the policy against citing one's own work may act as a gotcha against real life authors who have disclosed their identities and have valid, notable, published, citable opinions but don't comprehend that an "anybody can edit" website might raise a fuss about it. I've seen a half-dozen cases where this has happened-where new editors are roughed-up on wiki for referencing claims that are everywhere else (including peer-reviewed publishing) perfectly justifiable and cited to something they've authored. So if the "anyone can edit" wiki has unique transparency issues to deal with maybe we shouldn't misidentify or dismiss them out-of-hand as COI violations and instead alert legit authors who venture into the odd wiki-world with good intentions to free-up good content under CC-BY-SA 3.0/GFDL. And for the legitimate self-citations (and I've seen many hostilely objected to as COI transgressions) maybe a more diplomatic guideline (ie "caution to experts") is called for. COI is too loaded a term to blanket across the board to cover the spamming with legitimate self-citations in one broad swath. Professor marginalia (talk) 07:19, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that the WP:COI guideline does a good job of defining a REAL COI, and covers things like this. Roughly speaking, it's when self interests are allowed to override WP objectives. But, like many WP policies/guidelines, it is routinely mis-stated. Even in this discussion 1-2 folks have inadvertently done that, by using "COI" as shorthand for any situation where an editor cites something that they wrote. My focus isn't about the citing per se, it's about the consequences.....officially, if you don't cite you don't write. North8000 (talk) 12:57, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

From a purely NOR perspective, the most important line in the paragraph is: "If you are able to discover something new, Wikipedia is not the place to premiere such a discovery". We definitely don't want to lose that. Blueboar (talk) 13:15, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Suggest keeping that sentence, putting it back where it came from, and deleting the rest of the section. --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:40, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

The paragraph is a useful explanation of when it's appropriate and when it's inappropriate to reference research done by oneself when editing an article. Why should it be removed? LK (talk) 10:52, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I've moved the "most important line in the paragraph" to the beginning of the paragraph to highlight it. This also makes the paragraph flow better and more logically. LK (talk) 10:59, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Seems like a digression into citing one's own published material. Also note that the second sentence contradicts the first, which is not good flow. Have you considered putting the topic of citing oneself in WP:V? --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

The proposal seems sort of misguided and sort of absurd. There has to be a vast area of as-yet-unknown knowledge for which, once known, there is good reason to have it in Wikipedia - once it has been published elsewhere. The misguided aspect is the apparent assumption that the original discover or developer of an idea has a selfish, incompatible-with-Wikipedia nature and motivation. This amounts to an attitude that those who are devoted to finding and publishing new things are unqualified to write Wikipedia articles about the new things, which seems to be just about exactly 180 degrees in the wrong direction. One of the virtues of Wikipedia is that it is capable of rapid improvement, rapid coverage of useful facts. (When some person of note dies the date of death almost instantly appears in Wikipedia.) That is a valuable attribute.

I do not know where I could find a reference to justify saying in Wikipedia (were it worth saying, which I think it is not) that if you are using a garden hose and wearing shoes and turned the hose so that it pointed downward your shoes would likely get wet. So (again, if it were worthy of inclusion) I could do the experiment, publish the shoes-get-wet observation somewhere respectable (a step that is hardly necessary other than to comply with the letter of the policy), and then include it, wherever appropriate (were it so), in Wikipedia. The proposed policy would have it that I am a suspect source for such material. It is fully verifiable, it is added in good faith, it is not in any way banging the drum for any agenda, but the proposed policy wording would have it be treated as suspect - and subject to deletion by some over-eager editor. Or I might develop/discover something useful and notable in fighting spam, or develop simple formulas for computing something (such as Savitzky-Golay smoothing coefficients) that was hitherto unknown.

I think policy writers would be well advised to stop and think about whether the policy about to be proposed does a disservice to both Wikipedia and the capable editors who are willing to share what they know -including what they know that they have themselves developed and published - by creating hurdles aimed at the few who have suspect motivations but which hamper all. Minasbeede (talk) 00:14, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Here's another problem with the suggested change. the suggested change says self-citation is "discouraged." Not forbidden, just "discouraged." Imagine a situation in which a reasonable, well-meaning editor does an edit in which the editor cites the editor's own work after first determining that doing so is not an instance of "conflict of interest." But then a literal-minded editor comes along, sees it is a self-citation, and deletes it because of the policy. the policy doesn't forbid, it merely discourages. The literal-minded editor cares not for any such nuance, the literal-minded editor is interested almost entirely in finding instances of violation of policy and then removing the offending material - even if it does not violate policy but may be accused of doing so because of the imprecision of the policy language. If the first editor cares enough about this to object, to re-inset the material and then open up a discussion on the talk page (or just open up the discussion) the question will probably not be determined at all on the merits of the first editor's position but on amateur lawyering over what the policy says - or over what it can be bent to say. The offense, if an offense has occurred, is "conflict of interest." No doubt that can occur, but when it does the reason for removing text is "conflict of interest," not self-citation. The proposed policy change would make matters worse by creating yet another tool that can be abused by the nit-picky.

Yes, I recognize that the first editor might self-deceive in the editor's determination that the self-citation is not a conflict of interest. The point just made was that the offense is the conflict of interest and that conflict of interest is sufficient reason to remove the edit. That an editor may so err does not blacken all self-citation, as indeed the proposed policy wording appears to recognize. The objection to the proposed wording is that it creates a new problem and solves no problem. Minasbeede (talk) 03:41, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

"If someone's work is worth citing, someone else will do it." Sadly this assumption is not correct. The majority of pages sit for year after year as stubs, without anyone really updating them. The idea that if it's important someone will add it normally only applies to highly active pages, i.e a small percentage but most likely the pages you spend most of your time on. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 00:28, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree, and would add that the "someone else" idea exhibits hostility to editors whose only "flaw" is that they have discovered something. Minasbeede (talk) 03:41, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

There is no problem with an editor citing his own work, as long as that work has been reliably published. The difficulty comes when the editor goes beyond his published work and includes an interpretation, analysis or conclusion that was not explicitly included in his published work. This is common, as the self-citing editor knows background information that was not included in the source. And doing that is OR. Also... the editor who is citing his own work may not be able to stay neutral about the topic. There is the temptation to try to "prove" that his views on the topic are "right". However, that is a WP:NPOV issue and not an OR issue. Blueboar (talk) 16:46, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Going beyond is not a temptation confined to those citing their own work and, as you rightly point out, that would be an NPOV issue anyway, not an OR issue. So I think we agree: it may be an issue, but it is not an issue that should be dealt with in WP:NOR. Deal with NPOV in NPOV.

Your "explicitly included" makes me uncomfortable: see my wet shoes example above. Scholarly editors (in physical science, anyway) might well remove extremely obvious observations or conclusions from a submitted paper on the specific grounds that the observations or conclusions are obvious and serve primarily to make the paper too long. Removed precisely on the grounds that it is unnecessary to state in a scholarly paper something that is obvious. Wikipedia, according to some, should reject the most very obvious things because they do not appear in any reference, ignoring the fact that the reason something does not appear in a reference is specifically that it is glaringly obvious. (I find it a little petty and a little arrogant to say "Well, go find it in a reference anyway.") An encyclopedia is a vehicle for the dissemination of knowledge. I find it entirely appropriate for an encyclopedia, including Wikipedia, to coalesce existing ideas in a way that better informs the reader. I do not find it jarring for an editor to write in a manner that assumes everyone realizes that directing the stream from a garden hose at ones shoes will make them wet - or will realize so once the idea is presented and the reader has time to think about it. Rather than a reviewing Wikipedia editor asking himself "Is this text OR because it makes a conclusion" I think the editor should instead ask himself "Is this text making an obvious conclusion or a non-obvious one?" If non-obvious, then removal may be appropriate. Even if obvious a conclusion that tends to turn attitudes away from accepted wisdom (which all recognize may be faulty) should not first appear in Wikipedia - that would be OR. (That all recognize accepted wisdom may be faulty does not alter the basic nature of Wikipedia: it is expressly not a venue for new ideas or interpretations to first appear. That is a choice; it is a wise one.)

I believe the article on honeypots, in discussing open-relay honeypots, still indicates that the operator of an open relay honeypot can examine trapped spam and potentially discover useful information. I put that there. The open relay honeypot (when it was a powerful anti-spam technique) did capture voluminous quantities of spam, the operator could look at the spam and see exactly what it contained. (And I did that.) Stringent application of NOR would require, I think, that the fact that the operator could look at the spam and see what was in it must be stated by referring to some published source. Doesn't that border on ludicrous? Does it have to be documented that a person could look at spam and see what it contained in an outside reference? Does it have to be documented that spam must, to work, have to provide some method for the recipient to make a reply, to act in a way that benefits the spammer? In addition, the operator can examine trapped relay test messages (the previous example was about spam: these are another of the things open relay honeypots capture) and see factors about those. Spammers in the past used to employ a simple coding within the message headers to indicate, not quite openly, the IP address of the tested relay. As this coding is not instantly obvious I can agree that indicating the coding used ought to have a reference. This is in spite of the fact that, once the coding method is revealed, anyone can fully understand it. (See my talk page for a little more information.)

(Sorry I'm so wordy.) To me the dominant attitude should be one of determining if something in Wikipedia properly conveys information. Wikipedia requires that the information be verifiable. In most cases this does require the existence of an external source: I agree, I'm content. I assert that there are some things which are obvious, non-novel, and non-controversial which should possibly be allowed without insisting on an external source. ("Possibly" is there to acknowledge that there can be borderline cases and in some of those the proper action is removal.) Not all synthesis nor all reasonable assumption is OR. Where synthesis or assumption smacks of OR - or seems to - whack it. The offense is OR. (But be open to reason in the article talk pages. As it says somewhere, assume good faith on the part of the other editor.) Don't follow the false syllogism: Some OR arises from synthesis, this is synthesis, therefore it is OR. (Which, unfortunately, seems to be thrust into present policy.) Minasbeede (talk) 18:30, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm a published author, I'm a Wikipedia editor, and on rare occasions I have cited myself in an article (with a note on the talk page pointing out that I've done it). I'm against the change that SlimVirgin proposes because

1. it wouldn't solve any COI problem. The real problem arises when editors cite themselves (or their friends) while concealing their involvement. The change in policy would only affect those who are open about their involvement.
2. it would encourage the anti-expert bias that is observable, now and then, on Wikipedia. This bias is a bad thing and it ought to be discouraged. Wikipedia will always need contributions from people who know (including people who have published) and it should continue to welcome such contributions.

I usually write here on topics on which I haven't published, so this change would very rarely affect me, but my observation suggests that the effects would be altogether bad. Andrew Dalby 14:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Where will WP orthodoxy lead?

Writing an article for WP that meets the standards of high quality encyclopedias exposes the Editor, under present WP practice, to erosion of time and stamina that limits further contribution by having to fend off (or subscribe to) hair splitting interpretations (and misinterpretations) of rules based on WP definitions at variance with accepted usage. Articles are rife that flout the spirit and letter of these rules. Is there a danger that present practices can increase the ratio of WP wrangling and flawed articles, to material that is sound? Are there relevant statistics? Extreme interpretations of Copyright, NPOV and NOR rules are in conflict.

It is possible to describe the kinds of things that need to be avoided in a concise manner. Spelling them out in ever increasing detail, however, is subject to difficulties shown by the amount of technical attention they have received in many disciplines for centuries. It would be unfortunate if efforts by WP to reinvent this extensive body of knowledge hampered WP's efforts on other matters.

I see enough reasonable, informed opinion in the discussion of rules and their interpretation to hope the situation can improve. Is it possible to have a WP principle that leaves sound, non-controversial articles (i.e. that contains no statements that anyone challenges as factually wrong, or egregious editorializing or tendentious) in peace, instead of requesting (or making) changes on the grounds of technical violations of some other principle that can be argued interminably. Has this all been said before? Michael P. Barnett (talk) 03:36, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

If an article violates the prohibition on original research, it should be corrected to solve that problem. Just because that article has existed in a stable form for a while doesn't mean it can't be improved. Furthermore, the salient, encyclopedic level points that deserve inclusion in any given article are likely to change over time, as new reliable information is discovered or older information is superseded. If I understand you correctly, you're arguing that someone (who?) should be able to declare articles "in peace," (I assume this means, unchangeable); if that's what you're proposing, I think the vast majority of regular editors would disagree with such a proposition, as continual, incremental change is a pretty fundamental part of how Wikipedia works. Is there some specific example that concerns you that might help illuminate your concern? Qwyrxian (talk) 04:00, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely NOT unchangeable. One of my major reasons for contributing to WP is changeability in light of new knowledge, correction of spelling mistakes, rewording or rearrangement for clarity, etc. My perception is that there is always possibility of improvement. Examples of my concern are in ==Do OR rules allow counting or arithmetic?== earlier on this page. The sort of thing I would want left in peace (unless someone found it was wrong) include "John lived to over 100" when quoted source states "John enjoyed more than 99 birthdays". Apart from violating copyright by excessive copying, I want right to express myself this way if, for example, an earlier statement in a paragraph was the direct quote "Tom lived to over 90" and I wanted contrast.

Paradox is this. Finding the statement that "John enjoyed more than 99 birthdays" in a journal article or a book COULD constitute original research, in both accepted usage and OR sense, if it required weeks of searching documents. But who would know? And what if the original source stated the fact in Hungarian? Would I have to leave it in Hungarian? If I found an article about John in Hungarian, I would have to ask someone to translate. How would I know if they translated word by word? By the time people get boxed into spelling out details like "language translation allowed but inference that more than 99 birthdays paraphrases to over 100" we are in a bottomless pit, whether this is done by explicit enumeration or by general rules. Michael P. Barnett (talk) 04:47, 11 January 2011 (UTC) Michael P. Barnett (talk) 04:54, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Of course, there is the tacit assumption that John was not born on February 29th of a leap year. and is human and not a turtle. Michael P. Barnett (talk) 05:14, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Let's see:

• "Finding the statement that "John enjoyed more than 99 birthdays" in a journal article or a book COULD constitute original research, in both accepted usage and OR sense, if it required weeks of searching documents." No, I think that's not what we mean by OR. If you find the statement "John enjoyed more than 99 birthdays" in a reliable source, it's fine to use it, regardless of how long it took you to find it. Calling John's relatives, or finding his birth and death certificates would be OR. If you found a source that said John was 50 in 1950, and a second one that said he died in 2000, and combined them to say "John lived to be 100 years old" would also, in my opinion, be OR (SYNTH).
• "And what if the original source stated the fact in Hungarian? Would I have to leave it in Hungarian?" No, if the source is reliable, you'd cite it, english language sources are preferred, but not required. If challenged, you would have an obligation to provide a good translation, and I would suggest that doing so on the article's talk page when adding the citation is good form. And if you cannot read Hungarian, you have a number of options, including Google translate (which should be used with caution). It would be perfectly acceptable to ask another person to provide a translation, and if you include both the original and translation of the source material on the article's talk page, others can check it for accuracy--the key issue here is that the information be verifiable.

Also, if you want to say "John lived to over 100" based on a source which states "John enjoyed more than 99 birthdays", and were challenged on that point, can you point to where that happened? You are casting these as examples, and it's easier to deal with particular cases since we have context for those. For example, I've enjoyed many birthdays which were not my own.... --Nuujinn (talk) 10:39, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

General question: relevant info not mentioning topic

I'm pretty strict about WP:OR and Synthesis myself, but now find three places where a factoid or opinion which does not specifically mention the topic would be useful, though I'm not hell bent on editing either into the relevant article, and don't think I'd get much opposition if I did, so it's not a WP:ORN issue. (However, it may have been an issue in earlier articles, but can't think of example off hand.)

Examples: 1) the fact that military technologists have tried to put cameras/microphones on flies, to show there is some basis in paranoia about "animal spies." 2) a well known sociologist's opinion that the amount of sociological or political power and control can be difficult to guage, in an article about power and control by a specific group in a specific industry. 3) adding a reference where a book title names a person as a celebrity to make sure I can fit that person into a celebrities section of an article, even though book may not touch on the topic for which he is being discussed.

Is editor consensus the bottom line on this sort of thing, or is it just a plain No No?? And does something about "relevant facts/opinion" found in WP:RS not directly related to subject of article may NOT be synthesis need to be mentioned? Or would that be an open invitation to synthesizers, and we have enough problems with them already. Or is this someting that is better discussed in WP:Verifiability? CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:19, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it would run against two principles, NOR and NPOV. In the NOR sense, it is making an assertion or connecting facts that reliable sources discussing the topic do not. In the NPOV sense, our fundamental rule is to represent a summary or depiction of topics as they appear in documents, reputable sources. It causes us to exclude views and information presented by only a tiny minority of sources (as "undue weight"). Observations and ideas not included in any source would certainly cross the line, in that light. --Vassyana (talk) 18:22, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. 1 and 3 have been dealt with. I found a source directly relevant to topic 2 that says "it's hard to gauge power and control on this issue" so maybe just throwing in a footnote saying well known sociologist agrees generally would not be too out of line? (I doubt other editors would call for it to be taken out in any case.) At this point I agree that we shouldn't put in any wording in this article that would mention such a thing, encouraging people to slip down the slippery WP:OR slope. CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:49, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

To give the specifics that Carolmooredc does not, and for obvious reasons does not, the topic she's discussing is Jewish representation in the media. She is on record saying that she believes that the media is "owned and/or controlled" by "mostly Jews," and has been for at least a month ringing the changes, trying to find some Wiki-friendly way to inject some variation on that sentiment into an article about the antisemitic myth that Jews run the press. Read the relevant talk page and you'll see. Opposition has been unanimous at every gambit she has tried so far, and this is just the latest angle that she's trying to play. Spaceclerk (talk) 05:28, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Yet another personal attack from Spaceclerk to add to my list. As it happens, the thing I want to put in that article is a sociologist saying that it's difficult to tell how much power a group has, which supports the Anti-Defamation League's similar argument that statistics about Jews in media don't necessarily prove they have a lot of power. If Spaceclerk has a problem with that, he can go to the WP:ORN (noticeboard) - if and when I actually put it in the article. CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:57, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Days of a week and dates

I am wondering if I can have a reliable source that lists a timeframe for a show and the days of the week it showed, would it be WP:OR to state what those days were? I'm asking because in the past there has been some dispute with this at FLC with List of Popotan episodes in that at least one editor said it would be OR to say that because the air times could have changed. The source I'm using is one that is updated after the fact though. I was eventually able to find a source to satify him, but the site is dead and Wayback Machine is blocking it because the current owner doesn't allow its bots to search it and its likely to remain that way for the forseeable future. Nor can I find a replacement for that info.陣内_Jinnai 23:22, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Asking again here. Can I remove the source and should it go to FLRC do i need it or can I use the calander without violating OR?陣内_Jinnai 16:04, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Are you asking whether you can say "Eppisode 12 aired on Friday the 14th of January" if you have a source that said the program aired on the 14th but does not specify the day of the week? (if so, yes, you can... looking up the day of the week that a date fell on qualifies as a routine calculation), or are you asking something else? Blueboar (talk) 21:26, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

The reverse - I have sources saying between dates July 17, 2003 and October 2, 2003 the show aired every Thursday and thus using a calander to say epidoes 3 was on one date, episode 4 on another, etc.陣内_Jinnai 17:35, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

This falls under the common "simple calculation" rule, in my opinion. A list of dates is a long way to list out the same information conveyed by "every Xday between Y date and Z date". Presuming that, as per normal, episode aired in their normal sequence shouldn't require a source. There's not any "interpretation" going on or new information being "created" to cause an original research problem. --Vassyana (talk) 18:27, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree... I think this does fall under the routine calculation, but there is that nagging quibble that we don't know (from the source) if the episodes were aired in the correct order. That could screw up your calculation. My question is whether you really need to be so precise. Why not just say that the show aired every Thursday between July 17 and October 2, 2003, and leave it at that? (if this is for a "list of" article, include the less precise "Every Thursday" statement in the lede, and omit the specific "Air date" from the list itself.) Blueboar (talk) 18:44, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

As its for a chronological list we do need to be precise. Also, for anime tv series at least they are aired in order and its only noted when the exceptions in airing order are done. Unfortunately, no one documents in the sites when a TV series airs normally because its assumed to be that way.

Removing it from the list isn't an option without losing its FL status, which is why I brought it here since the archived site that did mention the exact dates is now being blocked permeable.陣内_Jinnai 19:46, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but does it really need to be a chronological list... or can it be organized by episode number instead? Blueboar (talk) 20:36, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd have to bring it up because we already have episode listing and it would be a radical departure from all of the episode FLs I know, especially anime ones. If other episode FLs can make it with just the episode numbers though, it might be possible. As I said though, I think its expected content to have the orginal air date or release date (for non-broadcast episodes).陣内_Jinnai 04:32, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Where will WP orthodoxy lead?

Writing an article for WP that meets the standards of high quality encyclopedias exposes the Editor, under present WP practice, to erosion of time and stamina that limits further contribution by having to fend off (or subscribe to) hair splitting interpretations (and misinterpretations) of rules based on WP definitions at variance with accepted usage. Articles are rife that flout the spirit and letter of these rules. Is there a danger that present practices can increase the ratio of WP wrangling and flawed articles, to material that is sound? Are there relevant statistics? Extreme interpretations of Copyright, NPOV and NOR rules are in conflict.

It is possible to describe the kinds of things that need to be avoided in a concise manner. Spelling them out in ever increasing detail, however, is subject to difficulties shown by the amount of technical attention they have received in many disciplines for centuries. It would be unfortunate if efforts by WP to reinvent this extensive body of knowledge hampered WP's efforts on other matters.

I see enough reasonable, informed opinion in the discussion of rules and their interpretation to hope the situation can improve. Is it possible to have a WP principle that leaves sound, non-controversial articles (i.e. that contains no statements that anyone challenges as factually wrong, or egregious editorializing or tendentious) in peace, instead of requesting (or making) changes on the grounds of technical violations of some other principle that can be argued interminably. Has this all been said before? Michael P. Barnett (talk) 03:36, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

If an article violates the prohibition on original research, it should be corrected to solve that problem. Just because that article has existed in a stable form for a while doesn't mean it can't be improved. Furthermore, the salient, encyclopedic level points that deserve inclusion in any given article are likely to change over time, as new reliable information is discovered or older information is superseded. If I understand you correctly, you're arguing that someone (who?) should be able to declare articles "in peace," (I assume this means, unchangeable); if that's what you're proposing, I think the vast majority of regular editors would disagree with such a proposition, as continual, incremental change is a pretty fundamental part of how Wikipedia works. Is there some specific example that concerns you that might help illuminate your concern? Qwyrxian (talk) 04:00, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely NOT unchangeable. One of my major reasons for contributing to WP is changeability in light of new knowledge, correction of spelling mistakes, rewording or rearrangement for clarity, etc. My perception is that there is always possibility of improvement. Examples of my concern are in ==Do OR rules allow counting or arithmetic?== earlier on this page. The sort of thing I would want left in peace (unless someone found it was wrong) include "John lived to over 100" when quoted source states "John enjoyed more than 99 birthdays". Apart from violating copyright by excessive copying, I want right to express myself this way if, for example, an earlier statement in a paragraph was the direct quote "Tom lived to over 90" and I wanted contrast.

Paradox is this. Finding the statement that "John enjoyed more than 99 birthdays" in a journal article or a book COULD constitute original research, in both accepted usage and OR sense, if it required weeks of searching documents. But who would know? And what if the original source stated the fact in Hungarian? Would I have to leave it in Hungarian? If I found an article about John in Hungarian, I would have to ask someone to translate. How would I know if they translated word by word? By the time people get boxed into spelling out details like "language translation allowed but inference that more than 99 birthdays paraphrases to over 100" we are in a bottomless pit, whether this is done by explicit enumeration or by general rules. Michael P. Barnett (talk) 04:47, 11 January 2011 (UTC) Michael P. Barnett (talk) 04:54, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Of course, there is the tacit assumption that John was not born on February 29th of a leap year. and is human and not a turtle. Michael P. Barnett (talk) 05:14, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Let's see:

• "Finding the statement that "John enjoyed more than 99 birthdays" in a journal article or a book COULD constitute original research, in both accepted usage and OR sense, if it required weeks of searching documents." No, I think that's not what we mean by OR. If you find the statement "John enjoyed more than 99 birthdays" in a reliable source, it's fine to use it, regardless of how long it took you to find it. Calling John's relatives, or finding his birth and death certificates would be OR. If you found a source that said John was 50 in 1950, and a second one that said he died in 2000, and combined them to say "John lived to be 100 years old" would also, in my opinion, be OR (SYNTH).
• "And what if the original source stated the fact in Hungarian? Would I have to leave it in Hungarian?" No, if the source is reliable, you'd cite it, english language sources are preferred, but not required. If challenged, you would have an obligation to provide a good translation, and I would suggest that doing so on the article's talk page when adding the citation is good form. And if you cannot read Hungarian, you have a number of options, including Google translate (which should be used with caution). It would be perfectly acceptable to ask another person to provide a translation, and if you include both the original and translation of the source material on the article's talk page, others can check it for accuracy--the key issue here is that the information be verifiable.

Also, if you want to say "John lived to over 100" based on a source which states "John enjoyed more than 99 birthdays", and were challenged on that point, can you point to where that happened? You are casting these as examples, and it's easier to deal with particular cases since we have context for those. For example, I've enjoyed many birthdays which were not my own.... --Nuujinn (talk) 10:39, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Rigorous expression, example 1

"Wikipedia does not publish original thought" -- should this be "Wikipedia does not publish any original thoughts of the Editor who is making the contribution"? Nobel prizes are awarded for work that must include original thought. Present wording can be (mis)interpreted to exclude, from WP, reasons for awarding a Nobel Prize. Also it begs the question of what is "original" and what is "thought" -- decidedly not trivial. I am not being facetious or hostile or denying the need for rules, in particular addressing the intent of NOR-- just trying to illustrate the difficulty of wording, and where literalism can lead. In a talk that he gave in 1945, the then Mr. Justice Birkett, later Norman Birkett, 1st Baron Birkett, said "the law should be written in such a way that someone reading it in good faith can understand it, and someone reading it in bad faith cannot misunderstand it." Finding an adequate definition for "trivial" synthesis is an enormously difficult, technical problem. It depends on the context -- what is trivial in one context (elementary school algebra) can be very challenging in another (foundations of mathematics). I think we have to fall back on general intent plus common sense and good faith. And defining those is not easy. Michael P. Barnett (talk) 01:37, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

You understand the policy correctly. However, I don't think there is a need to rewrite the sentence you quote. If you put it in context with the rest of the policy, it is clear that is what we mean. Blueboar (talk) 21:30, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

As WP:POLICY says "Use common sense when interpreting and applying policies and guidelines; there will be occasional exceptions to these rules. Conversely, those who violate the spirit of a rule may be reprimanded even if no rule has technically been broken." The only real rules are that the encyclopaedia should be improved and consensus should be used in deciding what that means and how to go about it. The rules attempt to describe the current consensus so good faith editors can understand it, they are not laws with loopholes that can be exploited like tax laws. Dmcq (talk) 10:38, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Atrocious writing

Whether material counts as a primary or secondary source is not fixed. A book by a military historian about the Second World War might be a secondary source of material about the war, but if it includes details of the author's own war experiences, it would be a primary source of material about those issues.

This is appalling writing. It means that the same book can be primary or secondary depending on what it is being cited for; it says that the same material is "not fixed", which could be read that the distinction can be changed at the editor's convenience. It describes the "author's own war experiences" as issues, when there is no reason to suppose they are issues.

I agree with what I think this passage intends to say; but it says it very badly. I edited to make it more legible, with no change of intent, and was instantly reverted: I will now try again. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:24, 20 January 2011 (UTC) The revert.

I haven't looked at your suggested alternative, but how about posting it here, getting some feedback for it on the talk page, and then actually editing the policy page if there are no objections. Just an idea. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:29, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand your point, Pma. Why are war experiences not issues? Why would "not fixed" mean someone could change the status for no reason? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:34, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The term "issue" usually refers to something that requires debate and discussion to resolve. War experiences are not necessarily that. It's awkward, to say the least. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:45, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• (ec)Why should war experiences be "issues"? They may involve issues, in the slangy extension of the legal sense The point in question, at the conclusion of the pleadings between contending parties in an action, when one side affirms and the other denies, if the historian says "we were fighting a pointless war" or "my unit committed no atrocities" On the other hand, they may be "we engaged the Germans on the 25th" or "there were blackbirds in No Man's Land", which raise no "issues". The last two may be wrong although they aren't issues, but that's why we use secondary sources; they are primary either way (although the first examples may well be secondary: it depends whether he is expressing his impressions at the time, or his later conclusions from a wider range of data).
• To say comething "is not fixed" without explaining why it is not fixed - and where it is fixed - is an open invitation to anybody to claim exceptions. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:53, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
• Material is used both of a source, near the beginning of the passage quoted, and of its content, in material about the war and material about his experiences. This ambiguity is worsened by the difficulty that the last two handwave towards something like "data" or "content", which are, in the primary sense of the adjective, immaterial. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:02, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)I have looked at it now. I disagree with your assessment of the above as being "atrocious writing", though I agree it could be better. And I do think the changes in this this edit do improve it:

Whether material counts as a primary or secondary source is not fixed may depend on context. A book by a military historian about the Second World War might be a secondary source of material about the war, but if it includes details of the author's own war experiences, it would be a primary source of material about those issuesthem.

And the next edit is even better:

Whether ,material a source counts as a primary or secondary source is not fixed depends on what it is being cited for. A book by a military historian about the Second World War might be a secondary source of material about the war, but if it includes details of the author's own war experiences, it would be a primary source of material about those issues for his experiences.

But I would like to understand why SlimVirgin thinks it changes the meaning. Perhaps we're missing something? --Born2cycle (talk) 22:45, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Then try a draft yourself; perhaps you can stay even closer to the original language, if that is the real difficulty. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:02, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

When discussing this paragraph in the past I have used "Defeat into Victory" by William Slim as an example. Much of the book is a secondary source, for which unit fought in which battle when, but Slim also gives descriptions of many of his contemporariness both formal friend and formal foes and in that context the book is a primary source. For example the directive given by Slim for Operation Thursday is quoted by Slim in his book (page 259) and is a clear example of "D into V" being a secondary source (as the directive is in the military archives); but his description of how he faced down Orde Wingate and made it clear that he was Wingate's commander (page 220) is an example of where "D into V" is a primary source, particularly as his description of what was said in those meetings is contradicted by Wingate's recollection of the same incident (so it would need an expert secondary source to opinion which man's recollection is more likely to be correct). Whatever wording is used, this dual use of military biographies needs to be mentioned in this policy. -- PBS (talk) 23:21, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Some secondary sources ...

Someone keeps adding "Remember that some secondary sources are more reliable than others." What's the point of saying this? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 05:08, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the thinking was that the policy page wasn't long enough, so some prolixity was required to round it out? Jayjg ^(talk) 05:58, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, we say it about tertiary sources, and it's just as true about secondary sources (and more pointedly so, since here we're holding up secondary sources as the sources we favour, so we should emphasize that we don't mean that all secondary sources are smiled on). If we don't want to repeat ourselves, we can just have one sentence at the start of the section, saying that there are other criteria for the reliability of sources than their n-ariness (or if we think this is all obvious, remove the sentence from the "tertiary sources" section as well).--Kotniski (talk) 11:00, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure it should be in the tertiary sources section either. In any event, it's essentially a tautology, and an absurdly simplistic one at that. Why not also mention that a specific secondary source can be more reliable in some contexts and less reliable in others, for example? Jayjg ^(talk) 17:19, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

It looks like a small attempt at tackling something big missing from from wp:definition of RS which is that has no metric which allows on to take into account reliability. I.E. "RS" 's aren't required to be reliable, and reliable sources often don't meet the letter of wp:RS. North8000 (talk) 03:07, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't quite understand that; but this isn't a small attempt to tackle any deficiencies in our definition of reliable sources (which should be done on the pages that deal with the reliability of sources), just a small attempt to point people in the direction of more important information about the relative value of sources than the "primary/secondary/tertiary" distinction that this policy has (rather randomly) assumed the task of trying to explain.--Kotniski (talk) 05:15, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Citing oneself -- redux

I just noticed the suggestion that the present guideline be changed to something like "Citing your own published work is discouraged as a conflict of interest. If you have written material that has been published by a reliable, independent publisher, by all means suggest it for inclusion on the article's talk page."

- - 1. This would enable wiki-legalists to force people in my situation from contributing, to WP, the material that it may be the most important for them to contribute. I am 82, with personal recollection (a lot, but NOT all of it accurate) of research and people from 1945 on, and the knowledge of how to check my recollections (which I do not trust without running a check) to establish verifiability in the WP sense and, to me of much greater importance, the accuracy that I try to maintain as a matter of professional integrity.

- - 2, In the world which I inhabit, "my own published work" includes every book and paper that I have written that has been published, be it my books with the imprints of the MIT Press, McGraw Hill, Harbrace and so on, my papers in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Journal of Chemical Physics, Journal of Symbolic Computation and so on.

- - 3. My MIT Press book, in particular, was published in 1967, and it contains the ONLY bibliography and set of photographs of work by other people pre-dating the time it was written. The proposal would prevent historical credit to about 50 other people.

- - 4. I am putting a lot of material into Discussion pages of Articles that are not my primary interests and which really consists of drafts. But having to put a survey of other people's work into a Discussion page instead of directly into an article on a primary interest of way back, because the most accessible citation is my book, in the hope that someone will pick up on it does seem like letting the tail of wiki-legalism wag the dog of good faith, responsible, encyclopedia building by provision of substantive content.

- - 5. What constitutes a "reliable independent publisher"? I have unearthed the proceedings of the first conference on band structures (solid state physics), that I edited and oversaw production at the major British defense laboratory where I worked in 1954. I put it together. My name is on it as Editor. It contains papers by the leaders in the field at the time. Copies were distributed internationally. I will get it copied for an appropriate archive asap, and try to get it digitized into a DataSpace. But the proposal would allow a wiki-legalist to lock a significant piece of scientific history out of WP. What about the material, authored by my colleagues and staff, that comprise numbered reports of the laboratory I directed at MIT, that I will archive correspondingly asap. These were distributed widely. This kind of material was the topic of the inaugural lecture of a Librarian at Cornell University in the fifties on "The sub-literature of science".

- - 5. I have, after careful thought, put a citation to one paper I coauthored into Quadrilateral because it was entirely appropriate -- it simply reported a formula -- no rival work, no contention -- people seem to be commenting on the nature of scientific / scholarly publication without full knowledge of what it comprises. Citing a paper that refers to mine would be inappropriate -- it would be referring to an application, not to the source of the formula, leading attention away from the topic of the article.

- - 6. I put two citations to further material I wrote into Nile, along with the citation to a paper by two eminent hydrologists -- omitting my own would have left the paragraph incomplete. By putting a citation to my own work into Hydrological transport model I was able to mention and cite work of half a dozen other people. It will be interesting to see if wiki-legalists will delete my comments in these articles irremediably. There is an outside world that is divided in its perception of WP. I am hopeful my optimism about WP is justified.

- - 7. The comments about "rivals" seem to reflect a fictionalization of scientific endeavour -- authors just do not omit mention of other major relevant work, if they want their papers published in reputable journals. There can be good faith omissions of relevant work, because scholarship is so vast, but WP guidelines will not remedy that.

8. It may have been bad form to mention the specifics that I did. But I have been squelched on a piece of common sense versus wiki-fundamentalism because an example I gave of a wiki-paradox was not minutely specific.Michael P. Barnett (talk) 03:18, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

OUCH -- I got this resolved on Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest#How do I find out if an edit I would like to make would be COI? -- I was working backward to collect what I have put into WP:Talk ... before I forgot -- it seems just a bit late. Michael P. Barnett (talk) 04:05, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

It's been reverted to the older language. I have tweaked from there. Blueboar (talk) 18:40, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Citing oneself

I've tweaked this for flow, removed some repetition, and added some words from the COI page. Comparison below:

Current	Recent change	Previous version
Wikipedia is not the place to premiere unpublished material. If you have discovered something new, or have a new take on a topic, your work must be published in a reliable source before you add it to a Wikipedia article. Citing material you have written yourself and had independently published is allowed within reason, so long as it is relevant and complies with our neutrality and conflict of interest policies. Excessive self-citation is strongly discouraged; you should not place undue emphasis on your own work, and should include the work of others as appropriate. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion. For the exceptional situations that allow self-published sources to be used, see WP:SPS.	If an editor has published the results of his or her research in a reliable publication, the editor may cite that source while writing in the third person and complying with our neutrality and conflict of interest policies. However, Wikipedia is not the place to premiere new discoveries, interpretations, analysis or conclusions. If you have discovered something new, or have a new take on a topic, your work must be published in a reliable source before you add it to a Wikipedia article. This policy does not prohibit editors with specialist knowledge from adding their knowledge to Wikipedia. In fact, expert input is encouraged and experts often have specific knowledge of the relevant literature. However, as with all editors, this policy does prohibit experts from drawing on their personal knowledge without citing reliable sources. See also Wikipedia's guidelines on conflict of interest.	If you are able to discover something new, Wikipedia is not the place to premiere such a discovery. This policy does not prohibit editors with specialist knowledge from adding their knowledge to Wikipedia. In fact, expert input is encouraged and experts often have specific knowledge of the relevant literature. However, as with all editors, this policy does prohibit experts from drawing on their personal knowledge without citing reliable sources. If an editor has published the results of his or her research in a reliable publication, the editor may cite that source while writing in the third person and complying with our neutrality and conflict of interest policies. See also Wikipedia's guidelines on conflict of interest.

SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 07:10, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

With my apologies to the editors who have made changes, I've (again) restored to the original version of this (as of 17:02, 1 January 2011). I want to approach these proposed changes in a more conservative manner. Can we please gain a consensus here on the talk page before making any more changes to this section? And reading through the above discussion I do not yet see any consensus for these changes. Paul August ☎ 12:12, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Also I've refactored the talk page so as to keep all the discussion related to this section together. I hope I didn't screw anything up. Paul August ☎ 12:18, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Can you say what your objections are? This page seems to be infected with blanket revert disease, where people just come along and reverse others' changes wholesale without giving any rational explanation as to why they think doing this improves the page. Why is an "original" version assumed to be any better than a version that other intelligent editors have been constructively working on?--Kotniski (talk) 13:07, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe I have any objections to the changes you've made. But I am concerned by the changes made here and here, as I see objections to these changes being expressed in the above discussion (e.g. see my comments above at 17:57, 26 January 2011), with no consensus for making them. Mostly I'm asking for a more conservative approach to making changes here. Paul August ☎ 13:53, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

As for why I restored to the 17:02, 1 January 2011 version, that's because that was how the section read when this discussion was started here. Paul August ☎ 14:04, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

You said above that there were the objections to this edit. Where are they? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 07:16, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

As I wrote just above I see objections to these changes being expressed in the above discussion (e.g. see my comments above at 17:57, 26 January 2011) these occurred in the part of the discussion which you have just removed from this page. See also comments just below in the titled section "SlimVigin's latest proposed version". Paul August ☎ 12:31, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposed changes

"being able to cite"

Since I restored to the 17:02, 1 January 2011 version, the following change has been made:

If an editor has published the results of his or her research in a reliable publication, the editor may cite that source while writing in the third person and complying with our neutrality and conflict of interest policies. If you are able to discover something new, Wikipedia is not the place to premiere such a discovery. This policy does not prohibit editors with specialist knowledge from adding their knowledge to Wikipedia. In fact, expert input is encouraged and experts often have specific knowledge of the relevant literature. However, as with all editors, this policy does prohibit experts from drawing on their personal knowledge without being able to cite reliable sources. See also Wikipedia's guidelines on conflict of interest.

I have no particular objections to this, do others? Paul August ☎ 14:21, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I hope not; we all surely know from our everyday experience that there is no prohibition on adding uncited material (you're expected to be able to cite it when challenged).--Kotniski (talk) 14:34, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not the place to premiere new discoveries

Proposed change:

If an editor has published the results of his or her research in a reliable publication, the editor may cite that source while writing in the third person and complying with our neutrality and conflict of interest policies. If you are able to discover something new, Wikipedia is not the place to premiere premiere new discoveries, interpretations, analysis or conclusions. If you have discovered something new, or have a new take on a topic, you work must be published in a reliable source before you add it to a Wikipedia article. such a discovery. This policy does not prohibit editors with specialist knowledge from adding their knowledge to Wikipedia. In fact, expert input is encouraged and experts often have specific knowledge of the relevant literature. However, as with all editors, this policy does prohibit experts from drawing on their personal knowledge without citing reliable sources. See also Wikipedia's guidelines on conflict of interest.

I have no particular objections to this, do others? Paul August ☎ 14:32, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

No particular objections either way - but both versions contain stuff which is slightly off-topic and duplicates what we've said many times elsewhere in this policy.--Kotniski (talk) 14:36, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Moving first sentence

Proposed change:

If an editor has published the results of his or her research in a reliable publication, the editor may cite that source while writing in the third person and complying with our neutrality and conflict of interest policies. If you are able to discover something new, Wikipedia is not the place to premiere such a discovery. This policy does not prohibit editors with specialist knowledge from adding their knowledge to Wikipedia. In fact, expert input is encouraged and experts often have specific knowledge of the relevant literature. However, as with all editors, this policy does prohibit experts from drawing on their personal knowledge without citing reliable sources. If an editor has published the results of his or her research in a reliable publication, the editor may cite that source while writing in the third person and complying with our neutrality and conflict of interest policies. See also Wikipedia's guidelines on conflict of interest.

I and another editor have expressed concern about this change, relevant discussion from above copied below::

Beginning of copied text:

I've moved the "most important line in the paragraph" to the beginning of the paragraph to highlight it. This also makes the paragraph flow better and more logically. LK (talk) 10:59, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Seems like a digression into citing one's own published material. Also note that the second sentence contradicts the first, which is not good flow. Have you considered putting the topic of citing oneself in WP:V? --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I've undone User:Lawrencekhoo's (LK's) change, as I'm not sure this is an improvement, per Bob K31416's comment above. Paul August ☎ 17:57, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

End of copied text

I can't follow what all the discussers are referring to, but surely we can't be happy with any version that uses three off-topic sentences (just repeating things from the remainder of the policy) before we get to the money ("If editor has published....editor may cite..."). --Kotniski (talk) 15:13, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The amount of discussion here is reaching the point where no one can follow it. Less is more in this situation. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 07:17, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

SlimVigin's latest proposed version

Proposed change:

Wikipedia is not the place to premiere unpublished material. If you have discovered something new, or have a new take on a topic, your work must be published in a reliable source before you add it to a Wikipedia article. This policy does not prohibit editors with specialist knowledge from adding their knowledge to Wikipedia, but it prohibits all editors, including experts, from drawing on their personal knowledge without citing reliable sources. Citing material you have written yourself and had independently published is allowed within reason, so long as it is relevant and complies with our neutrality and conflict of interest policies. Excessive self-citation is strongly discouraged; you should not place undue emphasis on your own work, and should include the work of others as appropriate. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion.

As this incorporates the first sentence move proposed above, the concerns expressed above may still apply. Otherwise I haven't yet thought enough about this version and it's change in emphasis to express more of a view yet. Paul August ☎ 15:03, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Don't much mind the change of emphasis, but same objection as above - initial off-topic waffle suffocates the actual topic sentence.--Kotniski (talk) 15:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I would prefer to retain the statement that "expert input is encouraged". It may seem only half-relevant, but it's necessary here (I think) to counterbalance an otherwise slightly negative tone. With those four words inserted, I would be very happy with this version. "Should include the work of others as appropriate" and "defer to the community's opinion" are important points. The COI problem is most apparent when editors only cite their own work -- and fight for it on the talk page. Andrew Dalby 18:56, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

But why do we need the first three sentences? Is every section of this page compelled to contain a long restatement of the basic idea before it's allowed to say anything else? And why do we want to have two different sections - here and at WP:COI - trying to deal in detail with the same issue?--Kotniski (talk) 19:16, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposed compact version

The passage in question now reads:

If an editor has published the results of his or her research in a reliable publication, the editor may cite that source while writing in the third person and complying with our neutrality and conflict of interest policies. If you are able to discover something new, Wikipedia is not the place to premiere such a discovery. This policy does not prohibit editors with specialist knowledge from adding their knowledge to Wikipedia. In fact, expert input is encouraged and experts often have specific knowledge of the relevant literature. However, as with all editors, this policy does prohibit experts from drawing on their personal knowledge without being able to cite reliable sources. See also Wikipedia's guidelines on conflict of interest.

I suggest, to avoid repetition and drifting from the topic, a shorter version something like:

There is nothing to stop an editor from citing the published results of his or her own research, provided they have appeared in a reliable publication. However, remember to write in the third person and in accordance with our neutrality policy, and take particular note of Wikipedia's relevant guidelines on conflict of interest.

Does this cover everything we need to say under this topic? (Bearing in mind that it's already covered at WP:COI, this only needs to be a brief summary.)--Kotniski (talk) 14:34, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I will try to think about this some more, and express an opinion soon. In particular I want to reread the above discussion and see if any of the above views are relevant here. I would also like to see some of the editors who commented above to express a view. (Now however I must shovel out my fifty foot driveway from underneath a foot of snow). Paul August ☎ 15:12, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Brevity is good. If a brief version such as this is favoured, I would omit the "However"; I would replace "policy, and" with "policy, refer to the work of others as appropriate, and" (words borrowed from SlimVirgin's version). I hope it stopped snowing. Andrew Dalby 18:56, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

• I think we are losing focus... let's try to remember why we talk about the issue of "citing oneself" in this policy... the issue for this policy isn't whether someone can or can not cite themselves (that should be dealt with elsewhere) ... the issue for this policy is using Wikipedia to premier your discovery, argument, interpretation, analysis, or conclusion (ie adding material that can not be supported by a reliably published source). I think the proposed language is accurate, but off focus. Blueboar (talk) 15:25, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

So you think there shouldn't be a section called "citing oneself" in this policy at all? I'd go along with that, though I think the link to the relevant section of WP:COI should be reasonably prominent somewhere.--Kotniski (talk) 15:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest renaming the section to: "Mentioning your own work" (or something like that)... it would still link to COI. Blueboar (talk) 16:00, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

And how would the section then be worded?--Kotniski (talk) 16:02, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Well... to keep a lot of the current wording... I would suggest something like:

• Wikipedia should never be the first place of publication for any information or idea. If you are able to discover something new, or if you have a new insight, analysis, interpretation or conclusion that relates to an existing topic, Wikipedia is not the place to premiere your discovery or thoughts. In order to mention your discovery or insight, it must first be published in a reliable source that you can cite. Please be sure to read and follow the provisions laid out at WP:Conflict of interest before discussing or citing your own work.

I am flexible in the wording... but I think this gets the focus right. Blueboar (talk) 16:32, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

This seems to suffer from the same problem as some of the versions proposed above - the key topic sentence here (the one that doesn't just repeat the points already made ad nauseam elsewhere in the page) is tucked away at the end. --Kotniski (talk) 17:29, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

What do you think is the key topic sentence? Blueboar (talk) 19:07, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The third one? Not the first two, anyway, which are just more rewordings of basic "no original research" principle.--Kotniski (talk) 19:11, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Huh... we definitely disagree on that... I think the first two sentences are the key sentences... exactly because they are just rewordings of the basic "no orignal research" principal (as it applies to mentioning and citing one's own work). Saying... "read the COI policy" is nice advice, but it is really an after thought in the context of this policy... it really does not have any baring on the concept of NOR and could be left out. Blueboar (talk) 19:36, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

So you really do seem to think that every section of this policy has to start with a rewording of the basic principle (and it's not even "as it applies to...", it's just a restatement). I know this is a page written primarily for the less intelligent (who can't handle abstracts like "verifiability", but need to "think" in terms of three-word slogans), so we probably should assume that readers need to be told something ten times before it will sink in, but making the page so redundantly long will just discourage people (especially our mentally challenged colleagues) from taking up the task of reading it in the first place. (And this particular section is addressed to experts, to whom we might just do the courtesy of giving the information clearly and succinctly, and linking them to the guideline which addresses the matter at hand somewhat more fully.) --Kotniski (talk) 05:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Not quite... while I don't think every section needs to restate the basic principle... I do think that every section needs to directly relate to the basic principle. I don't see how saying "Please read WP:COI" directly relates to the principle of "No original research", so I don't think it is the key sentence of the section. Blueboar (talk) 15:43, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Remove "See also"

Proposed change:

Remove: "See also Wikipedia's guidelines on conflict of interest."

I have no problem with this. Paul August ☎ 15:50, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Note change has been made in the current version. Paul August ☎ 15:51, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Some comments

I just posted the following comments, at the point I thought appropriate, then found the page had changed in the interim. I think I was referring to the second most recent boxed version, but just cannot spend more time on this. So I will just leave it here, and hope. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michael P. Barnett (talk • contribs) 17:00, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I have no objection to the version just posted (I hope this does not sound presumptuous coming from a wiki-amateur), but I certainly saw major problems with the version that was displayed when I started to draft comments about it an hour ago. In the hope that the present version stays stable, here are some revised comments.

1. Would anyone object to opening with something like "When one or more Editors have published the results of individual or joint research in one or more reliable publications, they may cite those sources ... If the Editor or Editors have discovered something new ..." The fact that joint contributions by several Editors is ENORMOUSLY important social benefit of WP has been ignored. The pluralization also avoids gender ordering his/her or her/his.

2. The creation of "something new" is inevitable, unless an article consists of a single unabbreviated quotation from a verifiable source. What is important, however, is meeting the intent and applying common sense.

3. Displaying two or more quotations in conjunction requires choice and constitutes the synthesis of something new. That is why bibliographic databases are copyrightable.

4. Quoting an entire source violates copyright and is totally impractical. So, obvious answer is to use ellipses. But this opens a Pandora's box of selectivity, tendentiousness and downright misrepresentation -- an extreme: "he is ... a self-confessed mass murderer", wikipedia impeccably verifiable in an article that contains "he is the hero who denounced the former dictator as a self-confessed mass murderer". And for the wiki-omniscient comment that the likelihood of this is vanishingly small, I could provide examples from Congressional hearings where this kind of abbreviated quotation has been used with devastating effect. When I write a one-paragraph precis of a 20 page chapter on a non-controversial topic, I have to give considerable thought to just what I depict by ellipses.

5. The moment a paragraph is written that joins quotations, or paraphrases them, material is created that has not been published previously. The intent of course is that it should not have new content, but that cannot be defined rigorously. Piling rules upon rules just discourages people from contributing. Editors who contribute substantively have to be given leeway to exercise integrity and good faith, without having to avoid hair splitting points of law that are too numerous and volatile to keep track of. Otherwise they will just go away.

6. A major situation in which analysis and synthesis are unavoidable. A deceased person Z meets notability criteria and someone has created a WP article containing minimal information about Z. Editors P, Q and R, who have never met and do not know the identities of each other, have detailed knowledge of three aspects of Z's life. Neither P nor Q nor R knows what the others know in this respect. They each contribute paragraphs about what they know, referring to "reliable sources" and meeting all wiki-criteria individually and impeccably. But the information provided by P and Q constitutes new insight into the information provided by R. The result is synthesis in the real world sense, that might be publishable in a "History of (field of Z's work)" journal. It has not been published before, because people with the respective expertize of P, Q and R have never been in contact before. An obvious response is that P, Q and R identify themselves, publish a jointly authored article in a peer reviewed journal, and then cite it in WP. But if P, Q and R have publishing backlogs outside WP, this is unrealistic. The wiki-omniscient who dismisses the likelihood of this happening as "vanishingly small" should look at journals on the history of work in individual fields of endeavour, which thrive on new combinations of hitherto unconnected data. Is the moral that knowledge which is consequent on the fundamental nature of Wikipedia cannot be posted in Wikipedia? Worse, that knowledge must be suppressed because the only way to express it violates a wiki-legalism, formulated without recognition of what it might exclude.

Michael P. Barnett (talk) 16:52, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Too much discussion

I now have no idea what's being proposed. My proposal was to add some language here from the COI guideline, which is widely accepted as best practice, namely:

Citing material you have written yourself and had independently published is allowed within reason, so long as it is relevant and complies with our neutrality and conflict of interest policies. Excessive self-citation is strongly discouraged; you should not place undue emphasis on your own work, and should include the work of others as appropriate. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion.

This was reverted by someone without explanation that I can see. Are there objections to it? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 07:14, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Not from me. In fact I would add something like: "Where you have more standard academic sources than your own works available, these should be used in preference to your own works to reference matter covered as fully by them." Johnbod (talk) 12:36, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh I see you have started a new section on this below. Johnbod (talk) 12:43, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Ancient primary sources

Many ancient books cite other books (usually now lost) - for example, Plutarch, Livy, or the historical Books of the Bible. In our sense they may qualify as secondary sources; they were in their own time; but it is customary in scholarship to treat them as primary sources. This is for two reasons:

• Since their sources are lost, we can't go behind the works we have, even if they are centuries after their subject.
• Neither Plutarch nor the Chronicler was doing what we expect secondary sources to do: tell the most likely account of what happened by comparing primary sources.

I came here to ask if we should mention this; articles drawn solely from Plutarch or Livy (because they're "secondary sources") can be as embarassing as BLP articles drawn from the subject's memoirs. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:21, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Not my area of expertise, but generally sounds reasonable. Given how skewed we know stories get today despite all the technology and modern standards, I can only imagine how bad it used to be. I don't see any downside to being cautious about that. As to the changes above, if SlimVirgin does not provide an explanation and nobody else objects in the next day or so, I'd say go for it. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:29, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

A good example would be Averroes's version of Aristotle's Poetics. I endorse the idea, how would we phrase it? --Nuujinn (talk) 00:36, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Sources like Livy and Plutarch are routinely classified as primary sources by historians. Livy and Plutarch may refer to sources that came before them, but they don't cite them in the modern sense... and they contain a lot of primary material (material that isn't in the older, now lost, sources) So, I would say they should be considered "primary", even if some of their information might qualify as secondary by a narrow reading of the policy. I have no objections to the addition. Blueboar (talk) 14:12, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

This section seems well-approved here; it would be more helpful if exact reversions like this were accompanied by discussion, as WP:BRD suggests, so that we had some idea what text would be more agreeable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The proposed addition:

Historical documents such as diaries are primary sources ; ancient works (even if they cite earlier lost writings) are generally considered primary sources.

which was removed (along with other changes), seems accurate to me and to the other editors above. Will someone tell me what the objections are to adding it? Paul August ☎ 18:24, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Whether there are lost books involved is not really the point. Historians term all sources not written by someone who can be regarded as a some sort of historian trained in a post-Renaissance Humanist tradition as primary. Our definitions are on a totally different basis, and makes (for example) the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle clearly a secondary source. Yet many or most editors of history articles in practice use the standard definition. I have pointed out this discrepancy before, but no one seems at all interested. "Ancient" is too vague and narrow - there is the same issue with medieval sources, and I don't think just adding this sentence resolves the issue; changes elsewhere would be needed. I am not sure where I stand on the issue. In many areas modern historians actually have very little to add to these primary or secondary sources, and the attitude that they are primary discourages useful quotation. Is Vasari (final version published 1568), for example, primary or secondary? He never met most of the people he wrote biographies of, and did careful research (rarely having earlier books to use), yet is often biased and many of his facts are now regarded as wrong, though modern historians often have nothing to replace them with. By our definition he is normally clearly secondary, but most art historians pick and mix among his statements. Johnbod (talk) 10:23, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that's a critical point. We generally say that historical events are best interpreted by historians. I would think the same would hold for historical sources. Using the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as an example, we should probably rely on the interpretations of it made by historians rather than the work itself. --Nuujinn (talk) 10:33, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree, but I suspect that either our definitions need to be completely rewritten, or the issue treated seperately. Johnbod (talk) 10:48, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I think we're getting too tied up in questions of primary/secondary sources, which is no doubt an important distinction, but not the key one for this policy. I agree with the addition of the text above, but would also favour the export of this whole primary/secondary/tertiary section to somewhere like the "reliable sources" guideline. --Kotniski (talk) 11:06, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The sentence people are proposing is already in the policy, by the way, in a footnote. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 15:50, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Good point. I hadn't noticed that. That's probably sufficient. Paul August ☎ 16:43, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Editors reverting changes to policy

Two editors have conducted a campaign of revert-warring against any change in this policy., As a result, it now continues to make an assertion that is false, and certainly not consensus. I see no reason to believe that any of this page is consensus; any part of it is as likely to be the consequence of such revert-warring by a minority as the question now at issue. Unless someone is willing to assert that the Duke of Wellington said that the Battle of Waterloo was a close-run thing is Original Research, we should consider what measures to take against the disruptive editors who have insisted that this page uphold a position that nobody supports. Mediation seems in order. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:10, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I've made two edits to this policy in the past 14 months. Please make more accurate Talk: page comments. We may indeed have to "consider what measures to take against the disruptive editors who have insisted that this page uphold a position that nobody supports" unless you stop insisting/doing this. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:34, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

If you (sorry, not really you) certain editors would explain and argue for their reverts of what appear to be quite uncontroversial improvements to the page, instead of just reverting blindly, the inevitable ill-feeling that results from the latter behaviour would not arise.--Kotniski (talk) 08:16, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the point that they (and I) were making is that even as written before the changes, it was already clear that the Duke of Wellington said that the Battle of Waterloo was a close-run thing is not original research, per the policy. Kotniski is the one (so far, the only one I've heard) assert that that is an evaluative claim. I don't think we need to change the policy just because one person misinterpreted it. Qwyrxian (talk) 08:39, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

No. Listen: this is not difficult. "Wellington said the battle was close-run" is not an evaluative claim. "The battle was close-run" is an evaluative claim. If the article includes the sentence "Wellington said the battle was close-run", then (under a normal person's understanding of "include", or at least one perfectly reasonable understanding) the article also includes the words "the battle was close-run", and therefore includes the evaluative claim. It doesn't make or assert the evaluative claim; all it is asserting is that Wellington made the evaluative claim, but it still includes the claim. So "include" in that particular sentence of the policy was the wrong word, and needs to be replaced by a better one. This is not controversial, not difficult, not worthy of all the fuss that has been created about this one little detail.--Kotniski (talk) 08:51, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I understand the issue after that very clear explanation. I have no problem with getting rid of "includes". — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:10, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that "include" is misleading in the way that Kotniski has described. Paul August ☎ 12:38, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree as well... the word "include" can be misleading and should be changed to a less problematic word. Changing this word would not change the policy, only clarify it. Blueboar (talk) 14:32, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

As explained above, the word "assert" is problematic, particularly for primary sources. In the case of Wellington, as the example here, there are at least a dozen biographies of him, and hundreds of academic papers, hundreds of thousands of pages covering every aspect of his life. A Wikipedia editor should never quote a primary source regarding Wellington; the chance for violations of WP:UNDUE and WP:NOR is simply too high, for no appreciable benefit. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:26, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

If an article says Wellington said that Waterloo was a "close-run thing", he should certainly cite where Wellington said it; that is both required for a quotation - and what the reader is most likely to want to know. Whether such quotation is helpful to the article is another question; but not one to be settled by this policy. Quotation is not originality. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:09, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

And that is the key problem... Original research is not inherent in any type of source. We all agree that Primary source are difficult to use correctly, and are more likely to be used incorrectly than secondary sources... but... the simple fact is that they can be used correctly, and secondary sources can be used incorrectly. NOR is all about the statements that we write in our articles, and I think we make an error in over-focusing on the classification of the source we cite to support what we write.

Essentially the entire entire NOR policy comes down to this... don't perform your own analysis or interpretation of your sources, and don't draw your own conclusions based upon your sources... instead, report on the analysis, interpretations or conclusions that are contained within your sources. Do this, and you will never have an OR violation. Blueboar (talk) 17:06, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

According to your argument, it would be fine to include in Animal welfare: "Jesus also said be kind to the animals," sourced to the New Testament, and indeed a quote from every single notable primary source we can find who mentions it—rather than insisting that our articles rely on secondary sources that offer an overview of the topic. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 22:45, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Blueboar, I'd appreciate a response. This isn't the first time you've said or implied that it would be okay to use Jesus as a source. But it goes to the very heart of the NOR policy that it's not okay to use primary sources as if they were secondary ones, so I feel we need to discuss it, rather than having it constantly crop up. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 05:10, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Blueboar did not state it is fine to use anything that is not original research, he said it is not original research to use material that has already been published. One could argue whether using a bible quotation in an animal welfare article should be excluded because it is undo weight, a lack of conciseness, or implicit original research because it implies some connection between the bible quote and modern animal welfare. I would like to see SlimVirgin explain in detail how it can be original research to use material that has already been published. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:20, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, that's certainly the implication, that one may quote ancient primary sources on any topic to which they could potentially refer. It's also quite strange to ask "how it can be original research to use material that has already been published"; have you reviewed, for example, WP:SYNTH? That explains in reasonable detail how one can "use material that has already been published" to produce original research. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:51, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see a policy-related problem with saying "the Bible states that Jesus said be kind to animals" in an article section about, say, the history of attitudes towards animal welfare. There are many reasons why the sentence might not be appropriate in a given context, but those reasons are doubtless covered in other policies and guidelines (or elsewhere in this one).--Kotniski (talk) 11:06, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Jayjg, there are a number of ways in which already published material can be used with no original research, and there are a number of subtle ways to go beyond what has already been published and thus introduce original research. I wanted to SlimVirgin to detail the forms of original research that she is concerned about in this thread to better understand the concerns with the policy wording. One could take the view that stating that which has been previously published is never original research, it is the creation of implications (where the implications have never been published before) that is original research. Of course, explicit original statements are clearly covered by the NOR policy. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:23, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Read the comment above yours; the issue here is actually and clearly a misunderstanding of WP:NOR or a complete devaluing of it as policy. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Kotniski, you really don't see any problem with it? So, we can add "Jesus said if you don't like your eye you should remove it?" (Matthew 18:9) to the self-harm and body modification articles? We can add "Jesus advocated executing enemies" (Luke 19:27) to the capital punishment article? Jayjg ^(talk) 17:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Some of these things probably wouldn't be appropriate, but not because the Bible is a primary source (they would be just as inappropriate if we decided to reference them with any of the vast number of secondary sources that say the same thing). --Kotniski (talk) 17:38, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

No, quoting Jesus in the New Testament is not appropriate because it's an ancient religious text, and so requires reliable secondary sources to interpret and to be the arbiter of what's important. Now, please stop trying water down the language in this policy in ways that will encourage people to insert material that is likely to fail WP:UNDUE and WP:NOR. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:46, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Ultimately Wikipedia editors are the arbiters of what's important. If someone wants to quote from the Bible, a reference to the Bible itself is probably going to be a better reference for that quotation than a secondary source that quotes the same words. If someone wants to give an interpretation of words from the Bible, then obviously they'll need to refer to secondary sources. But I'm not sure why we're discussing this now, or why you're suddenly accusing me of watering down language. --Kotniski (talk) 17:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Jayjg, due to the volume of this discussion and the numerous recent policy changes, I can't figure out what wording change(s) concern you. However, the overall tone of your comments makes me fear that your are conflating and confusing two differnt uses of secondary reliable sources. Secondary reliable sources can indeed serve as an indication of what is important, and thus can resolve questions about WP:UNDUE and good, concise writing. Any reliable published source can serve to show a claim is not original research. By trying to include every policy in every sentence of every policy, you end up with an intractable mess that cannot be understood and cannot be fixed except by deleting all the policies and starting over. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:07, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Kotniski, people shouldn't quote directly from the Bible, because it's a complicated ancient text written in no-longer-spoken languages whose meaning is often widely disputed. That's why we need to use reliable modern secondary sources for any material about or from it. Jc3s5h, the three primary content policies work together; language in each should support (not undermine) each other. I'll quote from the lead of this police:

"No original research" is one of three core content policies, along with Neutral point of view and Verifiability, that jointly determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in articles. Because these policies work in harmony, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should try to familiarize themselves with all three.

It's probably worth reviewing that before proposing additional changes. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:41, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

It would certainly be better if those three policy pages (which overlap a great deal) were merged into a single well-written one, but that's going off the point (I'm not even sure what the point is now). If you think the Bible shouldn't be quoted from, I don't think that's Wikipedia consensus - or if it is, it doesn't apply to all primary sources, since direct quotes from primary sources are unobjectionable everyday fare.--Kotniski (talk) 19:02, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Jayjg's assertion that we should never quote from the bible is absurd on its face. An example of when it would be acceptable is where a secondary source is used to provide an interpretaion of a bible passage, but the secondary source only refered to it by chapter and verse of a particular edition. It would be acceptable for the editor to include the quotation in the article for the convenience of the reader, provided it was taken from the same edition that the secondary source used.

As for the passage at the beginning of the article about interpreting policies together, I take that as an indication that each policy should limit itself strictly to its topic, with at most cross-references to other policies. Whenever we make a statement in NOR that is actually not original research, but instead based on some other policy, we make it hard for readers to understand what original research is. We also make it impossible to improve the other policy without making a cooresponding change in NOR. There is a great risk that the other policy will be made, and this policy will not have a corresponding change, and the several policies will undermine each other because they will be contradictory. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

You've raised a very specific exception here; a secondary source cites a specific edition of the Bible, but doesn't provide the quote, and an editor provides that quote from the same edition of the Bible. We don't write policy for very specific, limited, and narrow exceptions to the general rule. Also, this policy is currently in synch with the other two fundamental content policies; changing it in the way you suggest would bring it out of synch. The assertion that NPOV might, for example, be changed to allow WP:UNDUE, is extremely farfetched, and therefore nothing we need concern ourselves with. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

You've raised a very specific objection to the principle of confining each policy to its topic. First, while the chance that the NPOV would ever be edited to allow undue weight may be very small, the chance that other policies might be changed is much greater. For example, since the distinction among primary, secondary, and tertiary sources is often quite subjective, it is quite possible that other policies might either alter the definition of these, or be reformulated to avoid these terms, yet, these terms are used extensively in NOR. Even if the policies are in accord, any statement in this policy will naturally be interpreted as a statement about original research, unless the statement contains an explicit mention that it is a cross-reference to, or reminder of, some other policy. If the statement isn't actually about original research, it confuses readers about the nature of original research. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:24, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The distinction between primary, secondary and tertiary is actually usually quite obvious, so I'm not sure on what you're basing your arguments. Yes, sometimes there are gray areas, but again, that's the exception. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:54, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Jay, the distinction may be obvious to you, but given the amount of time this talk page, and NORN, have spent arguing about exactly that issue... I would contend that the distinction isn't that obvious to everyone else. I would also say that different editors disagree as to what the distinction is, and that leads to further confusion. In fact, I would say that the only obvious thing is that many people are very confused about the distinction. I don't know if we can come up with a better way to explain the distinction or not... but given the continued confusion, shouldn't we at least try. Blueboar (talk) 15:54, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Editors with and without a background in academia understand and make use of the primary/secondary distinction all the time, and to a lesser extent the secondary/tertiary one. Go to any deletion debate, and see editors request secondary sources. Removing those distinctions from this policy—or significantly changing their description—would be controversial, and would require wiki-wide consensus. There's just no point in two or three people agreeing to things like that on this talk page. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 16:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)