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A further exploration of WP:OR policy

In an earlier thread What do cautions about primary sources mean?, some discussion of a particular form of article structure arose, namely, an article consisting of a narrative supported by citations or quotations. A question needing further examination is whether such an article is OR simply by the very nature of its structure .

Now if a WP editor actually makes some extrapolation or interpretation not actually contained in the cited sources, but the editor's own original contribution, everybody agrees WP rules that out as WP:OR. There is no quarrel about that.

But by virtue of the very structure of such an 'essay' article, some selection of sources has been made, and only a selection of the ideas in these sources have been presented. Thus, by its very structure the presentation involves an assessment by the WP editor, and the issue is whether it is therefore a violation of WP:OR because no WP editor can be allowed to exercise such an independent judgment. Some editors use this argument on Talk pages to say there is no point or purpose in discussing contributions of this kind. That is, because they are OR on the face of it, discussion of any such contribution is a waste of time.

So the issue comes down to whether it is placing too much discretion in the hands of the WP editor to let them (i) select which published works like monographs, anthologies or even journal papers, will be reported upon, and (ii) select which ideas within these works will be reported upon? Do existing policies like WP:Undue and WP:RS provide sufficient safeguards without refusing any article with this structure?

In considering this issue, one might ask two questions (i) Is this strict interpretation of WP:OR the way WP articles are in fact constructed? and (ii) If this standard is applied to existing WP articles, how does that limit what WP can do? Must WP contain only condensed summaries of already published reviews?

Without a clarification of WP policy in this regard, every time a fight arises it will have to be settled by the parties themselves or be taken for adjudication. Of course, adjudication of a what is seen as a content dispute will not happen, and so adjudication will end the dispute by banning one or all parties in one way or another. A clarification of WP:OR is preferable.

A basis for clarification could be the observation by Jc3s5h in the earlier thread. In part the comment is:

"Selection of sources, and deciding which information from sources to include in an article, is not original research, it is source-based research. Source-based research is the method used to write Wikipedia; without it, Wikipedia cannot exist."

Can some such modification to WP:OR be made so it cannot be used to justify deletion of useful material, and to avoid even the discussion of such deletion? Brews ohare (talk) 16:41, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Comments

• No, not required as this allow for inclusion of inappropriate material that would fail OR or other policies. For example, the inclusion of a minor/insignificant viewpoint connected to the topic that is only covered by a single but otherwise reliable source that would affect the neutral POV of the article or give too much undue weight to that view point; such a inclusion should be removed and further discussion needed to discuss inclusion. (arguable, this was a point of discussion about six months ago here and the answer was still no there). --MASEM (t) 16:50, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

→ Masem: Is your comment that articles of the described structure are not allowed on WP, or is your objection to the wording by Jc3s5h? This wording is intended as a basis for further discussion, not as the exact wording of a modification. Of course, policies like WP:Undue, WP:NPOV, and WP:RS would be observed in a permitted article. Brews ohare (talk) 16:58, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

What Jc3s5h is correct. Your jump of logic from that statement to "this means as long as its sourced it must be kept" is not. --MASEM (t) 17:06, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

No inference that anything sourced should be kept is meant. Any acceptable wording would have to avoid the possibility of that interpretation. But I'm sure that articles structured as described can be limited to avoid endorsing such excesses, aren't you? Quite likely, existing policies like WP:Undue, WP:NPOV, already insure that error won't arise? Brews ohare (talk) 17:21, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

What you are arguing and have argued before is that you feel you should be justified to be able to add material from a reliable source as such to avoid the claim that it is OR and prevent that from being removed even with discussion just because it meets OR. That would prevent other policies like NPOV from being used to remove it. Additionally, there can be additions that would be violations of OR (along the lines of SYNTH) even if they come from reliable sources. You're free to add material to an article but it would be completely improper to say that it cannot be removed if someone feels it violates policy or negatively impacts the article. --MASEM (t) 17:33, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

→ Masem: You seem to want to make this discussion of WP policy a discussion about me. It isn't.

→ The part of your comment that is pertinent to a discussion about policy is your statement that WP:OR should not supersede other policies like WP:NPOV. That is absolutely the case, and such a view is not suggested. Likewise, WP:SYNTH is completely applicable. There is no intention that material should be forced to be retained if it satisfies WP:OR but violates other policies.

→ What is proposed for discussion, is that it should be impossible to use an appeal to WP:OR to deny an article of a specific structure simply because of that particular structure and regardless of its content . That does not suggest any other policies should be ignored. Brews ohare (talk) 18:03, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

• The underlying issue here is the degree of confidence WP has in the process of contributions by non-experts. Those with little confidence suggest that articles can contain only reports upon sources that come from reviews that in turn report about those sources. Those with more confidence suggest that non-experts can report upon the contents of all kinds of reliable sources so long as they observe certain restraints like WP:NPOV, WP:Undue and WP:RS. This confidence rests in part upon the idea that the deficiencies of non-expert contributions will be corrected in due time by virtue of the many contributors involved, each bringing their particular knowledge and correcting and expanding articles.

How much confidence in the process of correction and expansion involving many non-expert editors do we have? Does it extend to allowing articles structured as a presentation of sourced views so long as the presentation sticks to what the sources say and observes WP policies and guidelines like WP:NPOV, WP:Undue and WP:RS? Or do we have to deny anything that is not a condensed version of an elsewhere published summary account? Brews ohare (talk) 18:25, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

This is yet another reflection on a core point. By a rigorous interpretation of wp:nor, about 80% of Wikipedia violates it. Most of the "80%" "slips through" by two methods:

1. Most of it is such that it takes a really rigorous interpretation of wp:nor to consider it a violation, and for various reasons that usually doesn't happen.
2. The rest of it gets by because nobody challenges it. Challenges happen for good reasons (= use of the policy for its intended purpose) and bad reasons (=is-use of the policy, not for bad purposes which are its intended purposes)

The system works better than my post implies, but where it breaks down is in the important minority of cases where wp:nor is being mis-used. I think that some more work to do a little more delineation between extraction/summarization and WP:OR would be a worthy quest. North8000 (talk) 22:55, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

North8000: You may be accurate in saying 80% of WP violates WP:OR when strictly interpreted, which I take as the interpretation disallowing the presentation of sourced views even if the presentation sticks to what the sources say and observes WP policies and guidelines like WP:NPOV, WP:Undue and WP:RS. If that is so, it would seem WP in reality functions as though WP:OR allows the presentation of sourced views so long as the presentation sticks to what the sources say and observes WP policies and guidelines like WP:NPOV, WP:Undue and WP:RS. It would then seem likely that WP:OR should reflect reality and be worded unambiguously as supporting this activity that reflects what actually is going on. However, it seems you might adopt the view that even if WP:OR as it is now does generate heated and unacceptable results on occasion, things aren't so bad: the de facto system works and the problems with the de jure system are infrequent, so let this Rube Goldberg arrangement continue. Let lie the sleeping dogs of policy review, or something like that. What is your stance? Brews ohare (talk) 16:11, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually, North is wrong, but we're making progress in his view: a couple of years ago, he was saying that 90% of it was a violation of NOR. (The rest is direct quotations, copyright violations, and close paraphrasing.) Fortunately for the project, nobody else agrees that writing in one's own words violates even the strictest interpretation of this policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:15, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

My view is that of Jc3s5h, which is that WP:OR actually is in support of the presentation of sourced views subject to various policies like WP:Undue and so forth, but unfortunately some editors don't think so. Consequently, the policy wording should make its intent clearer. Brews ohare (talk) 13:28, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

It is disappointing that there is so little discussion here of the misconception of perhaps half of WP editors that the form of ~80% of WP articles violates WP:OR. Brews ohare (talk) 16:51, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

The thing to keep in mind is that we are using "original research" to build articles from a wide cross selection of sources as we are using our personal assessments of what sources are good and what information is important. But, as long as we are only rewording/paraphrasing such sources and reflecting the cross section of information provided by these sources, that is acceptable "original research" and a necessity in building out the encyclopedia as a summary of existing published works.

The problem arises when content that is only present in one or a few sources that, considering all sourcing available, reflect a narrow point that only is covered by these few sources. Inclusion of that point would not be appropriate summation and would likely be evoking originally research and non-neutral POV. This is why just because something may be about a topic and reliably sources may mean it is not appropriate for inclusion on that topic. --MASEM (t) 17:04, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: If I understand your view, it is that it is OK for an editor to exercise their judgment in selecting a cross- section of sources and paraphrasing their statements under some circumstances, but not always. You go on to suggest a possible case where you feel this process is inadvisable. One can take two different views of this 'drawing of a line'. One view is modifying WP:OR to make clear there are exceptions. A different view, very often adopted when changes in policy come up, is that it is just too difficult to make a change of a general nature, and it is easier to treat each circumstance as a special case of its own.

IMO, there are no circumstances that cause exception to source-based reporting that are not properly covered by other WP policies such as WP:Undue, WP:RS, WP:NPOV. In particular, the example above where a point of view is supported by only one or two sources could fall under WP:Undue, or if the sources are questionable, under WP:RS. If there are conflicting views with sources on opposite sides, WP:NPOV would apply to insist all sides be presented, and WP:Undue would weight the views properly. In these examples, WP:OR plays no role.

If I have presented the matter correctly, WP:OR should be made more emphatic in its support of source-based contributions, and the importance of these other WP policies in policing abuse also should be underscored.

Masem, I wonder if I have understood correctly that you support source-based contributions under most circumstances, subject of course to these other WP policies? I wonder if you would entertain the idea that these other policies are sufficient to prevent abuse of such contributions without appeal to WP:OR? Brews ohare (talk) 03:32, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

No, that's still not true. Let's say I have a topic that has 100 clearly good sources. Perhaps one source mentions point X, and another source mentions counter-point Y, but neither point are brought up in any other source, install with the 98 other sources duplicating the content and approach to the information. Per OR or the idea that we are summarizing what reliable sources say, we would NOT include X or Y, even if covering both meets NPOV, only because these are so minuscule covered that we would not include them. This is a situation NOR is meant to cover. Just because there's a facet that is part of a topic and backed by a reliable source doesn't mean it has to be included. --MASEM (t) 03:43, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: If of 100 sources only 1 mentions point X, then the other 99 are not pertinent to the discussion of point X and rejection of this point can be based upon WP:Undue. If only 1 other sources mentions X only to oppose it, that means two sources consider this point, but even two sources may not make X interesting enough for inclusion. WP:OR has nothing to with it. The matter is settled by WP:Undue, which would either eliminate mention of X, or reduce its mention to a line. Brews ohare (talk) 04:13, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

UNDUE would apply if a long time is spent dwelling on the the topic, but lets say in the same example that 1 of 100 sources mention X, then even 1 sentence in WP's article on the topic that discusses X, while far from UNDUE, would fail an appropriate summary of sources per OR. Mind you, it's hypothetical, but I can certainly envision scenarios where UNDUE/NPOV wouldn't be evoked but there's still problems including a statement that only comes from one sources out of many. But to put it another way, I do believe there are NOR-based reasons for excluding material that is otherwise sources and would not routinely fail NPOV/UNDUE, as to make your suggested wording a problem. --MASEM (t) 04:44, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: I am confused by your example which begins with topic X mentioned in only 1 source, and then suggests a report of this unique source on WP fails OR because any report on 1 source would fail OR because "it is an inappropriate summary of sources" (plural). Then you continue with an example that is faulty because it summarizes "only 1 source out of many" (more than 1). Can you explain better? Brews ohare (talk) 13:11, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

The idea "articles should be a non-interpretive summary of sources" is based more in OR than NPOV or other policies. For example, say we have some long-dead historical figure, and every reliable and major biographical work gives the same details on the person's life, but one of these (for all purposes reliable) also drops the fact that this figure was gay in a non-POV manner, neither commenting or condemning that fact, and this is nowhere hinted at those other books. Per all policies, but more NOR's realm than others, repeating this fact in our article might be a problem in our article if we only have one source out of many to include that. It is a rare situation but one that I can see being possible. --MASEM (t) 14:41, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Can the problem be clarified? It might be that the fact is controversial, although that is hard to establish based upon sources, because the postulate is that there is only 1 source that says this. Maybe one is arguing on general grounds that not everyone wants to be identified as gay? That might be a reasonable stance, but as a basis for rejection it does not rely upon WP:OR. Or it might be that the fact is irrelevant, which is not a matter for OR either. I don't think OR says anything about the number of sources available as being a factor to consider in deciding if a statement is OR. In fact WP:RS says "Any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by a reliable source."[emphasis added]. That being so, some basis other than OR must be invoked. Brews ohare (talk) 14:57, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem, we agree that it is the domain of OR that "articles should be a non-interpretive summary of sources". I wonder if our agreement can be extended? If a contribution doesn't satisfy this requirement of being non-interpretive, it is OR. But that doesn't mean, I hope you agree, that WP should attempt to adjudicate issues reported in conflicting sources, but only to report the issues. So, if there is only one source making point X, and the editor thinks themselves that the source is wrong, but cannot find any source that contradicts X, the editor can report his opinion that the matter is not settled, but if challenged he will have to retract. Do we agree about this? Brews ohare (talk) 15:10, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

And likewise, if a pertinent point is raised by only 1 source, that can be reported on WP as being a point raised by that source. The summary of this source's view does not constitute endorsement of the point, and it isn't necessary that 100 sources make the same point or discuss the point. At the same time, demonstrating the point is pertinent may be difficult, but again is not related to WP:OR. Brews ohare (talk) 15:18, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

A "pertinent" (in an editor's opinion) point only raised in one of many many reliable sources is probably not as "pertinent" as the editor thinks, as you would think all the other available sources would have considered that point too, and that's where discussion of editors needs to happen to determine if that should be kept or not. --MASEM (t) 17:03, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Assuming it is incontrovertible that the source makes point X and no other source does so, establishing the pertinence of the point, as you note, could be problematic. Perhaps if the source is some stellar figure in the field, one could argue that their raising this point is significant. Or, if 100 sources say "not X" and only one says X, I suppose that we might mention a lack of unanimity. But in many cases the little-noticed point won't be worth reporting. However, I hope you agree that the necessary discussion of pertinence does not involve WP:OR. Brews ohare (talk) 17:14, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

No, I think at times it can be an OR issue, in how OR is where the advice that "articles should summarize what reliable sources say". It is in that we need also to be studious to identify reliable sources, identify when they may have typoed, and consider where they may have introduced something that really isn't pertinent to the topic if other sources don't reflect that. --MASEM (t) 17:20, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree that sources should be reliable according to WP:RS. But the goal to "summarize what reliable sources say" doesn't mean we need several sources, only that the source should be reliable. And I agree that one has to establish pertinence somehow. Where many sources bring up a topic, that isn't hard, but as you say, where there are few sources or maybe only one source that reports a view, it will be difficult. But can you point out how WP:OR enters this process? Brews ohare (talk) 17:45, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I've explained several times, I can't make it clearer; NOR is the framework that helps to describe how we summarize articles both towards avoiding original research and presenting an accurate mirror/summary of what sources say, in considering what the larger bulk of sources give. --MASEM (t) 03:01, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: I understand you are asserting this role for NOR, and I agree it requires accurate portrayal of what sources say. I don't see in the words of the policy your emphasis on there being a 'bulk of sources'. What in the policy leads you there? Brews ohare (talk) 04:38, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

There's no explicit explaination that you're looking for; I believe it is implicit advice that comes from when we talk about mirroring/summarizing what sources say. If anything the discussion under the essay WP:CHERRYPICKING touches on these elements. --MASEM (t) 05:55, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: It seems we have reached some agreement that indeed the ~80% of WP's articles that follow the pattern of reporting reliable sources do not contradict WP:OR. If I understand you, the approximately 1/2 of editors who think this format does conflict are applying the zeitgeist of WP as they understand its culture. Is this a satisfactory situation? I actually think the zeitgeist is established as supporting source-directed reporting simply because the vast majority of articles are constructed this way. It seems that WP:OR can be read as supporting this format as well, with the caveat that other policies place strong restrictions upon it, as pointed out in the cherry picking advice you mention. Brews ohare (talk) 20:56, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

While not explicit... our WP:Neutral point of view policy addresses the idea that we should focus on what the "bulk of sources" say. It is implicit in the concept of giving various competing viewpoints DUE WEIGHT. We don't ignore minority views (except for completely fringe)... but we do give more weight to majority views and less weight to minority views (ie, we do favor the views shared by the "bulk of sources"). WP:Verifiability reinforces this point when it notes that verifiability does not guarantee inclusion. While every fact has to be verifiable, we are not required to include every verifiable fact. If only one source says X, then we have to ask how much weight X should be given (and even whether X should be mentioned at all). Blueboar (talk) 14:23, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Going back to the core thing you started this with - that you don't want editors deleting content that is backed by sources under the guise of OR - that's not something that can be set in policy. Well-versed editors that have maintained a page carefully, perhaps through its creation to GA and FA, know what is appropriate or not and they are completely in their right add material that, due to familiarity with the content, doesn't think is appropriate to include under NOR, NPOV, or other reasons. That's where behavior then steps in under BRD that if the newer editor really feels the content should be added, they can start a discussion on the talk page. But just because it is valid and sourced does not given any content "protection" from removal under good faith editing. --MASEM (t) 21:06, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: As I understand your view, policy does not govern what goes into articles: that is decided by an elite of "well-versed" editors who, by virtue of experience, can accept or reject material that is valid and sourced according simply to their judgment. Everyday editors can plead on talk pages that their material is not only valid and reliably sourced but pertinent, but no argument and no policy overrides the opinion of the elite. You might understand that this is simply not acceptable except to these self-appointed ultimate arbitrators. Brews ohare (talk) 00:32, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

You might also understand that this way of deciding content based upon the judgment of a self- credentialed elite makes a mockery of WP's espoused 'democratic' operation open to contributions by all, experts and mere readers treated alike. Brews ohare (talk) 00:37, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

But that's exactly how WP works. Editors can reject inclusion of material that otherwise may not appear to fail any policy, that is part of the "original research" in deciding how to summarize a topic. If you find information you are adding being removed with no discussion, you start a discussion on the talk page, and if the editors don't seem to say, you can seek a third opinion. But we are not forced to include every relevant sourced fact in articles, period. --MASEM (t) 00:41, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: That is dictatorship. Rule of men not laws. Backroom shenanigans. Phooey upon it. Brews ohare (talk) 05:16, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

No it's not. We have dispute resolution processes in place to handle the case if you find editors refusing to discuss the matter, but you cannot insist that anything that is sourced that is added to an article must remain in the article either. That's why we're built on consensus so it works both ways for newer and experienced editors. --MASEM (t) 05:42, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Further, I will add that the age and maturity of an article will play into this. An article that's only be around for a week or so shouldn't be so closed off as people add material to it. An article that's been around for 5+ years and has been relatively stable is going to require a higher importance of information to be added to make sense. --MASEM (t) 05:49, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: I find this portrayal of how WP works to be shocking, and advocacy of it equally shocking. One can always quote Pope's flattery for tyrants: "over forms of government let fools contest, that which is best administered is best" but unfortunately the luck to have good rulers is rare, and a corrupt system tends to perpetuate itself no matter who is running it. Brews ohare (talk) 15:12, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

No, what you are proposing is a form of tyranny. If an editor can add content then disregard consensus, ignore dispute resolution, then they are setting themselves up as above the law, or at least not subject to the rules WP works by. WP could not function that way: it would be an invitation to every crank to add their fringe or poorly supported content then assert it must stay because [their interpretation of] the rules say so. It's precisely because of this we have not only rules but discussions and processes which decide by consensus how they should be applied. Under this system there are no ultimate arbitrators, only other editors.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 15:28, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Blackburne: What I object to is the idea that a cadre of self-important resident editors on a page, or a group of roving mean-spirited dogs, should exercise their own aesthetics and vendettas without regard for policy. And in support of their destructive activities should battle for as much elbow-room as they can find by keeping WP policies as obscure and as full of 'gray areas' as possible, so policy can be bent to their will. The idea that a few so-called 'experienced' editors should have full control over articles regardless of policy, and subject only to ArbCom rulings (that address conduct issues, not content), is ridiculous. So is your uncomprehending misconstruel of my position. Brews ohare (talk) 16:06, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

There is no "cadre" of "self important", "mean spirited", "destructive", or "so called 'experienced'" editors engaged in "battle", "vendettas", etc.. And my contributions are not "idiotic". Please keep it civil and assume good faith at all times.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 16:22, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Blackburne: I hesitate to classify all your contributions as 'idiotic' although your interpretation of my position is certainly in this category. This categorization of your particular impetuous misconception of my position does not, of course, apply to yourself, but only to this unfortunate example text. Perhaps a categorization of your assessment of my views as 'idiotic' is a violation of AGF, but I think that is your extrapolation of a mere identification of poor writing to one of your character assessment. Brews ohare (talk) 16:38, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

WP has approached an open style of editing that I would compare to the old USENET days of old where "instant gratification" was not a thing - editors were given the advice to lurk and learn before posting to understand the nature and environment of the various forums, and those that went ahead and posted in a manner not in style of the forum were ignored. Then the Endless September came and the idea that one should be able to get immediate response without understanding the rule came in. WP, at the outset was more like that, but over time, it has gone back (in a good way, IMO) toward the lurk-and-learn mode. If editors want to inset content into an article without learning WP's policies and any past discussions on the article itself, they should not be surprised if it is reverted and/or removed. That's not a "government", that's one way that open forums can be run, nor is it corrupt. All it takes is to understand that "instant gratification" does not work as a concept on WP: if you want to add content and meet with resistance to add it, you have to review appropriate discussions and learn the past issues and then present the case for adding it. --MASEM (t) 15:45, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: You are now shifting position to say that 'experienced editors' have sway because they understand policy better than neophytes, but the policy ultimately governs. This is a distinction without a difference because it gives the 'priesthood' the authority to 'interpret' policy which, like the bible in some religions, can be best understood by the long-initiated. Any objection raised by the lay WP contributor can be dismissed on the basis that the 'experienced editors' are the ones that really understand policy. The neophyte who quotes policy in their own defense, simply "doesn't understand" the policy, which requires a special "deep" interpretation that is actually impossible to put into words and accessible only to the 'experienced few'. And, by the way, making the policy clear enough for all to understand is inconceivable given the individual nature of cases that require the subtle judgment of the priesthood. That is a whitewash. Brews ohare (talk) 16:06, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Experienced editors are going to understand policy and practice a lot better than newer editors, that should be non-controvertible fact. But I will note that experienced editors can also be wrong - that's why the dispute resolution process exists in case experienced editors are so involved they lost sight of the larger picture. Further, I've seen (presumably) new editors make smart edits that completely fall within policy and past page discussions and are kept or incorporated better, likely having lurked-and-learned before making such edits. It's not that hard to do. But if you expect to jump to a random page without reviewing its history and insert a random edit, you cannot expect it to always be retained. --MASEM (t) 16:31, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: I agree completely that experienced editors have a better grasp of policy. That does not mean that they can dismiss a neophyte's arguments based upon policy by appeal to their long-time experience, nor can they avoid explaining their decisions that way. Rather, they have to use that experience to explain in terms of the policy wording just how the neophyte has misinterpreted policy, and where possible, policy then should be reworded to avoid a recurrence. That process is entirely different from giving 'experienced editors' a 'get-out-of-jail-free' card.

The notion of using arbitration to correct the excesses of 'experienced editors' is both naive and impractical. It is naive, because arbitration is customarily engaged in by admins with no knowledge of content, and equipped to deal only with conduct issues. It is impractical because clear policies can settle content issues simply by pointing at the pertinent policy and pointing out also what aspect of a contribution contradicts policy. No judgment is necessary, only familiarity with policy. The 'expert' can identify the policy issue the neophyte has broken and make it transparent to the contributor.

There is no expectation of jumping into a random page with a contribution and expecting acceptance where policy is violated. This is a non-issue. Brews ohare (talk) 17:00, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I will say that an experienced editor that reverts new additions with little explanation, and if asked to explain further, does not provide any reasoning, is a behavioral problem and dealt with if it continues to persist. This is akin to when editors regularly fail to use the edit summary even when asked. But if the editor is never asked why they reverted the addition, there's nothing to be done about that. And our dispute processes have means to deal with content disputes (which ArbCom does not deal with), so to outright reject this processes as impractical is not a valid issue. --MASEM (t) 17:09, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: I'd agree that it is a behavior issue to refuse to provide a reasoned rejection based upon policy wording and clear identification of how and why rejected material violates policy. And I agree that reliance upon the one-line edit summary is a major source of irritation in this regard.

I do not agree that there exist dispute processes that successfully deal with such disagreements. There is no mechanism to settle content disputes based upon policy violations.

In rough outline, a typical exchange boils down to something like a reversion with the edit summary: Violates WP:OR. Inquiry by the contributor is met with (perhaps in a more wordy manner) Read the policy. Further inquiry is met with (again perhaps more indirectly): Reason given. I don't teach policy. Further attempts are met with the charge of 'tendentious editing" and are taken to ArbCom where the ruling is based upon the many times the contributor has raised the issue, indicating their unwillingness to accept reason. There is no further recourse, and there is no point in traveling this path. Brews ohare (talk) 17:29, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

"I do not agree that there exist dispute processes that successfully deal with such disagreements. There is no mechanism to settle content disputes based upon policy violations." Wrong, we have at least two, assuming that talk page discussions don't help. First is WP:3O which is designed to bring in a third, un-involved editor with experience in policy to review. We also have the RFC process designed to grab more people's attentions. There's also in some cases various noticeboards if the dispute is over, say, BLP information. These mechanics do exist, as outlined at WP:DR, people just don't always remember them. In your hypothetical argument where discussion is started and the editor goes "I'm not here to teach policy", that is just as bad - behavior-wise - as not responding. When I speak of discussion, I mean a reasonably fair addressing of the policy/guideline points that enter into the problem with the content, not hand-waving the argument away. --MASEM (t) 17:38, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: Thanks for indicating these policies. I have not used WP:3O. I have used the RFC process on many occasions, and that works occasionally where the issue is transparently obvious and no familiarity with the topic is needed to see what is going on. I have gone through the ArbCom process several times, where the best of all possible outcomes usually is refusal of ArbCom to take action, because content issues are not their purpose. Overall, I have not found the remedies work well.

Matters would be greatly improved if policies like WP:OR were made extremely clear, and as our discussion here shows, the idea of source-based contributions leads to a morass of conflicting opinions that should be cleared up. A real mechanism for policy review is needed, and policy talk pages are a poor substitute, hardly ever resulting in any improvement. Brews ohare (talk) 17:49, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

It seems that this discussion is really about the age old conflict between writers and editors (using the word "editor" in its more traditional "publishing" sense). Most Wikipedia participants start off as writers - creating new material. Our more experienced participants, however tend to focus on being editors - pulling out the red pen and marking up the submissions of the writers, in an attempt to improve the work. Writers always think editors have "ruined" their work... but that is to some extent the editor's job. Blueboar (talk) 16:40, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Blueboar: That is not the subject here. It is not about the well-known objection of writers to modification of their stellar prose. It is about censorship based upon personal interpretation of WP:OR that cannot be documented by reference to policy wording, and is instead justified on the basis of 'knowing better', even though there is no policy wording to back up that self-important view of the reverting editor that "Nobody Does It Better" than themselves. Brews ohare (talk) 17:00, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

It is not censorship, that is a stick you need to drop fast. --MASEM (t) 17:41, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: Sorry, but reversion without justification based upon policy is indeed censorship, not based necessarily upon ideology, but perhaps upon a personal aesthetic for what WP is. Brews ohare (talk) 17:53, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

So, for example, some editors insist upon very terse articles because they don't like nuanced discussions (derided as 'bloating'). Some see WP as reporting only upon well-established topics, and want to avoid areas that are of great interest, but in flux (derided as 'non-encyclopedic'). Others don't like technical explanations, especially where some math is involved (derided as 'symbol soup'). These enforcers of personal taste abuse vague guidelines like WP:OR to justify their censorship, shifting their grounds for objection from one foot to another, taking advantage of the unwieldiness of this policy. Brews ohare (talk) 18:02, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

It is not censorship. You don't have to post at Wikipedia, there's other places that are less strict as to what you can post. Treating it as censorship is absolutely wrong. --MASEM (t) 18:34, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Apparently the word 'censorship' is a red flag. What do you call enforcement of personal standards not based upon WP policy, but upon exploitation of the poor wording of these policies? If my mention of Stephen Hawking's views is reverted in an article on Subject-object problem on the pretext that it is WP:OR, when the actual reason is that his Model-dependent realism disagrees with some editor's view of what constitutes 'philosophy', is that censorship, or what do you want to call it? Brews ohare (talk) 18:43, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

"Editing to community-determined standards", and definitely not censorship. --MASEM (t) 18:46, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

"Editing to community-determined standards", if the 'community' is WP editors, is not necessarily editing according to policy. Some effort would have to be made to determine what is the 'community standard', and it is irrelevant anyway because that need not have anything to do with acceptability of Hawking's views "Editing to community-determined standards", if the community is 'philosophers', also is not editing according to policy. In this case the discussion should revolve around documenting the recognition of 'philosophers' regarding Hawking's views, and that exploration might come under the aegis of WP:Notable (except that policy does not apply to subtopics within an article). But instead, the matter revolves around one opposing editor's opinion based upon nothing but personal aesthetic. That is a form of censorship, although perhaps not CENSORSHIP, I think, especially when WP provides no efficient nor effective way to oppose this kind of action. Brews ohare (talk) 19:09, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Of course, this particular case is only one example of imposing personal aesthetic, and 'bloating', 'non-encyclopedic' and 'symbol soup' are other epithets supposedly supported on the basis of WP:OR. Brews ohare (talk) 19:19, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

There is an abuse issue here, and it is resolved by making WP:OR more explicit and harder to abuse. Brews ohare (talk) 19:33, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

What this all boils down to is that WP's "consensus-based editorial control" can reject material from articles for nearly any reason, even one that isn't based on any policy, though by defacto, I would argue that falls under Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Just because a fact can be sourced and cited doesn't mean it has to be included, if consensus agrees to that. No absolutely policy has to be given as at the end of the day, we ignore all rules when they improve the article and if the material, despite meeting all core policies, is considered to be disrupting or detracting from the article, it can be removed. It's just a matter of using dispute resolution to gain consensus if needed, and accepting that consensus and dropping the matter if it clearly is not going to accept this material, even if no one can point to any specific policy. There is no abuse issue here when you understand how consensus editorial control works. --MASEM (t) 19:36, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for this statement of your views, Masem. Your remark:

"What this all boils down to is that WP's "consensus-based editorial control" can reject material from articles for nearly any reason, even one that isn't based on any policy"

is very clear, and a policy I disagree with entirely. The remark:

"Just because a fact can be sourced and cited doesn't mean it has to be included, if consensus agrees to that."

begins with a statement I agree with entirely, but the condition "if consensus agrees to that" places acceptance upon agreement without necessity for reasons or reasoning. That is not acceptable to me. Likewise, the remark:

"if the material, despite meeting all core policies, is considered to be disrupting or detracting from the article, it can be removed."

in my view places this decision to remove in the realm of the taste of a person or persons without any criterion for deciding who has this kind of power, or what the vague criteria of 'disrupting or distracting' actually means beyond "We don't like this material!". The remark:

"It's just a matter of using dispute resolution to gain consensus if needed"

imagines a process called "dispute resolution", referring to ArbCom or Requests for comment that do not settle matters of content in most cases. The summary statement:

"There is no abuse issue here when you understand how consensus editorial control works."

simply ducks the obvious remedy of policy revision that would result in fewer disputes because they could be immediately resolved, and prefers to rely upon a muddy and demonstrably and documentedly poor process for administering content, one that prevents cooperative development of contributions by engendering, or at least enabling, unnecessary conflicts, largely about nothing but ego-bruising and offending personal aesthetics. Brews ohare (talk) 20:02, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

You are arguing in the same manner that the Arbcom case that was brought against you highlighted. There is nothing to discuss further here, since all the arguments against the style you promote were rejected outright at the Arbcom case, and continuing to try to argue against this will be considered disruptive. Please recognize this is an intractable position about consensus based editing and material can be excluded for every reason. If you cannot edit recognizing that material can be removed and kept out of articles by consensus, then you probably should stay far away from Wikipedia or any other "open" wiki platform. --MASEM (t) 20:10, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: I agree that we disagree, and it is unfortunate that we cannot find the concepts that would bring us together. However, I don't think the issue is basically intractable, it's just a lack of ideas. Your recommendation to avoid WP are and dragging up ArbCom as somehow related to this difference is simply unwarranted, although frustration can cause such outbursts, I'm sure. You can see from my record on WP that I have contributed many new articles, many diagrams, and made significant additions to many articles, all that despite some long talk page exchanges (some productive, some not). I don't see myself as disruptive, although I recognize I have a devoted following of detractors that Admins seem to love in their desire to make things as simple as possible. Brews ohare (talk) 20:37, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

No, it is intractable. What you want us to be able to do - accept any content that otherwise does not fail any explicit policy irregardless of consensus - simply won't happen because at the end of the day, we ignore all rules to improve the work, which includes exclusion of sourced material by consensus decision. The fact that you can't seem to work the consensus to include the material is simply that, and there's no way policy can be changed to fix that, as long as a core tenant of WP is the open editing nature that WP was built on. --MASEM (t) 20:56, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: The issue can become intractable if you force words into my mouth, of course. Nowhere do I suggest the absurdity that anything not contrary to policy must be accepted. No. My suggestion throughout has been that WP:OR should be revised to avoid its misuse. And in particular, that it be revised to make clear that material organized using source-based research is not by its very structure a violation. Also throughout I have emphasized that other considerations apply, most obviously other WP policies.

You have raised a different issue: that is, suppose a proposed contribution satisfies all WP policies. Then what? Must it be accepted? Masem, please note: that is not a question I have raised. In addressing this question, it must first be noted that, by assumption, such a contribution cannot be rejected because of policy violations. That means it satisfies WP:Undue, WP:Fringe, WP:NPOV, WP:RS and of course WP:OR. I may have neglected to mention a few other policies that it satisfies. So the question comes up: just what grounds can be raised for objection? I have mentioned a few: that perhaps the contribution could be more succinct, that perhaps it is overly technical, that perhaps it is a non-encyclopedic topic (Like 'how to sharpen a pencil', maybe?).

If it is recognized that a discussion is not over a policy matter, then it has a different character than one where a violation of policy is argued over. Where policy is an issue, discussion revolves around applicability of the policy. It is clear in a case where policy is not a factor that the matter is entirely one of consensus. I have no issue in such a case with matters being settled this way, with the possible exception of cases where consensus is claimed, but the claim is false. My issue is with arguments over policy.

The subject of this thread has not been the kind of debate where policy violations are not an issue at all. I believe that acrimony over things like that can occur, and quite possibly Masem, in such cases your discussion of consensus makes sense, and those who disagree just have to swallow their differences.

But that is not this discussion. Brews ohare (talk) 03:54, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

There is no misuse of policy when content that is sourced but otherwise a triviality or similar "distraction" to the topic when removed. Again, I can't point to you any specific wording in NOR but it has to be understand that NOR's goal is to tell us to mirror sources and not attempt original research or synthesis. This includes, implicitly, understanding when minor, trivial (but otherwise non-opinionated) facts are only presented in a slim number of sources compare to the rest of the material, as that is forcing an issue that most other sources have deemed unimportant to include in coverage on that topic. So yes, removal of sourced material "per OR" is a perfectly valid reason. Now, whether that material does fit that case, that's a matter of consensus to determine, but it's not an invalid reason, and as such, there's no abuse of policy; at worst, that is a behavioral problem. --MASEM (t) 04:22, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: I agree that a judgment of 'triviality' is not a misuse of policy. It isn't about policy at all. In particular, NOR has nothing to do with it. I also agree that WP:OR insists that sources be accurately portrayed. However, that has nothing to say about how to decide whether a source engages in triviality.

As you have noted, reliably sourced and reported material can be removed, using considerations entirely apart from policy, such as 'triviality', by arriving at consensus upon 'triviality' following due deliberation. In some circumstances, the reasons why point X was raised by the lone source S might not seem compelling to WP editors, and point X may seem trivial. In other cases, the source might be persuasive enough to convince most of the WP editors that point X is important. The achievement of unanimity on such non-policy issues is not a matter governed by policy.

There is no wording in WP:OR that spells out circumstances for the removal of reliably sourced and reported material just because it appears in only a few sources, nor because it is absent from many other sources. How to persuade WP editors to a consensus upon 'triviality' arguably is an art, and it isn't a substitute to attempt a short-cut using the assertion of a violation of WP:OR nowhere to be found in that policy. Brews ohare (talk) 05:27, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

There is no explicit wording, but as long as it is understood that OR's goal is to mirror was sources say without introducing novel thoughts, then the removal of a neutral, verified but trivial fact that's not well represented by sources and is in-congruent with the rest of the material can be taken to avoid OR as synthesis to advance a position (that this trivial fact is important). Now, you can argue towards consensus to determine how important that piece of trivia might be, but initial removal without any other comment but "It's OR" is not an abuse of policy, nor do we need a change of policy to prevent against that. --MASEM (t) 05:40, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, "OR's goal is to mirror was sources say without introducing novel thoughts" But "then the removal of a neutral, verified but trivial fact that's not well represented by sources and is in-congruent with the rest of the material can be taken to avoid OR as synthesis to advance a position." Suddenly the discussion is a ping-pong game where 'incongruent' pops up, then 'trivia' and suddenly we arrive at the statement "It's OR" as an complete and acceptable statement for removing material without further explanation and no need to find consensus. You say: "removal without any other comment but "It's OR" is not an abuse of policy". Of course that cursory uninformative slap on the face is an abuse of policy, not only abuse of WP:OR but abuse of WP:CIVIL. Perhaps you can see the incoherence of this presentation, which appears driven by its conclusion rather than arriving at its conclusion by some chain of reasoning. Brews ohare (talk) 15:37, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

No, it's pretty clear by common sense. The insertion of a unbiased fact that comes from a tiny fraction of sources when most of the rest of the facts presented are repeated many times is an indication this "fact" is trivial or insubstantial and including it is not a proper reflection of sources; forcing its inclusion is making the fact seem more important than the sources give it, which is equivalent to synthesis ("this is an important fact that must be presented"); there may be additional reasons like NPOV too, but there's a core NOR to all such removals. We don't have anything explicit become common sense says that content removal along these approaches is right in line with policy, and no one needed that specific advice. And of course, IAR still rules at the end of day. --MASEM (t) 16:30, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Your suggestions above are an improper invocation of policy in an arena where policy does not apply (namely, evaluating a remark in a reliable source as being 'trivial or insubstantial'), presumably in an effort to circumvent the correct procedure, which is the engineering of consensus over a non-policy issue. Brews ohare (talk) 17:08, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

This is completely in the realm of policy. Summarizing sources per OR does include determining if certain facts are appropriate to include or not. We do not include every sourceable fact related to a topic just because it can be verified, and OR is the mechanism to trim that information down to still provide a representive summary of sources. Removing material on the basis of OR is right in line with policy and doesn't bypass any procedure, given that we allow BOLD edits in the first place. --MASEM (t) 17:16, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: You are unable to document these claims of yours by pointing out any relevant wording in WP:OR. Brews ohare (talk) 17:57, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Aside from accuracy in reporting and reliability of the source, WP:OR has nothing more to say regarding the broad term 'appropriateness'. Other aspects in evaluating appropriateness (such as pertinence and significance) are not WP:OR issues, but non-policy issues to be decided by engineering consensus between WP editors. Brews ohare (talk) 18:56, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes it is, you are failing to understand because you can't see explicit language in NOR but it's clearly part of the intent. NOR is about how to summarize sources without introducing novel thought. Citing a fact that only has one source and that is tangent to everything else is not a proper summary. Note that this can cross over with the idea of UNDUE from NPOV, but not always (something that is factual and not pointed would not fall under NPOV, but still can fail being a proper summary per OR). Note that this can also be combining two topics that may apparently be about the same thing but that no sources have made that connection - that's SYNTH. So yes, NOR does have to do with appropriateness of content. No, this isn't spelled out but everyone else on WP gets it as common sense as to what NOR's goal is supposed to be. Removal of sourced content as "failing OR" is completely in line with policy. --MASEM (t) 19:05, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Well Masem, if we have to engage in a discussion of the 'intent' of WP:OR that you read into this policy but is not explicit, we might have as many interpretations as readers of the policy. You say "No, this isn't spelled out but everyone else on WP gets it as common sense as to what NOR's goal is supposed to be." I doubt it, and without actual wording from WP:OR, your group of like-minded 'everyones' have nothing solid. You claim "Citing a fact that only has one source and that is tangent to everything else is not a proper summary." But a proper summary according to WP:OR is one that faithfully mirrors a reliable source. What you want to emphasize is your qualifier that the summary is a point tangent to the topic. Whether that evaluation will prevail is decided by consensus and it is a non-policy issue, because WP:OR cannot determine 'tangency'.

You say "Note that this can also be combining two topics that may apparently be about the same thing but that no sources have made that connection - that's SYNTH." No argument that making connections not made in sources is SYNTH, but that issue is not under discussion. Brews ohare (talk) 19:38, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

The line that applies best is in the lead: "This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not advanced by the sources." If a fact (otherwise sourced and utterly non-pointy/biased) is only reported in a tiny fraction of the sources while the rest of the material is readily cross-correlated between the rest of the sources, the insistence to include that fact is against OR, since its the claim that this fact has as much weight as the rest of the cross-correlated sources. --MASEM (t) 21:04, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: You say: "If a fact (otherwise sourced and utterly non-pointy/biased) is only reported in a tiny fraction of the sources while the rest of the material is readily cross-correlated between the rest of the sources, the insistence to include that fact is against OR, since its the claim that this fact has as much weight as the rest of the cross-correlated sources." This statement is not logical.

Whether a fact found in one source and not in other sources is included or isn't included is a matter of consensus, not policy. Its inclusion doesn't mean that source is more important than the other sources that don't include that fact, just that the fact is important enough to include. Arguments for or against its inclusion are not contained in WP:OR. Such arguments for and against are part of the discussion that leads to the final consensus.

If you were a participant in such a discussion, you could argue against inclusion. You might say, for example, that by including this fact the assembled WP editors were in effect placing their judgment for inclusion ahead of the judgment of those authors who did not include this fact in their books, and that is wrong because published authors should have more respect than WP editors. A counter-argument might be that the sources that don't include the fact are less detailed in their treatments and left it out just to keep things short. Or the argument for inclusion might be that the source including the fact represents more current thinking about the subject. Or the argument might be that the topic under review in the other sources is actually not quite the same, but only similar, and this fact is included in only one source because it has the point of view that makes this fact important. Or the argument might be that the source containing the fact is more familiar with Islamic history, and the other sources are all Christians, .... and on and on. WP:OR does not enter the discussion, which is intended to air points of view and decide which action is favored by the group of WP editors involved.

All these arguments are judgment calls and are settled by consensus. Policy cannot assist with judgment calls. Brews ohare (talk) 21:39, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

"You might say, for example, that by including this fact the assembled WP editors were in effect placing their judgment for inclusion ahead of the judgment of those authors who did not include this fact in their books, and that is wrong because published authors should have more respect than WP editors." Wrong, this is a completely allowable practice. Part of the summary of sources that is required to make encyclopedic articles is this determination, and yes, this means for WP's purposes, the judgement of editors is more important than the judgement of the authors, because we're trying to write a high level narrow summary, not a thoroughly detailed analysis. OR's approach for how to mirror what the sources say is explicit in this fact, in addition to other policies. --MASEM (t) 22:17, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Example positions that might come up were suggested. No endorsement implied. Brews ohare (talk) 22:19, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

And the point is that those judgement calls are something that our policies on summarizing references (which includes OR), allows us to take steps with. Policy absolutely comes into it. --MASEM (t) 22:27, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Assertions already made and not backed up. Brews ohare (talk) 03:11, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Please stop using WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, and apply common sense that you have been told here and elsewhere over and over again. Editors have the consensus decision to omit information from inclusion from reliable sources, even if no policy can be cited. That is how the wiki works. If you can't accept that and want something more formal, you will not find it or get that at WP. Editorial control via consensus is intractable. --MASEM (t) 03:38, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: There is no need to throw spitballs here. If you look back, you will see that I have agreed with you several times that editors can by consensus decide to remove material that passes all tests of WP policy. It isn't an issue between us. In addition there is the obvious point that if a removed contribution passes all WP tests of policy, it doesn't matter what those policies say. They are irrelevant and consensus prevails. However, you want to introduce some mysterious role for WP:OR that allows removal of reliable reports on reputable sources without any need for consensus. That role for WP:OR you cannot document, and instead say 'everyone knows that'. Well, I'm not buying that one. Brews ohare (talk) 05:01, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Again, you are using WP:IDIDNTHEARDTHAT. Remember, I have said that if someone removes material boldly, you are in your right to challenge that and get consensus whether it should be kept or not - that's the dispute resolution process, and you need to accept what comes out from that. And I've explained repeatedly how OR can be used to remove sourced but trivial/off-topic facts from an article, if those facts are tiny tiny footnotes in the bulk of sourcing about the topic; summarizing to avoid OR allows these facts to be ignored. Just because it is about X and sourced to a reliable source does not mean we are required to include that in the article about X. Period. That is the foundations of editorial discretion on WP. --MASEM (t) 05:07, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Goodbye. Brews ohare (talk) 05:24, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't mean to be abrupt, but we are going in circles here. You are repeatedly suggesting an incorrect version of my position and then arguing against it. It is a dialog between yourself and you. Brews ohare (talk) 14:38, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Throughout this, you have made two positions relatively clear:

1. That editors should not be able to remove sourced content by application of OR because OR has no specific language for that. I have pointed out that it is implicit that remove of sourced content is completely fine under OR since the goal is to summarize sources and the discretion of what information to use as to mirror what sources give allows for the remove of trivial or off-topic information that is otherwise given little weight in the bulk of sources. Further, we allow material to be removed for any reason as long as it believed to improve the article. Mind you, you have every right to ask for clarification or dispute that or seek consensus to include, and it is considered incivil for the removing editor to not reply (an editor that does this frequently without discussion may find themselves at RFC/U) but the action itself is standard practice on WP and will not change.
2. You have stated that you do not believe the editorial judgement of WP editors exceeds the reliability of authors of sources. And again that's been pointed out editorial judgement is considered paramount over what sources give, that's the whole point of editing, to distill all sources to a high-level summary article, meaning that a good deal of information will be lost in that process - still there as references and further reading, but not for inclusion on WP.

These points have been addressed and shown to be things that we fundamentally cannot change due to WP's open nature. --MASEM (t) 14:54, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Item 1: A hodgepodge of inaccuracies about "my position" and further inaccuracies about the role of WP:OR

Item 2: Complete baloney. Not a statement of mine.

Masem: You believe what you believe and that's it. Brews ohare (talk) 15:06, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

You've been arguing #1 all throughout - that OR should not be a reason to remove material and that you want a policy change to prevent "abuse" and "censorship". For #2 you said: "You might say, for example, that by including this fact the assembled WP editors were in effect placing their judgment for inclusion ahead of the judgment of those authors who did not include this fact in their books, and that is wrong because published authors should have more respect than WP editors." (my emphasis), and that's also how you led this overall section, questioning the editorial choices made by WPians over source material. The goal you want - to make it more difficult for editors to argue for removal of sourced information regardless of how appropriate that information is - is pretty clear from your discussions here. --MASEM (t) 15:15, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

A hypothetical position that might show up on a talk page during the evolution toward consensus. You take this buttonhole out of context and knit a shirt around it. Read this. Brews ohare (talk) 15:20, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Continuation of thread

I'm reading that and still coming out with the points in question "A point important to my own thinking raised by Masem is that a contribution that satisfies all policies and guidelines can still be removed from WP by consensus of WP editors, properly arrived at by due deliberation." - you're basically saying that no individual editor can remove material that otherwise meets all apparent policies and guidelines without achieving consensus, and that simply is not a property of WP. The fact we allow BOLD insertion means we also allow BOLD deletion even if the content included is believed by the editor that added it to be properly in lines with policy. The key step is the behavior after the remove - the need to seek consensus to retain or remove that information. But our policies will never change to prevent removal of information once under the good faith assumption of a bold edit. --MASEM (t) 15:35, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

A non-sequitur, I think. Saying that consensus can remove material doesn't suggest a single editor cannot do the same thing. However, as you may know, frequently the removal of material by a single editor leads to a discussion to establish consensus. Once consensus has established the text, it will become difficult to remove it. It looks like you are determined to interpret as far as is possible my every sentence as some kind of opposition to your own views, even if that requires misinterpreting "Red is a color" as saying "Red is the only color." Brews ohare (talk) 15:53, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

No it is not, it is fundamental to this discussion. BOLD allows writing and editing to work both ways - you don't need any consensus to include material in an article, and editors don't need consensus to remove material they feel is inappropriate. (Of course, one can also start discussion for consensus before adding or before removing if they are unsure if that action is appropriate, but there's no requirement here) If we didn't have bold that means every edit would need to be the subject of consensus and that would pretty much kill off the open nature of the wiki. And that's why I've pointed out several times now that one round for inclusion and removal is done, the next step is to seek consensus to determine if that material should be included to avoid edit warring per WP:EW/ WP:BRD, and to engage other dispute resolution processes if there's no obvious consensus forthcoming. And as I've also pointed out before, an editor that removes contributions and is not responsive to explaining why they removed contributions, or has otherwise poor explainations for such removals, will likely find themselves under behavioral review. But our BOLD policy is key to allowing a single editor to remove any addition (that presumably does not have preliminary consensus for inclusion) without seeking consensus for removal and for any reason they deem. That is what you seem to be objecting to, but this is what we allow. --MASEM (t) 16:02, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Let me put this another way: If you (as a general editor of WP) want the ability to add information to WP without seeking consensus, as outlined at BOLD, you have to accept that those additions can be modified or removed by any other editor for any reason without seeking consensus either. It's a give-and-take agreement. But that process can only happen once until consensus must be sought, and editors that abuse either side of BOLD will be handled as all other behavioral processes. --MASEM (t) 16:24, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

The subject of this thread is not WP:BOLD. I haven't any argument with your remarks about BOLD; they just don't matter here. The subject, to remind you, is the clarification of WP:OR regarding contributions structured as source-based research, particularly to note that such contributions are not by virtue of their very structure violations of WP:OR regardless of their content, but also to emphasize that such contributions are still subject to other WP policies, notably WP:RS, WP:Undue, WP:NPOV, and of course must stick to sources and not violate WP:SYN and must not make claims not reported by the sources.

So, to get back on topic here, you have objected to this proposal by saying, among other things, that no revision is necessary, even though there is clearly a divided opinion about whether contributions of this structure can be ruled as violations simply on the basis of their structure, and independent of their content. You also have suggested some specific circumstances where you would interpret WP:OR as instructing editors to remove such material with no obligation at all to explain their actions further.

Of course, I disagree with both of these ideas of yours. I think we could try to resolve this point by actually quoting the policy, but to avoid that approach you have said that the policy doesn't support you in so many words, but 'everyone knows what it says'. That leaves us with nowhere to go, I'm afraid. Brews ohare (talk) 16:33, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

You need to understand why this is about your edits specifically to understand that how you approach addition and sourcing isn't accepted by the rest of WP, even if no one can point to an explicit piece of policy that says "this is not allowed". I have to bring up the Speed of Light case, because (based on rereading the evidence of the case) there you were trying to push on a point that there were two definitions of speed of light, a claim based on one or two reliable sources material making that claim. The fact that no one else considered that proper is because that is synthesizing a position, that being "it is really important to know there are two definitions of the speed of light" when a near unity of the sources rejected that. That's an OR issue because it is about synthesis even if you are citing material directly. And of course, as you know, your concept was rejected. Similarly, I'm looking at your present contributions at Enaction_(philosophy) and its showing the same problem - you found a few reliable sources that suggest a minor point that seems connected to the topic, but none of the other major sources on the topic make that point. To force that minor point into the article on the sole basis this is factually cited information is a problem with OR; you're using sources to advance a position that is not clearly part of the overall summary of information provided by others. Clearly, the rest of WP gets this fact since you've been shown this approach to sourcing and inclusion does not work, ergo your requested additional and/or change to validate your approach is not going to be added. I can't point to anything in policy to say why because everyone else gets this, without explicit instruction. Remember, policy is not supposed to be prescriptive but descriptive, and right now, it proper describes practice when it comes to adding the type of content you want and when it can be removed. --MASEM (t) 18:28, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

A screed unrelated to the issue pointed out that WP:OR has widely varying interpretations. Brews ohare (talk) 18:49, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, there might be interpretation differences , and that's what figured out in the consensus discussion after being BOLD added and removed - is the information added truly OR or not (or perhaps another reason). And that's a whole discussion on another level. But, and this is why BOLD is important, there are facets of OR that allow sourced material to be removed if they believe to be synthesizing a position or similar issues, and an editor is absolutely in the right to remove such material under a BOLD claim. Later consensus might reverse that, it might back it up, but you don't need consensus to remove something BOLDly once. --MASEM (t) 18:54, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Summary

Perhaps to the annoyance of some, I will summarize the achievements of this discussion from my point of view. Unfortunately, these achievements to not include a clarification of WP:OR, but they do include a graphic demonstration that as presently written WP:OR is interpreted in vastly different ways.

The original goal was a revision of WP:OR to state unequivocally that contributions structured around source-based research and the accurate portrayal of the contents of reliable sources are not automatically a violation of WP:OR. Not needless to say, contributions with this structure remain subject to other provisions of policy like WP:Undue, WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:Fringe and whatever. Some think the policy is unambiguously in support of this conclusion already, and no change in wording is needed. That view is clearly negated by this discussion.

A point important to my own thinking raised by Masem is that a contribution that satisfies all policies and guidelines can still be removed from WP by consensus of WP editors, properly arrived at by due deliberation. Possible objections that may alter or remove a contribution entirely are issues of 'appropriateness' to WP, 'importance' to the topic (including issues like 'relevance' or 'distraction'), 'clarity' of expression, and other matters that are somewhat or sometimes entirely subjective assessments. Such questions of a non-policy or 'extra'-policy nature do not concern applicability of policies (according to the bold-faced assumption of this paragraph), but do involve the persuasiveness needed to engineer a consensus. Obviously, consensus can be mistaken, but if achieved, consensus prevails. Brews ohare (talk) 16:03, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Consensus and IAR overule nearly all policies at the end of the day. You're asking for putting in language that would harm the process of editing (not writing) on Wikipedia. You need to accept that we don't accept all contributions for a large number of reasons, and the only thing that is damaging is either when editors refuse to engage in discussion to acknowledge why the content is bad, or that they continuously editing in a tenuous manner to try to force that content into the work despite clear consensus against it. There is zero need for policy change here. --MASEM (t) 16:38, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Clarity of policy obviously avoids disputes over what policy means, and clearly reduction of dispute aids contributing to WP. I see no reason for your remark that "I need to accept that we don't accept all contributions for a large number of reasons", because the summary clearly indicates my awareness of how that occurs. Your screed about "continuously editing in a tenuous manner to try to force ...content into the work despite clear consensus against it" is not pertinent. Brews ohare (talk) 16:51, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

You're aware, but you're not accepting that this is a completely legit process within WP's ruleset. My statement about your motives is extremely clear based on your editing patterns and your past history, which is nearly replicating the Speed of Light Arbcom case - you want to insert material that is irrelevant or otherwise trivial to the topic at hand that a small minority of sources give, and you can't convince the consensus to include it. Continued editing after such has been rejected is called "beat the dead horse". --MASEM (t) 17:23, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: This page is not about me. You are using this discussion to vent. Brews ohare (talk) 18:08, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

It is about what you want that no one else is asking for, this strange insistence that sourced material must not be removed from articles. This is the same line of reasoning you had here before, the same line of reasoning at the Speed of Light case. If consensus does not want to include material, regardless of how immaculately sourced it is, it can be removed, period. That's a founding principle of the open nature of WP. --MASEM (t) 19:10, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

It's not about me. Paint me black, add fangs, no substitute for cogency. Brews ohare (talk) 19:41, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

It's all about you Brews, you just don't want to work with other editors but instead want license to write whatever takes your fancy as long as a google search can find some references that use a few key words. At attempt to engage you in discussing possible changes to Philosophy of mind, with a potential new articles sees you refuse to engage in any positive way, but simply run off to another article and dump in material you have already had modified or rejected elsewhere. This is a behavioural matter not a policy one ----Snowded ^TALK 01:58, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

No bearing on this discussion. Brews ohare (talk) 03:08, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Given this edit which is your reversion (a bad move per BRD) of Snowded's removal of content (acceptable under editorial control) you bolded added (acceptable under BOLD), this is about you. If Snowded or any other editor thinks material added to an article is a problem - for any reason whatsoever - they are free to remove it on the understanding that you are boldly free to add material in the first place. Once that step happens, then you need to open the discussion on the talk page to gain consensus to keep. And this is a repeatable problem - you're not hitting WP:3RR but you're toying with it. You need to accept that there are people that have curated an article and known what can and should not be added. --MASEM (t) 05:23, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

No bearing. If you want to analyze the 'interaction' between Snowded and myself it is more complicated, and this is not the venue. Brews ohare (talk) 14:40, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem summarises it well, the fact that you keep coming here to try and get the rules changed also indicates you understand the issues but have no intention of behaving differently. If you want to make it more complicated I can't stop you but from my perspective this is simply an issue of you not respecting the need for third party sources to assess both relevance and weight. As a result you constantly add in strings of material based on on-line searches and you frequently misunderstand that material as Pfhorest has patiently pointed out to you on Free Will, repeatedly. ----Snowded ^TALK 14:58, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Not the venue to argue this matter. I disagree with your appraisal. Brews ohare (talk) 15:07, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

If several people (this is 3 now, 4 perhaps?) say "you're wrong" and these are established editors saying that, perhaps there is something to take to heart about this advice. --MASEM (t) 18:29, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Masem: You want to divert this policy discussion to some kind of performance review of my editing, and Snowded and Blackburne are happy to assist you where they can, having long standing arguments with me because I have the temerity to doubt their oracular prowess. Please stick to the policy discussion. Brews ohare (talk) 18:56, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Brews, the list of editors is a lot longer than that and you are deluded in your attribution of motive. I can easily add at least three other editors on Philosophy articles who have lost patience with you after initially trying to help (and I suspect two more will join that list shortly). The issue is your behaviour within the community (not a performance review), in particular your refusal to accept consensus and your constant attempt to shift disputed material to other articles, or create articles when the material is rejected. This creates a lot of unnecessary work. It also repeats exactly the same problem that you had with Physics articles. Personally I think a set of fresh eyes (ideally an experienced admin) reviewing your overall pattern of editing is overdue. ----Snowded ^TALK 19:03, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I was looking over this and thinking that this policy is probably the least favorite of people with WP:ASPIE characteristics, and the most favorite of people with a libertarian outlook. It requires every editor to be able to use their best judgment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:15, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I hand't thought of citing WP:ASPIE, although it would have been relevant. Good point ----Snowded ^TALK 19:21, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I think that in conjunction with BOLD, there's no issues immediately (people can add anything they want), but its the post-process of consensus building and in some cases knowing when to walk away from an argument you can't win becomes important and not so much this specific policy. --MASEM (t) 19:27, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

The post-process of consensus building is the key here. One thing that interferes with it is understanding what is at stake. If the issue is not a policy matter, then all involved know that they are trying to understand each other, not policy, not sources. It helps to know that.

If the issue is policy related, discussion is different. It revolves around applicability of the policy. That is not about agreeing with each other, its not about consensus, its about understanding the policy. If it is misunderstood that what is going on is consensus rather than policy, things go nowhere.

A policy discussion is greatly facilitated by a clear policy that does not lead to arguments over what policy says and what it doesn't say. WP:OR includes too many things in this regard. It would help a lot, I think, if WP:OR were split up into separate policies each dealing with a pinpoint section so attention could focus more narrowly on the issue at stake. For example, a focused WP:SYN would deal only with combining sources to reach a conclusion not in any of them, while a focused WP:OR would refer only to interpreting a source as saying things that it does not say. That way reference to WP:OR would mean something narrow, instead of a huge smorgasbord of issues. Brews ohare (talk) 20:30, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Consensus discussions is not solely based on policy. This is why IAR exists, because sometimes there are cases that taking what is said or not said in policy is not helpful to the work. --MASEM (t) 00:36, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, Masem, consensus doesn't concern policy and has nothing to do with WP:IAR except for rules for proper conduct like WP:Civil . Consensus deals with judgment calls, decisions where policy can't help and does not apply. Brews ohare (talk) 01:18, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Wrong. Consensus is a combination of discussions that involve given weight to policy and guideline arguments, and other input. A consensus can result in a conclusion that is 100% against policy, if the weight of the consensus argument shows that solution is better. Policy and "judgement calls" work hand in hand and are not separate aspects of consensus. Per WP:CONSENSUS: "Here editors try to persuade others, using reasons based in policy, sources, and common sense; they can also suggest alternative solutions or compromises that may satisfy all concerns." Yes policy is important but it's not paramount (safe for a small handful of pages). --MASEM (t) 01:47, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you have a better idea here. Brews ohare (talk) 04:03, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Another summary

Pursuant to the remarks following the earlier summary, I'd like to thank Masem for expanding my idea of the role of consensus on WP. In the earlier summary I noted that Masem had led me to understand:

A point important to my own thinking raised by Masem is that a contribution that satisfies all policies and guidelines can still be removed from WP by consensus of WP editors, properly arrived at by due deliberation. Possible objections that may alter or remove a contribution entirely are issues of 'appropriateness' to WP, 'importance' to the topic (including issues like 'relevance' or 'distraction'), 'clarity' of expression, and other matters that are somewhat or sometimes entirely subjective assessments.

This point remains, but has been extended to a wider view:

By a process of due deliberation, editors can completely overrule all WP policies and guidelines if they see fit. So, for example, should the editors on a page decide that some accurately reported and fully sourced material is a "distraction" from the main topic, they are free to remove it. The validity of this decision is not an arguable point once the consensus has been established. This kind of majority rule is an aspect of WP:IAR.

This stance has some interesting corollaries. Many pages have a very limited number of active editors, so it is very easy for a 'consensus' to involve only two editors with a shared viewpoint, free to impose their concept of "appropriateness" upon a lone dissenter. The recourse of asking for a WP:RfC to draw in more commentary rarely works, and appeal to work groups (for example, the Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy) can be a request to a population of largely inactive once-upon-a-time participants.

I don't think this situation is desirable, as perfectly acceptable contributions can be removed with consensus, and the guidelines for consensus are inadequate to prevent control by an accidental or organized majority of page editors. Although a major abuse like, as a wild example, the complete suppression of Darwin's theory of evolution, has not happened, there are, in fact, absolutely no WP provisions to prevent consensus from having such a result. And minor abuses enforcing the views of a few are common. So this danger exists, but seems to be beyond change. Brews ohare (talk) 15:36, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with Brews ohare's statement "This kind of majority rule is an aspect of WP:IAR." Leaving information out of a written work, in virtually every field of writing, including Wikipedia, is at the discretion of the writers. Conciseness is an essential aspect of good writing. In Wikipedia, there is no rule against being concise, nor is there any rule against deciding what the scope of an article will be, hence, there is no rule to ignore. (An exception would be leaving out information on one side of an argument but keeping information on the other side of the argument, where WP:NPOV would apply.) Jc3s5h (talk) 15:59, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Of course, I agree with you that aspects of style such a 'conciseness' and 'brevity' and 'clarity' are issues that not everybody will agree upon, and there is no real issue in deciding such matters by consensus. But, as for observing WP:NPOV, according to Masem this policy can be freely ignored if a consensus is obtained among the editors on a page that the 'other' point of view is a 'fringe' position (which could be true, or myopic). According to Masem, WP:IAR supports any decision that 'improves' the content, and whether an action constitutes 'improvement' is a consensus matter. Likewise, a contribution of some particular aspect of a topic that is accurate and fully sourced can be ruled as 'bloating' the article, a 'digression' of limited importance , or as you put it 'out of scope' to those imposing their view through consensus. Again, could be true, or could reflect parochialism. Similarly, an argument (say some algebra) however accurate and well sourced can be viewed as 'too technical' and ruled out, perhaps especially if this viewpoint involves a distinction or some careful terminology. Even a famous source can be excluded on the basis that it is of 'marginal importance', provided that is a consensus view.

So, Jc3s5h, although I don't disagree with you, I don't think you are quite on target. There are, in fact, absolutely no WP provisions to prevent abuse of consensus. And the fewer the editors forming the consensus, the greater the likelihood of a poorly conceived consensus. Brews ohare (talk) 17:04, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

WP has many mechanisms though to deal with this. Basically if you end up in a three way discussion where it's 2 vs 1 and you're the 1, but still think you are right, you can elevate it in various ways. You can post on the project noticeboard. You can open an RfC. For deletion or page moves there are formal procedures. For policy questions there are talk pages like this. For behavioural issues such as sock puppetry there are noticeboards. But you should remember two things

• Be sure you are right. You are wasting everyone's time including your own if those two turn out to represent consensus (as they often do)
• If you've encountered this before, escalated an issue, but found consensus was against you be even more sure before you do it again. Because repeatedly starting RfCs, posting to policy and project talk pages, trying but failing to overturn consensus is very wasteful of everyones time and quickly becomes disruptive.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 17:25, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

A very politically correct response, basically the 'everything is all right and let's not get into it' approach. The 'mechanisms' you mention for broadening participation in any consensus are inadequate. Project boards may work for some projects, but for many they do not because the workgroups are defunct. Likewise for WP:RfC's, which I have seen bring in substantial participation maybe 10% of the time. Usually they simply provide another thread for the same parties to reiterate their points of view and indulge in rhetorical excess. Mostly, consensus rides roughshod over objections, especially on scholarly topics. Brews ohare (talk) 17:34, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

If you want more people to show up at RFCs, then perhaps you should be the change that you want to see, and go comment on a dozen of them. I've done it before, and it is enlightening. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:16, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Fellow Wikipedians: I am sure you agree with me that there is a significant difference between "trying to get the rules changed" vs "trying to update the rulebook so the rules are more clear and their intent is more clear".

(p.s.: Good advice, WhatamIdoing.) --DavidCary (talk) 06:00, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Translations

"Faithfully translating sourced material into English...is not considered original research." I honestly think this policy should be reviewed. I feel it is a relic of the early days of Wikipedia, when it was over enthusiastic about creating a multilingual encyclopaedia. In reality, translation is mostly original research. More often than not you will have to interpret sources and can easily move into WP:SYNTH. It is also not easy to verify non-English sources, opening the door to all sorts of problems.--Aa2-2004 (talk) 15:05, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

No the policy is good as it is, in particular given that the application of our OR policies can be a bit overly zealous anyhow. Also you cannot write any encyclopedic article without interpreting sources, you always need to "interprete" and summarize the relevant literature/sources on subject. We do however require that you stay away assembling your own theory largely based on primary sources, instead you are supposed to report/summarize the theories published in external (primarily secondary) sources. WP is (ideally) supposed to use the best available sources on a subject, however quite often they are not available in English, so they only way to use them is an implicit or explicit translation. This is not question about being multilingual encyclopedia but being an international encyclopedia in English using the best available sources.--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:05, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I would hope that when we are interpreting a line that is more opinion than fact, that we are using a third-party interpreter or a WPian with a history of reliable translations than just Google Translate (or other services). And if one questions if an interpretation was done wrong, a {{cn}} tag is appropriate. But I agree on the average, we should be trusting editors in good fath to make proper translations before including material. --MASEM (t) 23:40, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

What I especially disapprove of is writing about a subject in English when there is no (known) references at all on the subject in English, i.e. being the first person to write about a given subject in English. This situation in particular leads to original research, as one has to create new terminology to express ideas previously not expressed in English. I am not suggesting a complete ban on the use of foreign sources or translation, but some sort of tightening of policy would be beneficial.--Aa2-2004 (talk) 10:22, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Certainly inventing new terminology would be original research... but there is a difference between invention and translation. It is rarely necessary to invent new terminology. English is a very flexible language, and if there is no English language term for something, it usually simply uses the non-English term for it. Blueboar (talk) 11:27, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

• Most translation difficulties are best overcome by circumlocution. They happen in two situations: (1) Where the foreign language has one word but English has two slightly different ones or (2) Where the foreign language has two slightly different words but English only has one. To take an example where this could really present an issue, German has two words for "drown" (ertrinken and ertraenken). One of them refers to the accidental fatal inhalation of water, and the other to an act of murder by forcing someone's head under the surface. You can easily distinguish between these concepts in English, you just have to use more words. It's not difficult and it's not in any sense original research.—S Marshall T/C 11:39, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

• Strong oppose any additional restrictions, for the same reasons I've given every other time this has come up. If you want to check a source that's in a language you can't read, ask an editor who can to verify it for you. I worked hard to learn my languages, and the last thing I need is additional obstacles to my translation work imposed by mistrustful monoglots.—S Marshall T/C 11:39, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to all for contributing. I particularly agree with Blueboar's point that inventing new terminology is original research. This is no so much a problem in enwiki as most new terminology, certainly in science, is in English in the first place, before being translated to other languages. Perhaps we could have some policy explicitly saying that creating new jargon (if only based on foreign sources) is to be considered OR.--Aa2-2004 (talk) 11:56, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

• I'm not necessarily opposed to that. What's led you to propose this idea, Aa2-2004? Are you reacting to a specific incident that you could link for us?—S Marshall T/C 12:12, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Inventing new terminology does normally constitute OR. However as pointed above that scenario is somewhat rare and even if it arises there 2 to ways to deal with it that avoid the OR issue more or less.

• a) Rather than coining a new technical term you simply pick a purely descriptive wording with already established vocabulary. A bit cumbersome but that approach is already used in other cases like recent events or in general topics for which no established term exists the content of which however is notable and described in (English) sources.
• b) Simply keep the original technical term or name in its original language.

A typical scenario for instance would be a notable book or movie that has no official release/publication in the English speaking world (yet), then you simply keep the original title/name. --Kmhkmh (talk) 12:29, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

In response to your question S Marshall, yes I am responding to certain cases, though they probably apply mostly to non-enwiki. E.g. when the financial crisis happened a few years back, many languages struggled to come with a term for "subprime lending", basically because there was none. I am mostly active in the arwiki, and I requested the deletion of an article where somebody tried his best to come up with an equivalent Arabic term, which I argued was OR. Unfortunately, many versions of wikiepdia's policies are direct translations of enwiki policies. I feel clarifying the matter here would help stop a major source of OR in many other wiki versions (though I can only speak of the Arabic, and to a lesser extent, the Farsi wikipedia).--Aa2-2004 (talk) 12:42, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I think that the best solution for ar.wp is to write its own policies, drawing from whatever sources it believes are best for the goals they want to achieve. The community here at the English Wikipedia doesn't even consider the needs of other Wikipedia communities when it is changing policies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:03, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid than won't fly. The other Wikipedias are largely autonomous as far as details and finegraining of their policies are concerned. So you would need to that discussion in the Arabic and Persian Wikipedias. Having that said however English Wikipedia should/could nevertheless state for its own sake explicitly that the coining/creating of new (technical) terms is considered OR. The German Wikipedia for instance actually does so in its own OR policy.--Kmhkmh (talk) 17:29, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Fair point, thanks for the response.--Aa2-2004 (talk) 15:35, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I have done real research in my past and one of the funny things you meet sometimesd is that even in academia sources that are not English, frankly speaking are counted as being nonexistant. Counting e.g. the Germans out doesnt work neither in WP nor in the FIFA world cup. I invite you to have a look on Tacit knowledge or de:Embodied Knowledge, which is not at all refered to in this entry, but is - as shown in the discussion - apparently needed respectivly lacked. Serten (talk) 16:36, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

National Archives

I am looking into the history of railways in south London (having previously written the FA Herne Hill railway station) and it would be helpful if I rely on documents held by the UK National Archives. Although this material isn't available online, copies of the documents can be ordered from the National Archives website, so anything that I referenced could be verified, albeit not easily. Any thoughts on how this would sit with the policy? Tommy20000 (talk) 09:41, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

See WP:SOURCEACCESS. --Bob K31416 (talk) 23:44, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Lists of appearances

A quick query. In acting BLPs, there is often a list of appearances, be them film, television, stage etc. In many cases the lists will contain one or more entry which has no Wikpiedia article, e.g. a mix from the top of the stage credits from the Elaine Stritch article:

• Bobino (1944) (The New School)
• The Private Life of the Master Race (1945) (City College of New York)
• Woman Bites Dog (1946) (Philadelphia)
• What Every Woman Knows (1946) (Westport Country Playhouse)
• Loco (1946) (Broadway)
• A Delicate Balance (1996) (Broadway)

First item has no article but has an in-line reference, seems ok. The second has an article, but the article makes no mention of Stritch, is this ok? The third has no article but has in-line reference, seems ok. The fourth has an article but again, no mention of Stritch, is this ok? The fifth has no article and no reference, is this ok? The sxith has an article in which Stritch is mentioned, seems to be ok.

I only ask as this is commonly a place where more references are usually demanded (by me, generally), as I don't see how a reader can verify three out of six of those items without having to do their own research. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:46, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

I would assume in most cases there is a single source containing all (or at least most appearances) is available or obvious of sorts. In that case a single listing of that source should be good enough. In practice for filmographies people often simply add the IMDB link under external links or the infobox (though that strictly speaking is not reliable source as such).

If however the information is very sparse/barely known or disputed I'd use a footnote/reference for each entry in doubt, so not the mix above. You probably can argue that mentioning in the linked entry's target is sufficient as well. However unless the person is featured there prominently that is risky approach, since people editing the target article may destroy your source scheme as an unintended/expected side effect. Hence it is better to rely solely on sources given in your article and without any mentioning in the target article you certainly have to. Having unsourced linked entries, where the person is not mentioned in the link's target is not allowed.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:21, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, that matches my understanding precisely. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:33, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Synonyms

I would like to add a paragraph about synonyms to the WP:CALC section. Synonyms would seem to be a prose equivalent to the mathematical situation that seems to drive CALC. I don't believe a separate section is needed, though perhaps a shortcut WP:SYNONYM would make sense. Dovid (talk) 17:14, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

User:Dovid, have you actually seen disputes about this? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:43, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: I recall seeing some a while back (although I was quite an active editor at one point, I pulled back about half a year ago). Regardless, there's the potential for arguments about it, so why not decide now whether it is sound? Dovid (talk) 06:41, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

The no original research policy allows translations, which is a more extreme form of using synonyms. Also the policy states "Articles should be written in your own words while substantially retaining the meaning of the source material." I think adding a statement about synonyms would either contradict these policy provisions, or be redundant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jc3s5h (talk • contribs) 21:13, 22 July 2014‎

Dovid, if we're not having problems, then creating a "rule" is WP:Instruction creep that makes the policy have WP:TLDR problems. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:22, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Synthesis of published material that advances a position

I suggest to add after the first sentence:
"Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the author(s) of that source."

I see another problem in the title of the section, which suggests that SYNTH is allowed as long as it does not advance a position. As this page is titled Wikipedia:No original research, I think that is not correct. Just remove the last part that advances a position?
--Wickey-nl (talk) 09:24, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

S Marshall, you seem not to understand the difference between SYNTH and synthesis. If you are so quickly with your responses, why did you not respond here, first? --Wickey-nl (talk) 11:44, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

• Missed the talk page edit, I'm afraid.—S Marshall T/C 11:56, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

You missed the talk page and not the page edit? Not a reason to avoid a substantial reaction. Actually, your statement that all Wikipedia articles are syntheses of published material sounds a bit stupid. Synthesis is not necessarily advancing a position. Essentially it is against the WP rules at all. It is OR. --Wickey-nl (talk) 12:08, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Not sure which edits you two are talking about... but to address the suggested addition:
I think it makes sense and support adding it.
As to the language of the section header ... I think you may be over thinking it a bit... a policy section header is not the policy. We could change the policy section header to "NOR rule number 5" and the policy would not change. What outlines the policy is the text that follows the section header. That said... if you have a suggestion for a better section header, please do so. We are always looking for ways to make our policies clearer and more understandable. Blueboar (talk) 12:29, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

• I disagree with Wickey-nl completely. On Wikipedia we use "WP:SYNTH" to mean going beyond what the sources say, but that's got nothing to do with what the English word "synthesis" really means. If we use words with their ordinary English meaning, "synthesis" means "put together", which is exactly what Wikipedians do: we put together several different sources to make an article. That's right and normal. It's only a problem if you use that technique to advance a position the sources do not advance.—S Marshall T/C 12:34, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

At Blueboar: Today, I already made the suggested edits. Your remark about the heading would make sense if it were not misleading.

At User:S Marshall: The section is all about the meaning of SYNTH in the context of WP. Indeed, it has nothing to do with what the English word "synthesis" really means. Puting together several different sources to make an article is not the same as SYNTH. The key is "synthesis" to reach an original conclusion. --Wickey-nl (talk) 13:02, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

• Policies should be written in plain English and use words with their natural English meaning.—S Marshall T/C 14:20, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

How about replacing the two sentences by: "Do not combine material from multiple sources, or multiple parts of one source, to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." ? Zero^talk 14:33, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

@ S Marshal... I am confused... because I don't see what you are objecting so strongly to. If you "combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the author(s) of that source" ... you "put things together" to go beyond the source (no?). Blueboar (talk) 23:04, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm sympathetic, but I'm worried about this expansion. I had a conversation with someone last year who appeared to believe that different sentences in the same (short) article about the same subject could not possibly be related to each other, because there were other sentences in between them, and the source did not say, "Apples are a kind of fruit, kiwi are a kind of fruit, and yes, these two facts about kinds of fruit are related to each other". SYNTH has always been multi-source, and I haven't seen any good reason to make the multi-source NOR section include single-source NOR problems (which are amply covered elsewhere on the page). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:23, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Ah... Thanks WAID... that is a practical concern about the addition that I can understand. Blueboar (talk) 00:37, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Leaving the question of the heading out of the discussion here, what is the difference between combining two parts from different sources and combining two parts from one source to create a conclusion? Are not both Original Research, OR? An article is not always so straightforward. It may contain different subjects/lines/views. It may have different interpretations. Sometimes a conclusion is obvious Wikipedia:What SYNTH is not#SYNTH is not mere juxtaposition, Wikipedia:What SYNTH is not#SYNTH is not obvious II; sometimes a conclusion is an interpretation, not given in the source, especially when it is a single source. --Wickey-nl (talk) 10:24, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the multiple-source/single-source issue is a red herring. The key point about SYNTH is that two or more sourced facts are used to draw a conclusion that is not sourced. It doesn't make a difference where the individual facts come from. In principle they could even be parts of the same sentence in a single source. Zero^talk 10:37, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Traditionally, exceeding the contents of a single source is a plain-vanilla NOR violation rather than a SYNTH violation. With SYNTH, you are combining two sources to claim (or even just to imply) something that is in neither of them. It's particularly undesirable, because you don't know if the two sources are really talking about the same thing: Alice says that apple consumption is X in Canada, Bob says it is Y in Mexico, and Chris says it is Z in Canada, so you can just add it up and get "North American", right? Except that Alice's numbers were apples purchased, and Bob's were apples actually eaten, excluding apple juice and food waste, and Chris's were both apples and russets, measured from when they left the farm, rather than from when they reached the store or someone's mouth. These are not comparable numbers.

When you are dealing with a single source, it requires much more careful assessment to decide whether those claims (or implications) are actually present in the source, because the plain fact is that the author of that source believed them to be related at some level (else the author wouldn't have put both of those facts in the same article, right?) and there are far fewer problems with comparabiility. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

You mean that a single source already may contain SYNTH? You say SYNTH is traditionally associated with the use several sources and the use of a single source is not SYNTH. I wonder if you can prove such "tradition", but if so, I don't see a problem in mentioning both here. I am not talking of just exceeding the contents of a single source. --Wickey-nl (talk) 10:23, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

A caution... please don't conflate the section short-cut with the policy itself. "SYNTH" is simply a handy five letter short-cut pointing to a specific section of the policy. That section highlights a particularly egregious type of synthesis. It does not cover every possible situation in which synthetic Original Research can occur. I think what WhatamIdoing is pointing out is this... The fact that other forms of synthetic OR are not covered in the "SYNTH" section does not mean that these other forms of synthetic OR are somehow allowed... it simply means that they are covered elsewhere in the policy. Blueboar (talk) 13:13, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree that SYNTH is actually just a short-cut, but I used it in broader sense in accordance with this essay. The point is that the single source issue was not covered by this project page. --Wickey-nl (talk) 10:22, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Um... I would say that the single source issue is covered in WP:STICKTOSOURCE... no?. Blueboar (talk) 11:12, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Agree, but the same is true for the multiple-source SYNTH. --Wickey-nl (talk) 11:40, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but multiple-source synthesis is a more complex issue than single-source synthesis... and so (in my opinion) it needs to be discussed in more detail. I think what we say in STICKTOSOURCE is enough to deal with single source synthesis, but isn't always enough to deal with multi-source synthesis. If you can convince me otherwise (with some real examples of situations where it hasn't been enough), I might change my mind. Blueboar (talk) 12:41, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

This discussion is enough reason. WhatamIdoing disputed that a single source can produce SYNTH. --Wickey-nl (talk) 16:47, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Confusion in terminology... Looking at the discussion, WhatamIdoing disputed that a single source can produce SYNTH... but admitted that a single source can produce a synthesis. An understandable confusion, since the five letter short cut "SYNTH" does not mean any synthesis... but refers to a specific type of synthesis (the multi-sourced synthesis highlighted in the SYNTH section of the policy). This is why WhatamIdoing noted that Single-source synthesis is covered in other parts of the policy (such as WP:STICKTOSOURCE). Blueboar (talk) 20:54, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Are there objections to this carefully formulated edit? --Wickey-nl (talk) 10:22, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Not a strong objection... I just don't think it's necessary. It's essentially instruction creep. Blueboar (talk) 12:41, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it's an improvement. SYNTH has functioned well with its multi-source focus, and STICKTOSOURCE covers everything that could be considered original research in a single source. (I'm also starting to wonder what dispute triggered this.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:29, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

The dispute was triggered by S Marshall's revert of my change of the heading. He essentially stated that WP is nothing more than putting together several different sources to make an article, and suggested to explain WP policies from the perspective of the meaning of the English word "synthesis". Than, you focussed on the multi-source issue.

I consider the single source used to produce a synthesis in the context of SYNTH worth to mention, in spite of the fact that Blueboar considers this core issue a minor one, already covered by the general STICKTOSOURCE policy. --Wickey-nl (talk) 08:49, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

• That's totally not what I said and I object to this misrepresentation of my position. I suggest you listen to WhatamIdoing.—S Marshall T/C 09:23, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

• To be clearer: I said that an important part of the process of article-building is to assemble sources into articles. I certainly didn't say that Wikipedia is nothing more.—S Marshall T/C 09:25, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

"Advance a position" vs synthesis vs SYNTH

Probably the short cut "SYNTH" was not a good choice. Is it possible that the issue originally was related to the POV issue, producing the heading "Synthesis of published material that advances a position"? "advance a position" has an ambiguous meaning here, fortified by the given examples.
What do you think of the heading "Original Research by synthesis of sources"? --Wickey-nl (talk) 12:57, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Wickey-nl... with due respect... I think you may be over-thinking things, and seeing problems that don't actually exist. Is there an article where this has become an issue? Blueboar (talk) 13:09, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

The phrase "advance a position" in the section title seems too narrow because it suggests to me that someone has an agenda that they are advocating. I think most Synth occurs because editors are simply trying to improve Wikipedia in good faith without understanding that their edit is Synth. --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:41, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Nothing says the position that is being advanced has to be due to advocacy... it could be completely unintended. The point is that if you phrase something in a way that reaches or implies a conclusion... that's "advancing a position" on the topic. And if you advance a position on a topic that is not made by a source... that's a form of Original Research. Blueboar (talk) 21:49, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Definition of position from a dictionary:

"6. A point of view or attitude on a certain question: the mayor's position on taxes."[1]

Along the lines of what I wrote previously, most Synth does not occur because an editor is advancing a point of view or attitude, i.e. advancing a position, but rather because they are simply trying to improve Wikipedia in good faith without understanding that their edit is Synth. --Bob K31416 (talk) 22:47, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Here's an edit on the project page that would address this issue [2] . (I only made this edit for information purposes and I immediately reverted it.) --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:25, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

That's an interesting approach, but I'm unconvinced by it. I think that having a little diversity in our language is helpful. Some people will understand "advance a position" and others will understand "state or imply a conclusion", and all of them will understand the policy as a result. I'm not inflexible here; if other people like it, then I'll go along. If it actually causes confusion, we could always revert to the older formulation after trying this out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:04, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

I made the edit. If you or anyone else wants to revert it then that will be the end of it for me. --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:00, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

WP:SYNTHNOT says "If something is obvious to anyone who reads and understands the sources that are supposed to support it, then it's not SYNTH" thereby implying that one is generally OK if one is sticking to the obvious. "[M]ost Synth occurs because editors are simply trying to improve Wikipedia in good faith without understanding that their edit is Synth" , however, assumes that you can stick to the obvious and still be routinely committing SYNTH. Certainly it sometimes occurs when an editor doesn't realize he or she is "advancing a position", but if one believes it's routine from editors who are not trying to advance a position, the implication is that a great deal of Wikipedia content is problematic SYNTH. Once we start implying that SYNTH is all around us then the accusations that such-and-such is SYNTH start flying around even more and as I note in a new section below calling for the return of "advances a position" I don't think we need that.--Brian Dell (talk) 18:05, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:PRIMARYNOTBAD

I'd like to see this blurb promoted into this Wikipedia:No original research policy page. I believe too many editors use "Primary" as a synonym for "bad" or "unreliable" or "unusable". People are often looking for rules of thumb that make their lives easier, but that often means a lot of disruption when those rules of thumb are being applied to cases where they do not apply. Editors need more encouragement to consider the particulars of the case at hand.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:31, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't mind linking to that essay... but were you aware that this policy already address the issue of Primary sources fairly directly? To quote: Unless restricted by another policy, reliable primary sources may be used in Wikipedia; but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. (It then goes on to discuss what constitutes a misuse). Blueboar (talk) 12:54, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps that phrase would be the ideal place to link to PRIMARYNOTBAD. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:59, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

"Quaternary sources"?

In this post I refer to an ongoing content dispute on Emperor Jimmu. I am not looking for input on the content dispute. This post is about a proposed clarification on this policy page. I also (obviously) don't want to be told that specific OR concerns should go to ORN.

Some articles (the one I'm involved with right now is Emperor Jimmu) cover subjects (the main subject) for which there are hardly any primary sources, and a relatively small number of secondary sources that are all within a niche/specialist field, but the subject is loosely connected to one or more other subjects (the peripheral subjects) that are extremely famous/important and covered in literally millions of secondary sources. This results in a large number of sources that may be considered reliable with regard to a peripheral subject, but whose author(s) may have only a cursory knowledge of the main subject. It's possible that such a source's bibliography might not include a single primary or secondary source on the main subject. This would make the source a "quaternary source".

Such quaternary sources should be rejected as innately unreliable, especially if they contradict material in reliable primary, secondary or tertiary sources.

This statement is already policy, since the only way one can use such sources is by WP:SYNTHesizing them with other sources that contradict them, but should we clarify this? Perhaps add another subsection to the WP:PSTS part of this page? If a source specifies in its own bibliography that it is a sub-tertiary source for certain information, we should probably specify somewhere that this particular kind of source is not to be used.

I was gonna take this to WT:RS, but the discussion of WP:PRIMARY, WP:SECONDARY and WP:TERTIARY sources is on this page, so discussion of a proposed WP:QUATERNARY. I know editing policy pages is trickier than guideline pages, and I don't have much experience of either, so any advice would be welcome.

126.0.96.220 (talk) 14:37, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

I this is a valid issue for us to discuss here on the talk page... but I not sure that we should mention it in the policy. So let me ask a few questions... How often does something like this occur? And if the misuse of "quaternary" sources can be corrected based on what the policy already says, is there really a need to extend the policy to mention them more explicitly? Would mentioning it in the policy simply amount to instruction creep? Blueboar (talk) 15:08, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

It happened on the Emperor Jimmu article, and in theory it could happen to every article related to any of the hundred-twenty or so Japanese Emperors before 1941, and any aspect of the Imperial Histories and mythology surrounding the issue. (I mean "mythology" literally here.) And with all non-Anglosphere topics, English-language sources are one step down the ladder. An English translation of a Japanese primary source is actually a secondary source, a "secondary source" that has only consulted the primary source in translation is actually a tertiary source, and so on. And there are a lot of otherwise "reliable" sources that would slip into the quaternary category if we look at it like this. Last autumn I brought The Japan Encyclopedia to RSN's attention. The book is an English translation of a French work whose original bibliography didn't include a single source written in Japanese, and the translator was a French-English translator who apparently also didn't speak Japanese. This made the work a quaternary source on just about everything. It contains accurate information from time to time, but it's random, almost accidental. At the time, the source was cited in around 1,000 of our articles, and that situation hasn't changed much. These quaternary sources may accidentally contain correct information, and if we repeat what they say then we are also accidentally passing on correct information, but we probably shouldn't be pretending like quaternary sources are like tertiary sources but "more tertiary". We certainly shouldn't use The Japan Encyclopedia to "evaluat[e] due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other". Talk:Kujiki is another place where in the last year User:Shii and I encountered a situation where the primary and secondary sources often contradicted each other. Had we gone to The Japan Encyclopedia to evaluate due weight, it would have essentially told us to buzz off, because all of the primary and secondary sources are wrong and the only one who's right is the guy who wrote The Japan Encyclopedia. 126.0.96.220 (talk) 15:51, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Few people will agree with you that a translation of a primary source is a secondary source, at least in the general case. However, I see that as yet another example of the minefield caused by excessive invocation of the primary/secondary/tertiary division in making rules. I don't think we need an extra category of source to confuse the issue even further. What your example suggests is more advice on the reliability of sources, which belongs at WP:RS. For example, that page says "Articles which deal in depth with specific studies, as a specialized article on science, are apt to be of more value than general articles which only tangentially deal with a topic." but only in relation to news sources. It ought to say much the same thing in relation to academic sources. The word of a specialist expert trumps that of a tangential remark by a non-specialist, in most cases. If WP:RS doesn't make that clear, it should. Zero^talk 16:00, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

If by "few people" you mean "nobody", then I agree with you, Zero. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:14, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Types of source have nothing to do with reliability, but only with the distance to the original event. E.g. Primary = Eye witness report of event; secondary discusses primary sources often using a specific frame; tertiary sources consolidate primary and secondary sources.

If anything in my view a Quaternary source should be at least as much (if not more) integrative and building on all lower order sources. So that would be sources that consolidates knowledge from tertiary sources. But as tertiary sources are limited to sources that consolidate primary and secondary sources a quaternary source would be indirectly consolidating primary and secondary sources and hence by definition be a tertiary source. In other words I do not think quaternary sources exist.

I do recognize the problem though. A source that provides expert knowledge on one issue may introduce some other issue in a speculative way, or as example; and these utterances should not be interpreted at the same level as the keystone of the source. In my view there would be 2 ways to deal with this. First - Stating that this is not the key message of the source and hence a better source is needed. Second - Speculative statements may be considered primary opinion by the author of the source. Arnoutf (talk) 16:28, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

In other words I do not think quaternary sources exist. What about my Emperor Jimmu example? A book about World War II that makes a few peripheral references to the mythical first emperor of Japan, but that gets its information exclusively from other books about World War II that may or may not have been written by people who had only read secondary sources. (Emperor Jimmu is covered in exactly two primary sources from the 8th century, and so for a book to be considered a secondary source its author would need to have specifically consulted one of these two. If they give a bibliography and don't include either of them then they are a tertiary source.) Such a source can't possibly be taken as providing reliable information on Emperor Jimmu, unless it just happens to accidentally agree with reliable secondary or tertiary sources. Most people who write books about World War II in English do not speak Japanese and have no direct exposure to any of the context surrounding Emperor Jimmu, and so they're apt to misinterpret whatever sources they do use.

And then occasionally we find sources that appear to have taken at least some of their information from Wikipedia. This essay probably meets the requirements of WP:RS for most of its statements, and its author meets WP:GNG so his opinions might technically be noteworthy as well. And Wikipedia is not directly mentioned anywhere in the essay (it doesn't contain any bibliography). But careful analysis indicates that its author probably consulted Wikipedia for at least some of his information, since he duplicates Wikipedia's somewhat idiosyncratic style guidelines for writing Japanese people's names. To the best of my knowledge, Wikipedia and Wikipedia-dependant (i.e., quaternary) sources are the only ones that would refer to "Takahashi Korekiyo" (familyname givenname) and "Junnosuke Inoue" (givenname familyname) in the same paragraph. Of course, that kind of discussion probably belongs on WP:WINARS more than here...

126.0.96.220 (talk) 17:08, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

There's no such thing as a quaternary source. Indeed, some fields (e.g., law) do not even recognize the existence of tertiary sources. You should read WP:LINKSINACHAIN. A translation of a primary source is still a primary source. A quotation or close paraphrase of a primary source is still a primary source. And a lousy source is a lousy source, no matter whether it's primary, secondary, or tertiary (see the WP:NOTGOODSOURCE section of that same page). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:14, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Indeed I do not believe quaternary sources exist, but of course if reliable sources unambiguously claim the existence of quaternary sources I am willing to reconsider. Otherwise in my view the introduction of the term is original research. Arnoutf (talk) 20:22, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Part of the trouble we have with terms like "tertiary sources" is simplistic statements about which kind of source is what. A translation is usually a primary source but this isn't necessarily so. I have on my bookshelves an annotated translation of the Domesday Book 1086, and with all due respect for WAID, it's very much a secondary source. A transcript of an interview is a primary source, but if a professional journalist has conducted the interview, edited and summarised what was said and given it a framing narrative and some context, then that's... well, we could quibble about whether it's technically a primary source or not, but the point is that it's a much better source than a transcript.

Evaluating sources is the encyclopaedist's primary job and it takes careful and reasoned judgment. I've always felt that this business of saying "this is primary, this is secondary, that's tertiary" is suboptimal and I'd prefer more nuanced language.—S Marshall T/C 11:05, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree that (most) annotations are secondary sources. The translated text itself, however, is a primary source. It's possible (even common) for sources to contain both. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:50, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Re: "I've always felt that this business of saying "this is primary, this is secondary, that's tertiary" is suboptimal"... Amen to that, brother. This policy focus too much on defining the nature of sources, to the neglect of explaining the appropriateness of sources for specific types of statements. Very often, it's the nature of the text we write that is more important to NOR than the nature of the source.

On a similar note... I have noted this before, but it keeps falling on deaf ears - in the early renditions of this policy, the focus was not on using primary, secondary, and tertiary sources... instead the focus was on not turning Wiikipedia into a primary source (which is what happens when you add Original research). That was an important point (one that is directly related to the entire concept of NOR)... I wish we could return it to the policy. Blueboar (talk) 16:10, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

"advance a position" should be added back

This was recently wrongly removed. The editors that need to be dealt with with a SYNTH policy are the editors who are trying to advance some dubious contention. The editors who passively "reach or imply a conclusion not clearly stated by the sources" includes pretty much EVERY editor who is simply building an article since there are obvious, uncontroversial assumptions about chronology, etc that have to be made if editing is to be possible.

To be sure, people can still abuse WP:SYNTH even if "advance a position" is included. For example, RS #1 says something about Lars von Eisenach doing something in Leipzig in July 1888. RS #2 says something about Lars von Eisenach doing another thing in Leipzig in August 1888. I have the one sentence follow the other when writing the Lars von Eisenach bio. Some editor who doesn't like what is implied about Lars accuses me of SYNTH. Why? Because I "reached or implied the conclusion" that we have the same Lars von Eisenach here. Apparently RS #1 has to also refer to what Lars did the next month and/or RS #2 has to also refer to what Lars did the previous month. Otherwise we've got a chronology in the article "not clearly stated by the sources." I could still be accused of "advancing the position" that there is one Lars von Eisenanch instead of two, but the WP:SYNTH criers would at least be a little more circumspect about accusing me when the charge requires accusing me of some deliberation (advancing a "position") as opposed to accusing me of passively "implying" the sort of commonsensical "conclusion" we have to make everyday if we are to EDIT Wikipedia.

The number of "conclusions not clearly stated by the sources" is near infinite. If a 2014 article talks about Barack Obama and doesn't clearly state that he is the U.S. President, that he's President is a conclusion "not clearly stated", no? So a Wikipedian's brain can't put the two together? Requiring someone alleging SYNTH to accuse the transgressor of "advancing the position" that Obama is President would mean fewer spurious SYNTH accusations because editors aren't likely to accuse people of advancing utterly non-controversial positions that no reasonable person would challenge. They are, however, likely to accuse people of "implying conclusions not clearly stated" if that's all it takes to make out a SYNTH charge that justifies the removal of content they don't like.--Brian Dell (talk) 17:08, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree that it's necessary to consider what the synthesis does, but the phrase "advancing a position" seems to me to be too strong, because it implies some undesirable purpose. I edit plant articles mainly, so let me give a plant example. Source 1 says that bee-pollinated flowers are blue to violet coloured with protruding lower "lips". Source 2 says that species X has blue to violet coloured flowers with a protruding lower lip. I write that species X is bee-pollinated, citing sources 1 and 2. I wouldn't want to describe this as "advancing a position" and certainly not "advancing a dubious contention" (with a bit more detail added, it's almost certainly true), but it's definitely SYNTH. The point is that if I were writing as myself elsewhere I could quite legitimately write something like "It is likely that species X is bee-pollinated, based on its floral characteristics", citing sources 1 and 2. But here, in Wikipedia, I shouldn't.

The problem with all attempts to define SYNTH is the fuzziness of the words needed to do so. "Conclusion" in relation to SYNTH is the part after the "therefore": A and B therefore C. SYNTH is where there are sources for A and sources for B but not for the entire proposition and where C is not indisputable (as, say, a conclusion reached by a simple mathematical operation would be). In your example about Obama, it's not a "conclusion" that he's the US President; it's a separate fact than can be sourced but doesn't need to be since no sensible person would challenge it. Juxtaposing information in a biography based on different reliable sources isn't SYNTH. Inferring reasons or intermediate behaviour based on that juxtaposition would be. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:24, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

SYNTH can be complicated... we really can't assume that two sources that mention someone named Lars von Eisenach are talking about the same person. They might be... but then again they might not. To know whether they are talking about the same person, we need both sources to include some sort of over-laping information. For example, if both sources say that the Eisenach they are talking about lectured at Cambridge University in 1885, and traveled to Berlin for an audience with the Kaiser in 1890, then we know that they are both discussing the same Eisenach... and once that is established, it isn't SYNTH to place the information mentioned only in one source in juxtaposition to the information mentioned only in the other. On the other hand... if the two sources don't overlap in any way, then it is SYNTH for us to make the assumption that they are talking about the same person. The assumption is not directly supported by the sources. Blueboar (talk) 12:44, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Re "we really can't assume that two sources that mention someone named Lars von Eisenach are talking about the same person." — I think we can, unless there is reason to question that they are not the same person, or there are WP:BLP considerations. Seems like assuming they are not the same person unless proven that they are, in cases that do not involve WP:BLP, is an impractical and disruptive approach to editing Wikipedia. --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:54, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually, Peter is "advancing a position": he is advancing the position that this particular flower is bee-pollinated.

This was discussed #Synthesis of published material that advances a position above; the general idea was to try it out and see whether it produced actual disputes (i.e., something more serious than people not being used to the wording). I believe this is the first question about it so far. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:09, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Here's a dictionary definition of position:

"6. A point of view or attitude on a certain question: the mayor's position on taxes.[3]

The example that Peter gave may have been clearer if he left out his parenthetical comment "(with a bit more detail added, it's almost certainly true)". Maybe this was what you were referring to when you thought he was advancing a position? Anyhow, here's the example again without that part.

Source 1 says that bee-pollinated flowers are blue to violet coloured with protruding lower "lips". Source 2 says that species X has blue to violet coloured flowers with a protruding lower lip. I write that species X is bee-pollinated, citing sources 1 and 2.

This is coming to a conclusion using original research, specifically synth. There is no indication that this is advancing a position, using the above definition. Whether right or wrong, it looks like an attempt to reach an objective conclusion. --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:22, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Precisely, and very clearly put (sorry I wasn't as clear!). It's wrong in Wikipedia regardless of its objectivity (or even truth), which is why it's better to remove "advance a position". Peter coxhead (talk) 13:15, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. Advancing a position is WP:NPOV not (intrinsically) WP:NOR matter. Also, the fault in the above is worse than just WP:SYNTH, it's a classic case of the propositional fallacy of affirming the consequent; i.e., it's an invalid way to reach a conclusion even before concsider whether there is novel synthesis. I wouldn't use an example like this, because it may be taken to imply that synthesis is okay as long as it doesn't suffer that "If A, then B; B, therefore A" fallacious reasoning pattern, which most cases of SYNTH do not (or fewer people would engage in it).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:25, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Off the main point, but it's a fallacy only if you assume that "bee-pollinated flowers are blue to violet coloured with protruding lower lips" means "if a flower is bee-pollinated then it is blue to violet coloured with protruding lower lips". However, in evolutionary terms, pollinator preference and floral morphology co-evolve, so there's not a unidirectional cause and effect. So "bee-pollinated flowers are blue to violet coloured with protruding lower lips" should be read as equivalence not implication. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:09, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

The flawed conclusion lies in assuming the equivalence and ignoring the possibility of sub-set... it may be true that all X (bee-pollinated flowers) are Y (blue to violet colored with protruding lower lips)... but that does not necessarily mean that all Y (flowers that are blue to violet coloured with protruding lower lips) are X (bee-pollinated). X could be a sub-set of Y, and there could be Ys that are not Xs. Blueboar (talk) 16:07, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I'll respond on your talk page to avoid hijacking this page any more! Peter coxhead (talk) 17:02, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Insider's view

I would like to suggest a change of wording in the Primary, secondary and tertiary sources section. We say

Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved. They offer an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on. Primary sources may or may not be independent or third-party sources.

I would like to suggest that "an insider's view" be changed to "a first-hand view", because "an insider's view" can be read to mean that the source is connected to or affiliated with the subject. In other words, that the source is not independent. I realize that we point out the difference between "primary" and "not independent" in the very next sentence. But it seems that the message is not getting through.
On Talk:Soka Gakkai, there is a group of editors who insist that any book from the publishing arm of that organization is a "primary source" and hence can't be used in the article. To back up that claim, they cite this section. So I'd like to suggest this change of wording. And is there any other way to rewrite this section so that it can't be misunderstood? --Margin1522 (talk) 21:20, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree that "insiders view" is not right... but I don't like "a first-hand view". I know it does not really work for history related articles... in part because not every primary sources in the field of history actually does offer a "first-hand view". Some primary sources start off as originally being secondary but, over time, evolve into being primary sources. For example, Livy's history of the Punic Wars is not a "first-hand view" (he was not there and did not actually see the events he is describing)... It would have originally been considered a secondary source... but today it is considered a primary source never the less, due to the fact that it is the closest we come to a contemporary source.

Also, I don't know if "first-hand view" accurately describes what the definition of Primary source for the Sciences. I know we have discussed before the fact that different fields of academia have different definitions of primary and secondary ... but we have never actually resolved the issue.

I think it might be time to completely rewrite the PSTS section entirely... or perhaps to hive it off into its own guideline. As written it causes more confusion than clarity. Despite the fact that we clearly say that Primary sources MAY be used, but must be used with caution... we still get too many editors who think the policy says Primary sources are never allowed. We need to correct that and better explain when and how they can be used.

I will also remind everyone why the terms "Primary", "Secondary" and "Tertiary" were originally added to this policy... they were added to make the point that WIKIPEDIA should not be made into a primary source ... which is what happens when you add unpublished information, analysis, observations, conclusions, synthesis, etc. To put it in simple words: the original intent was not to say "using primary sources causes OR" (although I agree that sometimes it can)... the original intent was to say "adding OR causes Wikipedia to be a Primary Source... and it should be a Tertiary source". Blueboar (talk) 22:30, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Picking up Blueboar's point, neither phrasing is really right for scientific sources. The issue in scientific articles is mainly notability: something published only in an original journal article may not turn out to be accepted by the relevant scientific community in the longer term – for example the research reported may not be replicable. (Nanobacterium and Cold fusion offer cautionary tales; I'm concerned over the speed with which Wikipedia jumped on the Dendrogramma bandwagon – I don't see secondary sources there.) So the general approach is to rely on secondary or tertiary sources for notability and then, cautiously, use original sources such as journal articles if these are the only ones that contain details needed in the article. This is particularly true of medical articles, where WP:MEDRS has attempted (rightly but not always successfully in my view) to set out the relevant distinctions. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:48, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Question about routine calculations

I'd like to get some clarification about the intended scope of WP:CALC. Some confusion has arisen here Talk:Bon_Secours_Sisters#.22Average.22_death_rate about how best to describe the historic mortality rate (over 36 years) in an Irish orphanage. The various data sources, which seem mostly reliable, suggest that short-term epidemics and the like account for large chunks of the deaths. Thus, using the term average is not appropriate, since the information is coming from different sources, the data is so skewed, and many of the incidents are not independent events. I'm sure there are many similar cases in other articles, which surely must go beyond the intended policy defined for routine calculations. Any thoughts? jxm (talk) 16:05, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

If the problem is the term average, then you could try non-mathematical substitutes like "overall" or "typical". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:36, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Illustrations violating NOR

I just flagged two images at Talk:Paraceratherium#P._transouralicum_with_calf_-_source.3F that could not be sourced. There is an editor defending their inclusion, claiming that there is consensus that NOR does not apply to illustrations. I am challenging this position and wonder if anyone has any input on whether his claimed consensus to suspend NOR does, in fact, exist in the broader community. Samsara (FA • FP) 16:17, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

How about linking to the original discussion where I explain what the consensus is? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Paraceratherium#P._transouralicum_with_calf_-_source.3F And conclusion from last community discussion about this:[4] And why do we need this same discussion on five different talk pages? FunkMonk (talk) 16:44, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Samsara, does the image actually look like what it purports to be? If so, then it's okay. We do not require people to provide sources to prove the identity of the subject; we only require that images look like the subject. See WP:PERTINENCE. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:45, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

There is clearly a consensus that NOR as applied to text does not apply to images; it's clearly stated at WP:OI. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:59, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I read that, and it says, so long as they do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments. And that is the core of my request - to please clarify that the representation is not introducing unpublished ideas. Samsara (FA • FP) 17:06, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

As I've already explained, the article text describes how scientists think the animal looked like, and the illustration follows that, without introducing new ideas. FunkMonk (talk) 17:08, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

If the text is based on sources, and the illustrations, according to what you just said, based on the same sources, why are you refusing to use the same sources to support the illustrations? Why are you being evasive about this? Samsara (FA • FP) 17:20, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not saying the illustration is using the same exact source as the article (Prothero's book). I'm saying the sources confirm the accuracy of the illustration. The two statements are not the same. FunkMonk (talk) 17:22, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Explain to me why the source(s) can't be used to support the illustrations. Samsara (FA • FP) 17:25, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

There are several different sources the illustrator could have used that say the same. I cannot know which exact source it was, and therefore cannot add it to the image description, but that is irrelevant, as long as I know it is confirmed by the sources I do know. FunkMonk (talk) 17:27, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

You still have not named a single specific source that supports either of the contested illustrations. Samsara (FA • FP) 17:32, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I've already mentioned Prothero's book. Do I have to quote myself? See also practically every source listed in the article. The point is, I can not point out which exact one the illustrator followed, and it is irrelevant anyway, because they agree with each other. There is a controversial idea that it had large, elephant like ears, but that is not shown in the illustration, so it is not a problem. FunkMonk (talk) 17:38, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

You cited Prothero in response to my other query, not this one. Here's the thing I find fishy about your evasive behaviour. When we find a text source that is lacking a citation, we look in the literature to confirm or reject the stated fact, and if, on balance, we find mostly or exclusively literature supporting the fact (or if the support is more recent and a revision of the earlier rejection), then, assuming our finding in the literature matches the claimed fact exactly, we supply the citation without changing the text. So my question to you is still, why can't you provide ANY SOURCES and insert them into the appropriate image description page, that support the faithfulness of the reconstruction? It would be as simple as saying, "see this literature for confirming the claim". But I have never seen anyone on Wikipedia as stubbornly refusing as you, to do a small simple thing that would be an improvement of the encyclopedia. And that makes me suspicious. It's almost like you don't want to be the one inserting a source because you know there's something wrong with it. Samsara (FA • FP) 17:50, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Short answer, because you don't ask nicely, and because I don't have to, per the policies cited above. Constantly assuming bad faith doesn't exactly make me less "evasive". If you weren't so confrontational, then yes, I'd happily do it, I'm quite cooperative when people are nice. But I don't take orders, especially if they are not founded in any existing Wiki policies. FunkMonk (talk) 17:53, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm reading this and I'm slightly baffled. The whole point of WP is collect the knowledge of our species. That's why articles require sources. Reconstructions are fine, and someone needs to make them, however, without sources directly referencing the reconstructions, there is no way to tell the difference between something based on the fossil record (or someone else's possibly copyrighted reconstruction), and something someone drew randomly. Often, the articles and written descriptions are not enough for other editors to check if the reconstruction is sensible, perhaps a vandal with a sense of humor has made a drawing and posted it, regardless, things need to be verifiable. If reconstructions can't be verified, they are useless. For an example, see Arandaspis. It has a lovely reconstruction, but it is unsourced. The written text is nothing like specific enough to glean the actual shape of the animal, nor should it be. The reconstruction can't be checked easily, and there is no indication of what was used to make it. In no other realm do we "trust" editors to create material without sources, and things as speculative as reconstructions need to be even more scrutinized, due to their unknown nature. This is also a large difference between photographs and reconstructions. Photographs are rarely speculative in nature, and indeed are capturing an actual state of existence at the time of their creation. Therefore, "own work" is good enough. This simply does not apply to reconstructions.

It isn't a large burden to ask for sources to be listed with reconstructions when they are uploaded, and it would bolster the credibility of the reconstructions greatly, which in the end is a good thing for WP, as anything that makes WP more credible is a good thing. Everything on WP needs a source eventually, so why not start collecting them now for the good of the project? pschemp | talk 03:08, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I actually do not think that illustrations are exceptional in this case. All your arguments apply equally to photographs, particularly if the subject of the photograph cannot itself be easily verified. While the photograph itself has captured an actual state of existence— barring any manipulation, of course— you still don't know, without verifiable sources, that the photograph is a true and accurate depiction of what it purports to be. Just as with the cases you give for reconstruction, maybe the photographer mischievously uploaded an incorrect image or didn't correctly identify the subject in the first place. While images of famous buildings, landscapes or people may not have this problem, many other images do. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 04:08, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Photogrpahs and speculative illustrations are fundamentally different objects. Yes photogrpahs can be manipulated. However this is not relevent to the restoration debate, because restorations are based on a guess. A good one but a guess nonetheless. It isn't difficult to cite the source the restoration was based on. In most cases, for a photograph it is impossible to cite a source other than the creator of the image because there isn't one. Again I say, why not take steps to improve the credibility of WP when they are so simple?pschemp | talk 15:41, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Pschemp, no one is saying rationales for the restorations aren't useful. But images should not be removed or deleted if one isn't provided. They can be removed/modified when inaccuracies are pointed out, not before, that's how it goes for all Wikipedia images. FunkMonk (talk) 09:35, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I never called for removal or deletion, instead I said that everything needs to have a source. Very few of these restorations have a source. Tell me again what the harm is in requiring restorations to have source material? Sourcing is a pillar of WP. All restorations are based on something, so it needs to be cited. It can't that difficult to add sources to the existing pictures. Time consuming, yes, but that's what editors do. pschemp | talk 15:41, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

The purpose of images is to illustrate what is said in the text of the article. For example, if the article text describes what a group of scientists think a prehistoric creature looked like, then it is perfectly appropriate to include a drawing based on that description. It can even be created by a Wikipedia user (we explicitly allow such user created images). The key is to have an appropriate caption that links the image to the text. The caption should not bluntly imply "this is what a Blueboarodon looked like"... but instead should make it clear that "this is how Prof. Jones, et al. describe what a Blueboarodon looked like" And... if a different group of scientists disagree with Prof. Jones... and describe "Blueboarodon" differently... then a similar drawing should be included to illustrate their view of what the creature looked like (with an appropriate caption). In other words... for situations where POV comes into play... the caption should make it clear that the image is illustrating an opinion... and not necessarily illustrating a fact. Blueboar (talk) 10:20, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't "restoration of" suggest pretty clearly that it is, well, just a restoration, a hypothesis? Also, we usually keep restorations out of the taxobox and use images of skeletons, so that this first image gives a less speculative impression. FunkMonk (talk) 10:22, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

All good hypotheses are based on facts. No is saying that speculation isn't allowed on WP, but speculations should be able to cite their sources. A restoration with no sources cited is indistinguishable from OR, and violates WP:VERIFY. "(Wikipedia) content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors. Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it." Everyone knows that restorations are speculative, but they should be as accurate as possible, and there has to be a way to check this using previously published info. With sources, a restoration is confirmed to be based on something, and it becomes acceptable. pschemp | talk 15:51, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

As pointed out above, there are different standards for image verifiability than to text verifiability. Please resolve the underlying issue before applying non-existent policies to specific cases. FunkMonk (talk) 17:11, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

To be quite honest, I think this is a convenient misinterpretation of "policy" (one of the two "policies" cited being in actual fact a guideline) that you and a few others have come up with for your own convenience. WP:V is quite clear on there being no difference at all (see cited passages elsewhere in this discussion or read the page itself). And you all know that dreadful moment when a friend or acquaintance approaches you with the, "say, I heard such and such about Wikipedia, is it true?" I highly doubt that anyone would want to be the person explaining why illustrations on Wikipedia escape intellectual scrutiny. There simply is no logical explanation or valid excuse for it. Samsara (FA • FP) 21:12, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

I wish people would stop periodically trying to shit on the collective entirety of our paleoartists. They're saints for dealing with this garbage. I want to give a loud THANK YOU to our many intelligent and talented artists who make paleontology accessible to lay readers with their illustrations. Abyssal (talk) 16:04, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

We're simply asking for verification that will enhance the value of the works that paleoartists are contributing. Samsara (FA • FP) 16:34, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Cannibalistic tertiary sources

We don't seem to address the problem of "cannibalistic" tertiary sources, which are most commonly magazines and newspapers with low editorial standards. The two most common patterns of this are:

1. The repetition of and elaboration upon sensationalistic stories from other similar publishers, without adequate fact-checking by anyone at any of these publishers, going back to the original (incorrect) article.
2. Gathering and summarizing "facts" from biased or other questionably reliable sources, usually also tertiary, and re-publishing falsehoods as if they were common knowledge and well-established, simply because they've been restated frequently enough to become accepted, at least among a particular audience.

See the history of Negativland for an example of how the first tendency can actually be intentionally socially engineered to spread false stories. Most often it's just a blind process of rushing to publish salacious material. Sometimes it's entirely innocent and a factor of AP and other newswires leading to the same story being seeded with minor variations in thousands of venues more or less simultaneously, but retractions/corrections seeing far less print.

The second sort of case is typified by animal breeder and pet owner publications, e.g. Cat Fancy magazine and similar publications. In these cases, articles, which never cite any sources at all, are rehashed in slightly varied form every few years, about every major breed or type of common interest. They're mostly written by breeders or others with financial incentive to play up positive qualities (real or not) of their subject, and editorial control at such publications supports outlandish claims of breeders (their primary source of income in the form of paid advertising), and they're generally based on previous articles in the same or similar publications, going back decades. To make matters worse, when they paraphrase interesting (often incorrect) factoids about this breed or that, they often alter the wording a bit to avoid an appearance of plagiarism, but in the course of doing so, change the meaning of the original claims to something even less plausible. The three most common problematic results of this publication pattern are nonsensical claims about breeds and their collective "personalities", promotion of controversial breed origin claims as if proven, and acceptance of folkloric stories about the breed as if verified fact.

The latter pattern is also, of course, used by pseudoscience publications, but we already cover those at WP:FRINGE. The broader problem we're not addressing at all other than with the vague statement that some tertiary sources are more reliable than others. WP:RS is almost as a vague: "Tertiary sources such as compendia, encyclopedias, textbooks, obituaries, and other summarizing sources". [And note that obituaries are questionably reliable not because they're summarizing in nature but because they're usually written by or rely upon material provided by family and friends of the deceased and have the editorial purpose of promoting only good things about the subject, but that's another matter.]

Template:Tertiary can be used to ID problematic citations to tertiary sources in articles, but absent NOR and/or RS being clearer that such sources as discussed here are tertiary, other editors are apt to remove such tags as wrongly applied to sources they feel must be categorically considered secondary simply by virtue of the fact that they're in magazines and newspapers not "compendia, encyclopedias, textbooks". NOR's own wording perpetuates the logic error that a publication rather than what it publishes is or is not tertiary: "within any given tertiary source, some articles may be more reliable than others". While, yes, we can consider an encyclopedia as a whole to be tertiary, it's not true that a magazine or newspaper is necessarily or always secondary; any given article may be tertiary or (in the cases of investigative journalism, interviews, and editorials), primary.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  15:53, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

A few quick thoughts:

• Are you familiar with the distinction between an obituary and a paid memorial advertisement? It's important.
• How exactly do you know that these magazine stories about pet breeds are wrong? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:48, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

1. Yes, though I may have been blurring the distinction here unnecessarily. I have made (cautious) use of journalistic obituaries in the course of working on bio articles, and in some cases they repeat known falsehoods because their writers will trust what the subject or the subject's family and friends have to say about the deceased rather than more independent sources. I clarified by the above with a small insertion
2. Because I do serious breed research, and catch such publications in errors and distortions, the evolution of which can be traced over time. A fact or claim from, say, two or five generations ago may be repeated in somewhat distorted form in perhaps 1997. It then gets warped further and recycled, even further from the original statement (which may have been false to begin with or is obsolete) again in 2001, and further in 2005, and so on, until it looks like "lots of sources agree" on some particular factoid, which is actually nonsense. An example is the common claim that many Manx kittens with partial tails have their tails docked for medical or fraud purposes, and that lots of "Manx" kittens are actually just random cats with their tails cut off. This may have been true, on the Isle of Man itself in the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras when tourism to the Isle of Man produced a sudden and then-unfulfillable demand for Manx kittens; there's no evidence this is true any longer, and because the breed has other defining characteristics, and pets are routinely X-rayed by veterinarians, such a ruse wouldn't really fool any one who knew the breed, nor anyone at all for long. Yet cat magazines still repeat this and many other false stories about Manx cats (and many other breeds; I'm not singling that one out). An even worse case is when breed articles are written by breeders and full of all sorts of romantic, unprovable nonsense about the breed in question and "its temperament", as a form of thinly-veiled promotional material. There's an overwhelming amount of this crap about virtually every breed (of cat, dog, you name it). A third case is when dubious claims made by specific breeders are promoted by these publications, presumably due to advertising dollars or personal relationships in some cases, but more often probably just because the publications' budgets are small and their fact-checking abilities very limited. An example of this is the claim by the breed's originator, disproven by genetic tests, that the Pixie-bob breed is hybrid of domestic cats and the North American wild bobcat, a completely different genus. One of our own cat breed articles repeated this nonsense this very month, and the article on the breed did so only a year ago; it got the idea, as I recall, from an article in Cat Fancy. It's not that such magazines are always unreliable. Many of their veterinary articles are written by actual vets based on real research (sometimes even cited). It's that a certain class of article in them, the breed profile, are fundamentally tertiary in nature, and simply uncritically repeat whatever has previously been published about the breed, with an eye to especially re-presenting anything "interesting" or "fascinating" or "unique" or "appealing", i.e. that which is most likely to actually be distortion and half-truth and supposition at best, or outright lies promoted by breeders for monetary gain at worst.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:50, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Please take a look at the Primary, secondary and tertiary sources section of the Wikipedia:No original research page. Though this discussion has merit; it has nothing to do with tertiary sources. — Robert Greer (talk) 20:53, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

I've already read that, and do not see what you mean. I'm addressing a particular type of tertiary source, one that is not of the compendium nature we're usually thinking of when we talk about tertiary sources (e.g. other encyclopedias). That's, well, the entire point of my post. There are tertiary sources, in rather large quantities, that we're misclassifying as secondary simply because of their medium (especially magazines and magazine-like websites), that are not actually, at least in some of their articles, doing any real journalism or research, but simply consuming and regurgitating previously-published material with insufficient regard for its veracity.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:50, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I completely agree with SMcCandlish that there is a serious problem with poor quality tertiary sources (and sometimes ones we might classify as secondary as well) that endlessly repeat incorrect scraps of information. For an example in a different area, search for "lysichiton melt snow" in google. You'll get thousands of hits in which it's said that one or more species of Lysichiton have flowers that produce heat and so melt snow, which is quite false (only Symplocarpus species are thermogenic). Far too many articles are supported by poor quality web-based sources. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:44, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

There is a reason why this policy page does not address the issue... Poor source quality isn't an OR issue... its more of a reliability issue. You are not engaging in Original research when you read something in a poor quality source and repeat it on Wikipedia. You might be engaging in bad (or at least incomplete) research... but not Original research. Blueboar (talk) 11:46, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I think that Blueboar's answer hints at the solution: you need to play the "my gold-plated academic source trumps your dozen silly little magazine articles" game. It can be tedious, but it's ultimately effective. If you can find an indisputably good source that talks about this problem in detail, then so much the better (and I hope that you'll use it to expand Dog breed and similar articles). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:56, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

That's the rub, though. There is virtually no source at all for most breed-related information other than these cannibalistic tertiary sources mired in breeder-sourced bias and "telephone game"-caused decreasing veracity in successive generations of near-plagiarism of older sources. I'm unaware of anything like a Journal of Breed Studies. For some farm livestock breeds of especial importance there are, here and there, some academic articles about their origins and such, but these are rare. There are also veterinary science journal articles with reliable material on all sorts of animals, but veterinary facts are usually not the sort of thing in dispute in our animal breed articles. It's almost always breed origins and alleged behavioral traits ("good with children", "unsually dog-like for a cat", "likes water", "very intelligent and playful", etc., etc., etc.). Much of it is no more accurate than astrology. If we take it as a given that these sources are tertiary, biased and poorly fact checked (yes, these are WP:RS and WP:V issues), then having WP make factual claims based on such sources would seem to me to be original research, because we're cobbling together a falsely synthesized portrait of breed, and calling it factual, when the underlying components are often nonsense. I'm at a loss for what to do about it (other than, of course, leading by example in sourcing well). At this point, though, I keep getting reverted even on identifying tertiary sources of this sort with {{Tertiary}} fairly often, with disgruntled edit summaries that their dog or cat or rabbit or whatever magazine is just as reliable as any other publication, which is often simply not true.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:21, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh! There's a name for what's going on in these sources and what it's doing to our articles here: woozle effect. It's a RS / V problem inasmuch as it's happening already in sources, but it becomes an NOR problem when we extend it from those sources into our articles, and this is precisely what's happening with animal breeds. And many other topics; the more fannish they are the more it's happening.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:08, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

So I asked above how you know that these are false. You said that you did "serious breed research". I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that this "serious research" involved things like research publications, which would then be reliable sources. Apparently not? Apparently your source of knowledge is your own, unpublished, personal experience? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:44, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

What are you talking about? "Apparently" you need to go read WP:AGF for starters. When you say "Apparently your source of knowledge is your own, unpublished, personal experience", you clearly are not "assum[ing]...that this 'serious research' involved ...reliable sources", i.e. assuming good faith. So, how about you stick to the issue raised here, instead of following me from forum to forum personalizing title and style disputes? (That's an issue I'll raise on your talk page with a WP:ARBATC {{Ds/alert}}.) I cite my sources in the articles I write and improve; I'm not going to spend hours laying out a catalog of them for you just because you want to play personally antagonistic games on policy talk pages. Sources vary from topic to topic anyway, naturally. If you think I've violated some core policy like WP:NOR, there are noticeboards for that. Perhaps you're not using them because you know you can't sustain such an accusation, and would likely be WP:BOOMERANG sanctioned for making it. The short answer to the question that could have been worded with much less personal investment in hostility and aspersion-casting, is that I invest a great deal of time, effort, and often money (over US$2,000 so far) obtaining (or obtaining access to) reliable source material for WP articles, ranging from journal articles behind paywalls, to antiquarian sources not yet available from Gutenberg Project and other archives, to brand new books one cannot even find used yet. To take cat breeds for example, I have a huge stockpile of cat-related publications, boxes and boxes full of them, and can easily compare and contrast articles, the claims they make, who is writing them, and what the writers' disclosed backgrounds are (e.g. breeders of the breed in question vs. those with no obvious conflict of interest). But this isn't about domestic animal breeds. I was using that as a simple example, fresh in my mind. Not every observation about sourcing related to animal breeding needs to be hunted down by you across Wikipedia and responded to with vitriolic character assassination, thanks.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:05, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm confused. Following you from forum to forum? Maybe you should look through the talk page history; you'll find that I've contributed to this page since 2008. Article titles? Since when does "This breed of dog has this kind of temperament" have anything to do with article titles?

Here's the conversation we've had, from my perspective:

Me: "How exactly do you know that these magazine stories about pet breeds are wrong?"

You: "Because I do serious breed research, and catch such publications in errors and distortions"

Me: "you need to play the "my gold-plated academic source trumps your dozen silly little magazine articles" game. It can be tedious, but it's ultimately effective."

You: "That's the rub, though. There is virtually no source at all for most breed-related information other than" silly magazine articles.

Me: "You said that you did "serious breed research". I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that this "serious research" involved things like research publications, which would then be reliable sources. Apparently not? Apparently your source of knowledge is your own, unpublished, personal experience?"

So I'm going to have to ask you to pick one position or the other here: either there are sources for breed-related information (e.g., about their temperaments), or there aren't. It is not possible for the answer to this question to be both yes and no; it is not possible for the answer to be "I invest a great deal of time, effort, and often money [on] reliable source material" and "There is virtually no source at all".

• If there are such published, reliable sources, then cite them.
• If there aren't any such published, reliable sources, then I am back to the basic NOR assumption, which is that there are only two types of knowledge in the world: that which can be sourced (e.g., something published in a research journal) and that which cannot (most importantly, something learned through personal experience). We cannot cite anything in the latter category, full stop.

And if anyone's got any clue how this relates to other forums or to article titles, which weren't even mentioned in this discussion, I'd be happy to hear it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:18, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Simple summation across sources

I've been accused of SYNTH. What I think is ok, according to "Best practice is to research the most reliable sources on the topic and summarize what they say in your own words", is to sum up number of devices sold across sources. You can find say, Android devices sold for a year (or quarter) in a source but I find it really hard to find A source with a single number for longer periods. Similarily, I can find numbers for smartphones and tablets separately but as they run the same operating system (and have compatible apps) a combined total is useful information.

What get's murky is saying the aggregated numbers are "installed base". Those numbers (or estimates) are very hard to find in one number/source. And comparing installed base of Android vs. PCs. If one number is clearly higher than the other, would it be ok to say that one is more popular than the other? If both numbers come from the same source or different. comp.arch (talk) 10:43, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

@Comp.arch: I think this belongs at WP:NORN, not here as this page is for discussing changes to the policy page. Dougweller (talk) 11:45, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, didn't know about the other place as it seems may be right place to ask questions. I however, think my understanding doesn not violate the guildelines and maybe the need to be clarified where the line is drawn. comp.arch (talk) 14:17, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Interviews

I've just written Wikipedia:Interviews, an essay to try and clarify the how interviews relate to Wikipedia's sourcing policies. I've tried to make it reflect policy and current practice as best I can, but there are bound to be things that need to be clarified further, or perhaps even flat-out errors, so I'm hoping to get others to look over it so that it can be as accurate as possible. If anyone here could take some time out to check it and/or improve it, I would be very grateful. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 11:59, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Hyperlinks within a source

Alright, so this is a question about NOR policy - or really, more specifically, about SYNTH - and hyperlinks.

Say we have an article like this, something which seems to be increasingly common these days. This article notes "A friendly reporter had a suspicious syringe sent to his house." In the text, "a suspicious syringe" is a hyperlink to a Twitter post by Milo Yiannopoulos, which contains a picture of said syringe. Now, here's the question: could we say that Tech Crunch had noted that Milo Yiannopoulos had had a syringe mailed to his house? There is no other way to interpret what the article said, in the context of the hyperlink, and yet the article never actually mentions Milo's name in its text. It seems to me like this would fall under SYNTH is not just any synthesis, but original research by synthesis, but I wanted to see if others would agree. I'm not planning on using it to cite this particular fact, mind, just trying to see what people think about this. Titanium Dragon (talk) 18:51, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I think that if it hasn't been mentioned in more detail, then it might be WP:UNDUE anyway.

(Remember that "This is your brain This is your brain on drugs" advertisement? When I see journalists write things like this, I want something similar that explains "This is a syringe. This is a needle." It's the sharp, skin-piercing needle that could actually hurt you. The syringe by itself is as harmless as a plastic bottle.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:25, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Are unsourced topic sentences in Reception paragraphs OR?

WP:VG is currently discussing whether unsourced topic sentences in Reception sections constitute original research czar ♔ 00:37, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Very mild OR

I posed a question at WP:V yesterday regarding minor analyses of primary source materials. The basic idea is that I'd like clarification on the citing of primary source materials as references for claims regarding their unstated elements (e.g. citing an image of a person as reference for the claim that the person has brown hair). The conversation has now shifted to OR. If this is OR then it's clearly very mild OR evocative of WP:BLUE/WP:MINREF/WP:CALC, but WP:OR's language leaves little room for interpretation when it speaks of "any analysis" and "stated by". I'm not interested in being overly pedantic but these sorts of references just don't seem encyclopedic to me. If anyone has any views on the matter, please join the conversation at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Citing objects rather than claims. -Thibbs (talk) 14:24, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Continued confusion about whether it is a source (or "material") that is OR or editing actions that are OR

This issue has come up before on this Talk page and in my view will continue to come up until it finally gets clarified. This discussion on an article Talk page where an editor says, mistakenly in my view, "an external source can be WP:OR" and "The term 'OR' (original research) does not refer to the process of adding material but to the added material" is typical of the ongoing confusion. The way to resolve this is to 1) purge this policy of all references to reliability/source quality and simply remind editors that this policy is supplementary to WP:V, the first test is WP:V and only if WP:V is satisfied but a problem remains do we have a OR issue, nothing about OR should be interpreted as implying an exemption from WP:V, and 2) ensure that all language describing something as OR describes editing (the actions of an editor) as opposed to anything external to Wikipedia.--Brian Dell (talk) 04:59, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

• An external source that is OR is really a primary source. We should avoid primary sources, but they can be used selectively, see WP:PRIMARY and WP:USEPRIMARY. -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 18:57, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and that's being obscured when the language suggests that it be the text itself (taken from a source) that may be OR as opposed to what the editor did with that primary source.--Brian Dell (talk) 04:01, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

• The issue of editing actions being considered as OR came up recently here, and then in this forum here. The problem was the intended scope of WP:CALC. The editor in question claimed that summarizing mortality data as an average was simply basic arithmetic and therefore not OR, although no reliable sources had used the term average in this context. Among other things, the data points involved were non-independent and highly skewed, and so the editor's introduction of the term average was certainly OR and not at all representative of the actual situation. jxm (talk) 01:42, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

• Brian Dell, although WP:Primary sources are original research, sources are not usually called WP:OR; the WP:OR policy is clear about what is and is not WP:OR, including in its WP:Synthesis section; its lead currently states, "Wikipedia articles must not contain original research. The phrase 'original research' (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist." And it has a reference note after that stating, "By 'exists', the community means that the reliable source must have been published and still exist—somewhere in the world, in any language, whether or not it is reachable online—even if no source is currently named in the article. Articles that currently name zero references of any type may be fully compliant with this policy—so long as there is a reasonable expectation that every bit of material is supported by a published, reliable source." And continues with, "This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources. To demonstrate that you are not adding OR, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material being presented. (This policy of no original research does not apply to talk pages.)" Flyer22 (talk) 02:34, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't believe "original research' (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material.. for which no reliable, published sources exist" is, or ought to be, true. If it's true, then if I add a quote from an unreliable source, the only sources available being unreliable, the material is OR by this definition, which makes no sense as the reliability issue may have nothing to do with originality. What I've violated is WP:V, not WP:OR. I've done nothing remotely "original" there if I copied a quote. Material which fails to satisfy Wikipedia's requirement for being found in a reliable source is material that is prohibited because it does not satisfy WP:V and that's it: there is no necessary correlation with original research. A source cannot be guilty of OR, it can only be guilty of not being reliable. It's editors who are guilty of OR. That's the conceptually sound understanding of what OR is, yet it is confused with reliability in the way this policy is currently written.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:56, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

The WP:OR policy has referred to "material.. for which no reliable, published sources exist" and WP:Synthesis (presenting material in a way that the WP:Reliable source(s) don't support) for a long time now. Some editors misuse the WP:OR terminology to mean "unsourced," or in a case such as the one you cited above (the part that states "[t]he term 'OR' (original research) does not refer to the process of adding material but to the added material"). I don't fully grasp your objection to WP:OR meaning "material.. for which no reliable, published sources exist." If the sources are unreliable, they should not be used, per the WP:Verifiability policy and the WP:Reliable sources guideline...except for a few instances (named at that policy and at that guideline). Flyer22 (talk) 04:10, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

The chosen example is poor: all publications are reliable sources in terms of quotations of their own contents.

You are correct in the overall conclusion, because a source cannot be guilty of OR. Only editors can be guilty of OR. In resolving the apparent contradiction, I suggest that you not focus too much on the literal meaning of the jargon phrase "original research". We've defined the term: "The phrase 'original research' (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist". The term might as well be foo or Wikipediable or akghwlkvd. Whatever you call it, this policy prohibits the addition of material for which no reliable source exists.

As for its relationship to WP:V, you're not the first person to notice it, and I'm sure you won't be the last. Unfortunately, the proposal to merge the two failed. You can read the proposed unified policy at Wikipedia:Attribution. In many respects, it was an improvement over maintaining the separation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:21, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, are you replying to both me and to Bdell555? If you are speaking of my example (I gave more than one example from the policy)... Well, if it is a poor example (which I don't agree), then perhaps it shouldn't be in the WP:No original research policy, especially in its lead. Your statement that "all publications are reliable sources in terms of quotations of their own contents" is not how Wikipedia generally treats sources. Flyer22 (talk) 06:06, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Clearly all publications are reliable sources for quotations of their own content – but that's not the issue. The issue is whether they are reliable sources for how the information in their content in used in Wikipedia. Thus Russian media are reliable sources for the way that Russian media treated the crash of a Malaysian plane over the Ukraine, but are unlikely to be reliable sources for what actually caused the crash. Anthropology texts are generally reliable sources for how traditional medical practices were carried out, but not for the efficacy of those practices. Purpose is all here. I do agree with WhatamIdoing that a unified account would be an improvement. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:17, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

When I stated, "Your statement that 'all publications are reliable sources in terms of quotations of their own contents' is not how Wikipedia generally treats sources.", I was taking into account unreliable sources in addition to reliable sources. Something being a publication does not make it WP:Reliable; that was my point. We go by WP:Reliable sources, preferably secondary WP:Reliable sources. Flyer22 (talk) 09:29, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

My reply is to Bdell555, who gave an example: "If it's true, then if I add a quote from an unreliable source, the only sources available being unreliable, the material is OR by this definition, which makes no sense as the reliability issue may have nothing to do with originality."

Flyer, "all publications are reliable sources in terms of quotations of their own contents" is exactly how Wikipedia treats reliable sources. That's what we mean when we say that reliability is not some inherent characteristic of the source, but rather depends on context, i.e., the exact statement you are trying to support. A blog at www.personalstuff.net is a worthless source for most purposes, but it is the single most reliable source possible if your goal is to write, "On this date, the blog at this named website contained the following words: 'The queen bee is an alien lizard". (Good luck proving that this statement would ever be DUE, but it's definitely verifiable by a reliable primary source.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:47, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I did not state that "all publications are reliable sources in terms of quotations of their own contents" is not how Wikipedia treats reliable sources. I stated that "'all publications are reliable sources in terms of quotations of their own contents' is not how Wikipedia generally treats sources." The word generally is in there. I am well aware of WP:QUESTIONABLE, which is the exception to the general WP:Verifiability and WP:Reliable sources rules. Flyer22 (talk) 16:25, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I apologize for the confusion. "All publications are reliable sources in terms of quotations of their own contents" is exactly how Wikipedia treats all publications. To the best of my knowledge, there has never once in the history of Wikipedia been anyone so foolish as to say, "Here is a true and authentic copy of this publication, and it contains these exact words, and I claim that this true and authentic copy of this publication is completely unreliable for the purpose of supporting a statement about whether or not this publication contained these exact words, even though any idiot can see that these words are, indeed, present in it."

See the FAQ at WT:V. That item about 'Are there sources that are "always reliable" or sources that are "always unreliable"?' addresses it, and direct quotations are the canonical example of a source that would normally be considered unreliable for most purposes, but being highly reliable for the specific purpose of supporting the existence of a quotation from it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:19, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I was going to state that I am not sure what confusion you are speaking of... But the word quotations and what you are getting at with that has sunk in for me. As for the FAQ, yes, I'm already aware of the FAQ at the WP:Verifiability talk page. Flyer22 (talk) 02:07, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

It's pretty simple: A source is never "OR". It is an edit (or proposed edit) that may be OR because to verify the statement you need to take fact A from here, and fact B from there, then conclude that A + B = statement. The lead of the policy says that OR refers to material (a statement) for which there is no RS. If a statement is verified in a RS then the question of OR never arises. OR occurs when an editor claims that an analysis of what the reliable source says shows that the edit is verified, but the analysis is more than a "routine calculation" (WP:CALC). Johnuniq (talk) 09:48, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's "simple" (and clearly correct) that it's edits that are WP:OR, but experience shows that it's not simple to explain what it means in practice. Separating out WP:V, WP:OR, WP:SYNTH, etc. may be fine for "WP policy wonks" but not for new or less experienced editors. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:23, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 October 2014

This entire site is "Original Research" and does not meet the NOR standard. All articles should be marked for deletion. 173.25.63.181 (talk) 13:41, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

 Not done - You have not cited a reliable source to back up your request ;-) Arjayay (talk) 15:15, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Paris is not the capital of France

I humbly suggest that a different example is used to describe the lack of need to attribute as this may be one of the worst examples to use. Paris (disambiguation) is so much other than the capital of France (most notably to all the inhabitants of other cities with that name) it is almost embarrassing to have this kind of irony (if accidental) or mischief (if deliberate) in a policy document. Such cute or well meaning wording and examples are often the cause of policy warring of the nature one can see in the bulk of this talk page. - Idyllic press (talk) 21:46, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I've made an edit that I believe addresses this problem. Samsara 01:08, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Proposing changes to Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Paleoart review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I think the above discussion has demonstrated that different standards are being applied to illustrations in different areas of Wikipedia. This is generally undesirable. All information on Wikipedia should be equally verifiable. Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Paleoart review has set itself up as an internal peer review process that, according to its own understanding, awards a sort of seal of approval to illustrations that fall into the "paleoart" category. Unfortunately, the requirement of verifiable, reliable sources supporting each illustration is not currently one of its principles. I propose that such a principle be explicitly added and observed. I am deliberately keeping this discussion here as it is a direct corollary of the above. Stakeholders will be notified. Samsara (FA • FP) 16:46, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Time of RfC formation: 18:28, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, different standards are applied to images than to text. See WP:OI and WP:PERTINENCE, as pointed out above. Many do add sources for their restorations, but we should not remove images without it. I find it a bit funny you would want to change the policy of a single Wikiproject, instead of proposing to change the established Wikipedia policies that you are actually disagreeing with. The former will not be changed before the latter is. Please resolve the underlying issue before applying non-existent policies to specific cases. FunkMonk (talk) 17:08, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Note to others: FunkMonk is the most frequent contributor to paleoart review, and by reverting requests for additional verification at Paraceratherium drew my attention to the problem outlined above. Samsara (FA • FP) 17:49, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Support

• Support as nominator. Samsara (FA • FP) 22:19, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support requiring sources Don't care how that happens. Doesn't necessarily need to go into Paleoart, because Paleoart people should be following overall WP guidelines.pschemp | talk 16:02, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

• Oppose as these are not requirements that are imposed on any other biology illustration topics, or for that matter any other illustrations at all.--Kevmin § 01:16, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
  • The requirement should be imposed on all topics, yes. However, other than the parallel dinosaur project, I'm not aware of any others that have set themselves up with the pretense that internal peer review can substitute for reliable sources. I believe the outcome of this discussion should be treated as a precedent, for all topics and all similar "review" projects. Samsara (FA • FP) 04:08, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - this is a very arbitrary place to start. Propose to change the underlying issues, which are the WP:OI and WP:PERTINENCE policies, before you try to change this. FunkMonk (talk) 10:13, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

  WP:OI says, "Original images created by a Wikipedian are not considered original research, so long as they do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments" (emphasis in original). That is, it requires that the ideas be published and verifiable, i.e. explicitly sourced. Samsara (FA • FP) 13:08, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Nope, that is your own interpretation. If you actually read the sourced article, you would yourself be able to see whether the images introduce controversial ideas or not. I have read the literature used in the text, and they don't. We do remove restorations once they turn out to be inaccurate, as happened at Spinosaurus yesterday[5][6], not before.FunkMonk (talk) 13:10, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose – this is just instruction creep. WP:OI is clear and all that we need. Let me declare an interest, since I have contributed a number of illustrations of reconstructions of extinct plants. We simply could not provide such illustrations in Wikipedia articles without the freedom to draw them ourselves, obviously always based as closely as possible on reliable sources. If an illustration is inaccurate, then the proper course is to remove it and discuss at the article's talk page if the removal is opposed. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:41, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
  • No, it's trying to bring a WikiProject's operation back into line with policy by changing the WikiProject's instructions to participants (there's already text there, so there's no creep - just replace the text that misinterprets WP:OI with a more appropriate line.) Samsara (FA • FP) 13:08, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - The quote you keep putting up is going to destroy your points. What I, as well as many other paleoartist have to deal with is speculation. Not every single animal illustrated is known from a complete specimen, with all the exact integument and colour preserved, not even animals like Anchiornis, Archaeopteryx, and Microraptor, who are known from many specimens that preserved large amounts of colour and integument. If unpublished speculation was not allowed, than we would be forced to remove every single reconstruction of every single prehistoric article! My main point is, all paleoartists have to speculate, even if they are illustrating animals that everything preservable is known. IJReid (talk) 14:59, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
  • That's not a sound argument. Some things are outside the scope of Wikipedia, and those that are purely speculative are exactly that. Samsara (FA • FP) 15:41, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Yes, but if they are completely speculative, they wouldn't pass the image review in the first place! As long as it matches all the known bones, even if only one bone is known, then it is not completely speculative. For example, see the illustration for Dromaeosauroides. It is only known from two teeth, but the image is still usable because the teeth of the illustration match those that are known. My argument is more sound than arguing that we should completely remove every image with some speculation (which is all of them!). IJReid (talk) 16:20, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
      • You did raise my concern mentioning the illustration for Dromaeosauroides - only known from two teeth. When I checked I was glad to see it clearly labelled Hypothetical restoration, based on related genera. I presume that the people working this part of Wikipedia are well familiar with the related genera. I presume they did a reasonable job reconstructing it based on available information. While this case stretches pretty far, I consider the Encyclopedia better with this approximate image than no image. It's informative. Alsee (talk) 16:53, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Just as a sidenote, I made that illustration, and I did send it to the original describer and finder of the fossils for approval, and they liked it. I made the tail straighter due to their remarks, for example. FunkMonk (talk) 17:40, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose - In a nutshell: Don't pointlessly nuke good images. I am not involved in Palaeontology or Paleoart. I oppose unless very concrete problems can be demonstrated. I certainly agree that an image with sources to support it is more valuable and more resistant to challenge. WP:OI does not currently require images to meet the proposed standard, and I believe the proposed standard would be very disruptive if it were generally applied. WP:PERTINENCE provides extensive guidance on selecting appropriate images, and it provides abundant guidance on rejecting images. An image with speculative elements, which otherwise fits known information, is often the best available image and well satisfies WP:PERTINENCE. Based on a brief examination of wp:WikiProject_Palaeontology/Paleoart_review they seem to have put in place an excellent elevated standard of review, listing many criteria for easily and firmly excluding images that would otherwise be acceptable. The best available image for illustrating an article should not be excluded on the sole basis that does not come with the proposed form of sourcing. An unsourced image can be challenged on the basis of any reasonable source indicating it fails WP:PERTINENCE, or an image can be replaced on general argument or sources indicating some other image is superior. Alsee (talk) 15:58, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose as instruction creep and also as trying to change a policy in the middle of a content dispute. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:25, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

  Paleoart review is not policy. I personally think NOR, RS and V cover what we need in terms of policy. Others are trying to make a case that policy needs to be changed, but that's not what this proposal is for. This proposal is about changing the operating principles of paleoart review, which currently claims that user created images are exempt from NOR: User created images are not considered original research, it says near the top on the project page. That needs to be changed, as it's very obvious that user created images could be used to advance original thoughts. Regards, Samsara (FA • FP) 22:10, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Agreed: Paleoart review is not policy. I see it as an excellent subject-area essay providing a heightened standard, to assist editors in quickly reaching consensus for removal of problem images. Agreed: user created images could be used to advance original thoughts, and images can be rejected on WP:OI if a reasonable concern is raised about an image. BTW, it's a really Bad Idea to start an RFC and then use the voting area to argue with every single person who don't support you. Take it to the comments section. (Oh wait, you argued with everyone except me, I'm not sure whether to be flattered that my reasoning was impervious to attack, or insulted that you didn't bother with me) Alsee (talk) 04:18, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Comments

This really needs to be addressed as a site-wide thing, not targeted at a single Project. I will say I do support the concept that if a WP-editor's construction of a figure from otherwise text descriptions that require more than just understanding basic knowledge of that field, eg requiring interpretation or creativity beyond what is the norm, that is original research and should be removed. That is, a couple specific ideas that we would allow is the creation of a coat of arms from the text-based heraldry statement, drawing out a chemical molecule based on it's IUPAC name, or creating a map based on a list of locations that are named by a source - there is no "interpretation" in doing any of these. But I can see for the case here for paleontology that a wikipedia's attempt to draw out a creature based on a high-level description (eg "Suchandsuch is a 10 foot long 4-legged creature with a dorsal fin") is not appropriate. I would assume that there is a "language" in paleontology that describes common body parts and if the drawing was created from that type of description, that would be reasonably okay, but if one has that description to that level of detail, I would also think one could find the image provided by the researchers that determined that. This doesn't just apply to paleontology, obvious, but it is a good case of where this can go wrong. And note this only applies to images created by WPians from sourced materials, not images created by researchers themselves. --MASEM (t) 16:10, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Did you take a look at wp:WikiProject_Palaeontology/Paleoart_review? They lay out extensive criteria to reject an image if anyone can identify a conflict with known evidence. They seem to be taking good care to prevent anything from going wrong. Alsee (talk) 16:37, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

No other part of OR policy works that way: you don't write article text that is otherwise kept unless someone can prove it invalid; we require all material included to be verifyable from the start. So no, that review process is bad. (But as I said, this should be set at policy at the Wikipedia level, not specifically against one project's policy). --MASEM (t) 17:14, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Please consider your argument carefully - by that interpretation I believe a large majority of existing images would have to be stripped from articles. We simply can't use copyrighted images published in sources. wp:Verifiability says: In Wikipedia, verifiability means that people reading and editing the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source. Wikipedia does not publish original research.. WP:Original images says Original images created by a Wikipedian are not considered original research, so long as they do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments. This goes directly to the interaction between images and verifiability. The proposal here is that a wikipedia photo of a Ford Mustang is "not verifiable" if the photo doesn't come with some sort of sourcing to verify that it is a Ford Mustang. The only sourcing on the file says "Source: Picture was taken by me in Arizona". Are you saying we exclude that image? The only way to actually Verify an image is by visual inspection. Someone looks at the image and says "that's not a Mustang because [detail is wrong]". In this case we're talking about images that claim to be "reconstructions of extinct animals". The only way to verify that is by visual inspection. Any reader seeing an image labeled as a reconstruction of an extinct animal is clearly on notice that the image is a best-effort reconstruction with speculative elements. --The images are what they claim to be. Alsee (talk) 05:39, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

That is absolutely not what is being said here, because you are talking about things that exist and thus others that are reasonable experts in that field can verify that: a photo of a Ford Mustang can be confirmed by a car enthusiast, while a photo claimed to be taken in Arizona can be confirmed by someone local should that been necessary. The issue is when there is no way to verify the image by any expert. Keeping in mind that the image above with the parent and its child has been shown tied to a source, take the case where there was no source at all, and the artist - not a paleontologist - guessed what the child looked like. There is zero way anyone can validate that would be correct. With a source that shows what an expert might think it looks like, then we can rest easy on the reliance of this expert source that it is correct. But if we can't, then it is unverifiable original thought and should not be used. It's the nature of the education guess that has no sourcing to back it up that is a problem. --MASEM (t) 06:13, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree on implementing the same standards site-wide. Simpler, less evasive language on policy pages might be a step towards that. However, my concern remains that there are currently two WikiProjects known to me (Palaeontology and Dinosaurs) that see it as legitimate to regard their own internal peer review as an adequate substitute to reliable sources. That's exactly the kind of thing that NOR was originally designed to prevent. And that's also the fulcrum of the debate: if the paleoart peer review were structured to ensure compliance with material published in reliable sources and then made that information accessible in file descriptions, it would be a great addition to Wikipedia. Operating as it is now, it runs counter to our purpose. Samsara (FA • FP) 17:09, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

I can go browse images on wiki commons, I can find an image labeled qqqqqq.jpg, that image can be sourced as "Made by me", and I can use that image to illustrate any relevant article in the encyclopedia. The only way to do that is based on a visual inspection of the image which leads me to believe it would would be an informative illustration for that section. We have abundant guidance on image selection, but ultimately it all comes down to visual inspection. Does the image depict something useful and appropriate to the article? Alsee (talk) 06:00, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:OI would exclude speculative elements that have the intent or significant effect of advancing original ideas, but not to the extent of prohibiting reasonable good faith reconstructions where filling in details is unavoidable. Alsee (talk) 16:37, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

There's a line where that can be crossed however. Take for example coats of arms. There is room for interpretation in drawing out the symbols from the text heraldry description, such that if you asked 10 people to create a coat of arms from a text blurb, you'll get 10 very different images. But coats of arms have a very strong element definition that it's not so much the exact style that is needed but the clear understanding of what it is to represent; those 10 version may have a different version of a eagle for example, but it's the existence of the eagle on that that identifies the coat, not exactly how it looks. When people are drawing otherwise unrepresented extinct animals, there is not that same 1-to-1 in all cases between what is identified by paleontologists and the illustration. Take the case of the image in the section above, where the original drawing (which seems fine) is photomanip'd to include a child of the species. There's no source to explain what that child would have looked like, the extrapolation appears to be coming from the fact the species is compared to the hippo. There's no "obvious" way to draw the child relative to the parent. As such, we as WP editors should not be making that step. If a paleontologist made that and published it as their claim, sure, we'd be okay. --MASEM (t) 17:21, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Some features, like for example colour, are unknown, so an educated guess and decision must be made, based on available sources. Same goes for the calf. I wouldn't have drawn one myself for the reasons you mention, but I don't think the image should be removed just because it appears in it. Incidentally, it does not look much different from earlier depictions of such a calf.[7] FunkMonk (talk) 17:46, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Educated guesses fall under "unpublished ideas or arguments" of OI, so would be invalid. --MASEM (t) 18:43, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

I repeat: "based on available sources". In a sense, the documentary I linked to[8] shows a "published idea" of how a calf would look like, and it matches the one shown in the image. FunkMonk (talk) 18:45, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

In this specific case, then, that image should be fine as long as the documentary is sourced, going along w/ the fact that I would assume the producers of that show are reliable. (as BBC, I'm expecting that not to be an issue). But we're talking the very general case here; without that documentary, the drawing of the calf would be an OR educated guess and inappropriate. --MASEM (t) 19:53, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

That's why we take it on a case by case basis over at the review. Many images have been weeded out over the years[9], and many have been corrected, based on various sources. It is pretty effective, especially since most illustrators won't look at some obscure policy when they upload an image. Much of the paleoart we have has been uploaded by people we have no direct contact with. Most of it is useful and accurate, so we only remove them once something is demonstrably wrong with them. FunkMonk (talk) 20:10, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:V does not work on a case by case basis. It is applied consistently to all material used in article space. There is no exception for paleoart. Reference it or risk losing it: any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. I challenged your material. Policy says you must provide inline citations now. Samsara (FA • FP) 20:43, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Risk losing good content for no apparent reason? That is simply a stupid idea. FunkMonk (talk) 10:10, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

If we cannot verify it, including the necessary steps to get to the educated guess, it is not good content for WP. --MASEM (t) 02:26, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

And I guess that's why Wikipedia has different sourcing policies for image and text verifiability. So we don't lose useful images for no good reason. I wish we would stick to the actual Wikipedia image policies in this discussion, and not apply non-existent ones/ones that specifically only apply to text. FunkMonk (talk) 10:28, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

What's missing from your argument is how a contributor several years down the line would find out that there was once a link made between some documentary, and that illustration. How are you giving that person a chance to evaluate the accuracy of the illustration? You're not, is the simple answer. Requiring the readers' blind trust is not an acceptable option if Wikipedia wants to maintain or improve its reputation. We have the means to inform them about the sources that back up our articles. I don't see how it's a good idea to withhold this. Samsara (FA • FP) 20:33, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

As I said, an image with the sort of source information you're asking for is more valuable and more resistant to challenge than one with out it. So I agree it's not a good idea to deliberately withhold this. The disagreement is that you are asking to change policy to categorically exclude useful informative images when there is no identifiable problem with them. Alsee (talk) 03:43, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Lack of sourcing is a problem in itself. It is preferable to provide sources for images rather than remove them. However, supplementing sources that an illustration is actually demonstrably consistent with also seems to not be "allowed" in the scheme of the Palaeontology WikiProject. I've suggested a solution along the lines of "this previously unreferenced illustration was reviewed by X and determined to be consistent with the views given in Authorityman, T. H. E. 2014. Big book of knowledge. Egghead University Press." I'm still waiting for a logically coherent explanation of why this would be a bad idea. Samsara (FA • FP) 04:33, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

There is a transparency principle encapsulated in WP:V, which is that the reader should be able to verify the accuracy of individual statements without reading ALL of the sources given at the bottom of an article. Illustrations are not intended to be a loophole, so should similarly indicate the evidence from reliable sources that they are based on.

Here are some relevant passages from WP:V:

[Wikipedia's] content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors. Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it.

All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable. All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed.

Samsara (FA • FP) 17:36, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

However, at present, WP:OI clearly says that images are not the same as text. If you want to change this, start an RfC specifically to this end. At present you're effectively quoting selectively. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:02, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

That's incorrect. I've quoted the WP:OI passage previously. I understand that you think it means something different than what I think it means. WP:V is rather clear on what is intended and imo resolves the issue over the interpretation of WP:OI. Samsara (FA • FP) 19:16, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

@Samsara: well, we'll have to disagree as to whether WP:OI needs "interpretation" via WP:V. I don't think it does. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:32, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm a little concerned about the overall direction of this proposal. Let's leave aside the area of paleoart, since some people seem to have their heels dug in a bit there. Let's ask about normal pictures:

1. I take a picture of something in a city I'm visiting. I upload the image to the article, and someone "challenges" it because he wants a published source that proves this picture really was taken in that location, or really does show what it appears to be a picture of. He's named no specific problem with it and has no knowledge of the subject. There are no published, reliable sources that say that I took this picture in that city. What do you think should be done?
2. I walk over to my neighbor's house and take a picture of a plant. She tells me the name of the plant. I upload the image to Commons and add it to an article about the genus. Someone "challenges" it, saying that there's no good reason to assume my neighbor has any idea what she bought for her garden. Everyone agrees that the photograph looks remarkably like the plant it is alleged to be, but there are no published, reliable sources that tell us what she bought. What do you think should be done?
3. I'm working in a medical lab, and I take a picture of a cell under a microscope. I upload the image to the article, and someone "challenges" it, because he wants a published source that proves this cell really does depict what I say it does. He's named no specific problem with the image, and it looks just like all the other (non-free) images of this kind of cell that anyone else has ever published. There is, naturally, no published, reliable source that says "on this day, this editor really did have this kind of cell under her microscope". What do you think should be done?
4. It's the same cell, only this time I've drawn it instead of photographed it. It still looks like pretty much every other diagram in a textbook of this cell, but I didn't actually use any of them. If I'm going to say where I got it, then naming those other sources would basically be a lie: they weren't my sources. What do you think should be done? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

In all those cases, that's a combination of common sense and AGF. Importantly, these are all things that others can verify because the item (the city, the plant, the cell) all exist today, compared with the hypothetical look of a creature that died out years ago. Now, arguably, the one case that would be one to look for better info is the plant one, because by no means is "your neighbor" an expert in botany, but again, there are likely editors that are reasonable experts in biology to be able to judge if the naming was correct by the photograph alone. There's no novel interpretation going on in any of these cases. --MASEM (t) 22:21, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

So long as the photo looks like the plant that my neighbor says that it is, does it even matter if she's right? Some species can't be differentiated by looking at the plant, or require looking at parts of the plant that aren't visible in my photo. WhatamIdoing (talk)

Probably not, though if someone who is an expect comes in and challenges that the photo may not be the species shown, I would expect efforts to be made to find a confirmed photo of the species (one named by a botanist or the like). But this is a different issue from the point above. --MASEM (t) 06:06, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Yep, as my OPPOSE noted the proposal would be very disruptive if generally applied. Good images are valuable, and our policies give both good guidance and considerable case-by-case leeway in determining what constitutes a "best image" for a given article-use. Paleoart seems to have developed an excellent subject-area list of criteria. Alsee (talk) 04:41, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Assuming this did pass, it would mean having [ ref ] links hanging off of images all across Wikipedia. This doesn't bear directly on the argument itself, but it would be an ugly-as-hell consequence. Alsee (talk) 12:26, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

That's well-established practice, actually. If you look at articles such as evolution and DNA, you'll find that about half the captions already include a citation. Note, though, that the primary issue here is not about including sources in captions. The primary issue is providing sources at all, whether just in the file description or on article captions as well (which WP:V already says you should provide when challenged to do so). Samsara (FA • FP) 12:48, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

We would not be required to have the ref in the caption; the file page absolutely must have the source(s) to avoid the original thought, and if editors felt the caption on the image could use it, that's fine. --MASEM (t) 13:42, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Much of this can be resolved by careful and appropriate wording of a caption. For example, if an editor has drawn a picture of animal X, then an appropriate caption would read "Artist's depiction of X". Now... the artist may have drawn a poor or inaccurate depiction... in which case, the solution is to substitute a different (better or more accurate) artist's depiction.

However, sometimes the issue isn't over the quality or accuracy of the depiction itself... instead the issue is that there is a dispute in the sources over what the animal looked like. This is where we have to have captions that directly link the image to the specific source that was used to create it. This is best done through source attribution (as opposed to citation). If source A says the animal had/has webbed feet, and source B says it didn't/doesn't... we can include two images (side by side)... the one showing webbed feet captioned: "Artist's depiction of X, according to A", and the other captioned: "Artist's depiction of X, according to B". Then both POV's on the issue of webbed feet are presented in accordance with our WP:NPOV policy. Blueboar (talk) 14:04, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

The disputed images seem to say "Restoration of some dinosaur", which I eventually concluded was probably that field's jargon for "artist's depiction of some dinosaur". My initial thought was that it was a restoration of an old or damaged artwork, i.e., painting restoration. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:23, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

I had a similar first impression. I think reconstruction might be a better term. Is restoration the standard term taken from professional/RS usage? Alsee (talk) 09:47, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

"Restoration" is most frequently used for palaoart. "Reconstruction" seems a bit more directed at man-made objects. But they're pretty much interchangeable for this purpose, and could both be used. And both make it clear that these images are hypothetical to some extend. FunkMonk (talk) 10:28, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Just found a somewhat authoritative source that makes the distinction, in "The Age of Dinosaurs", palaeontologist Dougal Dixon explains: "A mounted skeleton, as often seen in a museum, is called a reconstruction by palaeontologists. On the other hand, a restoration is a portrayal of what the entire animal would have looked like in life. A restoration can be a painting or a sculpture - or a photographic presentation, as in this book - and invariably is much more speculative than a reconstruction.". FunkMonk (talk) 05:47, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrary Section Break

It's time for a history lesson folks. When WP was first created, images and text were added all over the place, without citations and sources. WP:NOR and WP:VERIFY came out of this time as editors realized that in order to be a credible project, WP had to cite and source, and make sure copvio wasn't happening. That means a lot of text was gone through and cited, and a lot of pictures had to be re-found and sourced. Was this fun? No. Was it necessary? Yes.

Thus, regardless of who or how or even when, everything on WP needs a cited, documented source. Artists' renderings are not exempt from WP:NOR and WP:VERIFY. This information needs to be found and inserted into the restorations image descriptions, just like we did with images way back when. If any of you were around then, there were not immediate mass deletions, but a reasonable period of time set for this to be done. That is what needs to happen again. No whining about who or how, or when, or that it would be too hard is allowed. We aren't children throwing a tantrum. Those weren't acceptable excuses and behaviour for WP then, and they aren't now. Set a time period, (1 year is reasonable) and fix it. pschemp | talk 15:58, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Yet again, before that can be enforced, you need to get the wording at WP:OI and WP:PERTINENCE changed, since it makes a clear distinction between article text and images when it comes to sourcing. Nothing will happen until then. We follow Wikipedia's actual policies, not the arbitrary preferences of various editors. FunkMonk (talk) 16:06, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Yet again, WP:VERIFY and NOR take precendence. I've read OI over and over and it still requires that drawing are not just made up. Verify requires that things can be verified. To do that you need sources listed. pschemp | talk 17:48, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

pschemp, I'd really appreciate it if you would tell me how you would handle each of the four situations I listed above. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:09, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

@Pschemp: you're mixing up two very different issues here. Images do not need sources in the sense of citations; they need sources to ensure that they are not in copyright, but these sources aren't subject to WP:RS. Thus I can't write a description of a species of plant based on my own observations, but must paraphrase a published source and cite it. But I can (and do) upload photographs of species of plant taken by me. If we could only use images taken from reliable sources, we'd have very few in Wikipedia, as they will mostly be copyright. Reconstructions of extinct species certainly need to make clear that it is only a reconstruction, and be accompanied by some reference to the origin of the information used to make the reconstruction, but this can't cover every last detail of a complex image. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:40, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

And by conflating photographs with drawings, you are avoiding the issue because, photos cannot cite peer reviewed sources, drawings can, and are required to by VERIFY. They are two different things. pschemp | talk 17:48, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Of course photos could cite reliable sources; we could decide to use only photos previously published in such sources (and now copyright free of course). We don't because this would remove most available photos. The same applies to drawings. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:05, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

So where is such a distinction made? WP:PERTINENCE mentions both illustrations and photos. FunkMonk (talk) 17:56, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Citing sources is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia. Everything that has a source, needs to cite it. This is not a difficult concept. pschemp | talk 17:50, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

And yet again, that applies mainly to the text, images (of any kind) follow different regulations, per Wikipedia's own policies. Repeating the same faulty argument over and over again does not help your case. FunkMonk (talk) 18:06, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

"Everything that has a source, needs to cite it" is not actually the rule. There are only four kinds of material for which sources are required. There's a quick summary of these four kinds at WP:MINREF. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:13, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, that's exactly what WP:VERIFY says. "Readers must be able to check that Wikipedia articles are not just made up. This means that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." And, restorations are material that is so likely to be challenged, that they already has been. pschemp | talk 02:35, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

And again, that applies to text. You fail to acknowledge that there are different standards for text and images again and again. FunkMonk (talk) 13:40, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

There are not. You're simply citing the same non-policy document over and over, and it doesn't add up. You cannot pull a fast one by using an illustration instead of text to convey information. There is no circumvention intended, or permissible. That should be blindingly obvious to any observer. Samsara (FA • FP) 14:07, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

"You're simply citing the same non-policy document over and over" Because it is an actual policy, and not the arbitrary opinion of a random editor. You keep arguing in circles. Again, change the Wiki policies in question before proposing to change specific projects that follow those policies. FunkMonk (talk) 14:20, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Wow that was a lot of reading. Having seen this specific discussion for the first time today I can see that there is a lot of passion involved but not all that many individuals with a vested interest.

Many others have tried to support one or the other side but the core problems do not get resolved because there is no political will to actually draw a diagram (OR) that shows the sound and flawed lines of reasoning between the various Wiki rules, policy, guidelines and recommendations. There could be boxes with solid borders and boxes with dotted borders, lines with arrows indicating flow of control and labels to put names on them and indicate the contentious ones. A diagram I believe would put the problem into a better light that might lend itself to a resolution. I do believe that the wording in quite a few policy/guideline docs could be systematically clarified and simplified and the word LOGIC used should not require advanced computer science skills, a CHILD should be able to follow the text and deduce the same consensus as the diagram I proposed. My personal opinion counts for little and consensus should be meaningful and not a result of the more decent person leaving the argument and failing Wikipedia when really the Wikipedia community has failed them. There should be a way to change the mode of argument here before anyone is driven to leave because many lines of text and frustrations have already been wasted. A thought for those thinking Wikipedia is unique or special or perfect or holy, think again, even with the best utopian intentions it cannot fulfil everyone's standards and I don't think it needs to. Also remember that encyclopaedias out there before (and since) Wikipedia routinely made diagrams if they had the ability by copying sources where they could or using the skills of the expert editors, staff engravers or even stock images in some cases, that is part of the process or preserving knowledge and not something to fear. I think an entry in a picture only encyclopaedia should be pedantic about the pictures and cite it carefully but a text encyclopaedia that has a picture to illustrate a text entry should be able to have some leeway on a diagram attribution.

That said the wording in the docs should be adjusted so that whichever policy is selected in the end it should be a clear so this kind of warring is not needed, many times I have read Wikipedia policy docs and seen ambiguous language but not been up to the fight to propose changes. - Idyllic press (talk) 21:34, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Template:Primary sources

Please see the initiative at Template talk:Primary sources#Other issue for a proposed update of {{Primary sources}} --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:24, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Primary and secondary sources

If there is a fact discrepancy between primary source and secondary sources citing it, should it be pointed out in the article? --Artman40 (talk) 11:54, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

If a secondary source appears to cite a primary source incorrectly, then ideally try to find another secondary source which cites it correctly. If not, then I would say that it's right to report the discrepancy as neutrally as possible in accordance with WP:NPOV. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:36, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Plotting graph based on published data

If a wikipedian creates a graph image based on the data (numbers on a table or some other forms) that has been published by a reliable source, would that be considered "original image" and that is not considered to be an "original research"? If plotting graph from published data is allowed to be included in the articles, I think we should add a short paragraph to the Original Image section to be used as an example. Z22 (talk) 13:10, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes and no... If the graph accurately depicts what is said in the source, then no... we don't consider creating the graph to be Original Research. If it goes beyond what is said in the source, then yes, it would be. Ask this... if you took the information presented in the graph and wrote it out in text form (citing the same source), would it be problematic?

That said... ideally, graphs and other images should not be used to present information in an article... they should be used to illustrate information that is summarized in the body of the article text. As long as that summary is not OR, then the graph illustrating it would not be OR either. Blueboar (talk) 13:46, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. Yes, it just depicts what is in the source. The same source is also used in the text, but sometime it is just difficult to give an overall picture in the text, so we may need to create a graph to accompany the text. My question really is, should we somehow include some forms of what you just said in the above as an example in the "Original images" section so other wikipedians are more clear on the policy? Z22 (talk) 14:04, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Secondary and tertiary sources

Since being berated for citing Encyclopaedia Britannica (EB) in an article, I have been involved in a discussion about Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources. This has led me to this article, and got me questioning the distinction made there and here between secondary and tertiary sources. It seems to me that the way these sources are written is much messier than the guidelines and policy suggest.

• Surely, many accepted secondary sources are, in good measure, making use of other secondary sources as well as primary ones. In the guideline's example, the book on WWII is very likely to cite other books on the war, and use those to support the author's view of the war. So "secondary" sources do not just rely on primary ones. I think that a secondary source that relies only on primary sources is a very rare beast indeed.
• Similarly, many "tertiary" sources - as in many EB articles - are not simply "compendia that summarize primary and secondary sources." It seems to me that the authors of many EB articles thought that they were doing much more than summarizing other people's work. They probably thought that they were writing what these guidelines would define as a secondary source article. Of course they would use secondary (and maybe primary) sources, but so do other secondary sources. Their language may be more accessible to the intelligent reader than it would be if they were writing in a scholarly article, but that shouldn't be a reason to treat their work in the tertiary source differently. Furthermore, I have read many scholarly articles, in journals and books, whose whole purpose is to summarize the field. If such an article were published in a book or journal, these guidelines would seem to define it as secondary; yet, if the same words were published in EB, the guidelines would see them as tertiary. (And I would be told off for using them!)
• Just to complete the set. I can imagine that many primary sources quote from secondary and tertiary sources.

Myrvin (talk) 14:50, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

A secondary source can be 100% based on only primary sources, as long as the specific source introduced transformative thought to the other sources, such as analysis, criticism, or evaluation. For example, a movie review, a secondary source, is typically only going to be based on the primary work, the movie itself. There is no requirement that a secondary source have to include other secondary sources, just transformative thought. --MASEM (t) 15:18, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

@Myrvin: The distinction made in the article is one derived from history and the social sciences. In these subjects, a primary source is essentially the evidence, the raw data. Unfortunately, this useful distinction is then misapplied in other fields; for example treating all scientific journal articles as if they were primary sources in science in the same sense as, say, a letter written by Abraham Lincoln is a primary source in history or biography. Although this is manifestly not the case, it seems to have become the orthodox interpretation here. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:43, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

That may be part of the problem Peter coxhead, but surely, secondary history sources also use other secondary sources too. A history book using only primary sources (such as letters), must still be rare, although, I guess, less rare than in other fields. In science (including social ones), most (all?) papers cite other papers and books. Myrvin (talk) 20:18, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

One thing to keep in mind is that a source can be primary for one topic and secondary for another. A "hard" science peer reviewed paper may be secondary on past research or related topics, and primary on the data presented directly in the paper. --MASEM (t) 22:12, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

@Masem: I think you need to clarify the very last part of your comment above. Yes, the data presented in the paper is clearly in the same category as original documents are in historical research. Yes, the review section of a scientific paper is necessarily secondary. The issue is the status of the analysis and conclusions drawn by the author(s) of the paper based on the data they present. These are not "primary" in the same way as the original documents in historical research. They are equivalent to the analysis of historical documents presented in a history paper, monograph or textbook, which would in that field be called secondary. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:26, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

It really depends how it is presented. I've seen some research papers with very little conclusion on their data after a rigorous review of past sources, or just saying "Well, here's our data, they collaborate with the prior work." and little else. But a good paper will present the data and a conclusion from that, and that's secondary for that purpose. The point, though is just that a source is not 100% always primary, secondary, or tertiary - one has to evaluate that against the topic in question. --MASEM (t) 22:29, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

@Myrvin: I completely agree with you that the distinction between secondary and tertiary sources is fuzzy, regardless of the field to which the distinctions are being applied. My point was merely that there is a clear distinction between primary and other sources, but that this distinction does not correspond to the one regularly used in the English Wikipedia. Why were you "told off" for using EB as a source? Tertiary sources are fine according to WP:PSTS. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:26, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Long story Peter coxhead. See Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources#Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Talk:David Hume/GA4. Myrvin (talk) 07:52, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Actually, good historians tend not to cite other published history books... and rely heavily on primary sources. Of course those historians are actually trying to conduct original research on their topic, and the best way to do that is to go right to the original documents and see if they can gain new insights on them. We, on the other hand, are writing a tertiary source (an encyclopedia)... and as such, our job isn't to present new insites.. but to report on the insites of others. we try to avoid conducting original research. So, we have to be very careful about our use of primary sources. We can (with care) use them for blunt (attributed) statements of what they contain, but we can not analyze them or draw conclusions from them. Blueboar (talk) 23:00, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I think you mean "good historians who are writing for a scholarly audience". A good historian who is writing a basic textbook on Ruritanian history is probably not going to look for primary sources to support every fact, or even most of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:27, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

@Blueboar: the original issue was the use of the terms "primary", "secondary" and "tertiary". As you rightly say the goal is to avoid original research. I remain unconvinced that applying distinctions that at best work in limited fields of study makes much of a contribution to this goal, and it sometimes erects unhelpful barriers. Peter coxhead (talk) 01:41, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

WAID... yes, history textbooks do rely on secondary sources, and avoid primary sources... a text book is a tertiary sources, and so it is appropriate that they do so. That is also true of encylopedias...

Really, the key to avoiding OR is to remember that Wikipedia is tertiary source... a compendium that summarizes what is said elsewhere. If we want to say something in an article... we need to find an source that directly says it. If you apply that concept (that anything we say - be it a fact, an analysis of fact, a conclusion based on analysis, etc - needs to have been said elsewhere before we can say it here)... you will successfully avoid OR. Do this, and the fine distinctions between primary and secondary really become irrelevant. Blueboar (talk) 13:01, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps Blueboar could offer some examples of pure secondary sources in, say, history and science. If I understand correctly, they should not cite any other secondary sources, but only use primary ones. Myrvin (talk) 13:32, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

This book [10] says this book [11] is a secondary source. Yet the Denying book, although it uses primary source letters etc., in order to attack the deniers must (and does, see p. 183) cite a lot of other secondary sources. Does this make the first book wrong and the second book a tertiary source? Myrvin (talk)

This book [12] says that encyclopedias (eg. EB) are secondary sources. It's never heard of tertiary ones. Myrvin (talk) 13:51, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

This one [13] agrees that encyclopedias are tertiary sources, but its examples of secondary sources seem to include textbooks. It also refers to "scholarly secondary sources". Myrvin (talk) 14:05, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

This one, in science,[14] says that textbooks are tertiary sources, but that secondary sources are review articles and primary sources are journal articles. Myrvin (talk) 14:55, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

This book on public health informatics [15] says that secondary sources are indexes and bibliographies of the primary literature, whereas review articles are tertiary sources - along with just about everything else. Myrvin (talk) 15:18, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

This work [16] seems to question Blueboar's ideas of what historians do. Myrvin (talk) 15:59, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

• The distinctions are less bright-line than our WP:NOR seems to indicate. For example, sources that compile data and report it, often without commentary, are which? I would think it pedantic to call the census bureau's report that New York City has x population is primary (but aren't the little forms being filled out by the populace primary and the census bureau secondary? but I digress), but repetition of same facts in an atlas is secondary, and when regurgitated as solemn fact in an encyclopedia it's suddenly tertiary. Most of the basic substance of an encyclopedia may be from any sources - need we await secondary sources for the AirAsia crash before writing the article - and if news reports are primary, as suggested, we'd have no references at all. When anything is said beyond the plain facts: that's when we should expect secondary sources that state what whatever interpretation of the facts being stated. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 05:48, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Difference between this and WP:COATRACK

I sometimes wonder why anyone cites WP:COATRACK anymore to call for deletion when this policy has the potential to support more deletion than the COATRACK essay does and has the additional benefit of being policy. Everything that is complained about in COATRACK could be objected to by noting that the sources cited by the "coatrack" are not, to quote from OR, "directly related to the topic of the article." Which I think is unfortunate with respect to the breadth of this policy, because I am of the view that this policy should not be used to delete material when A) everyone agrees it is not a coatrack and B) everything within the editor's edits is fully supported by the sources cited (ie the individual claims or "parts" in the edit are supported AND the "whole" of what the editor's edits say). Let's take the "The United Nations' stated objective is to maintain international peace and security, but since its creation there have been 160 wars throughout the world" example. If an editor added that sentence, it's obviously OR. But what if the first clause was already in the article, and an editor just added the second clause? I'd think it would be better to object to that sort of editing - where the OR conclusion is external to the editor's contribution - as a coattrack violation than as OR. That's not say that it isn't OR, but rather that WP:COATRACK is more useful in terms of resolving a dispute over whether to include in these situations where there is no OR in the editor's additions, no OR in the article apart from the editor's edits, and you only get OR by combination. I'd grant that it's not a more useful approach in this United Nations case but I believe it is in cases where there isn't a coatrack issue.

Let me give you a hypothetical example of the issue: in a RS primarily about Indonesia it's noted that Obama lived in Indonesia. I add this to the Obama article. Somebody decides that this detracts from how red, white, and blue this politician is and deletes my addition. WP:OR is a deletionist's standby, and they justify the deletion by quoting "you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article" and the topic of the article here is Obama, not Indonesia, never mind that Indonesia and Obama are indisputably connected. I protest, asking the party alleging OR to point out what is being said that is above and beyond what it is being cited. "That Obama is less than 100% American," is the response, with this "un-American" contention being "conclusion C" in "If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources." I then retort that the conclusion that Obama's "less than 100% American" is not necessarily reached by my edit, the RS material simply implies what it implies without steering readers in any particular direction not warranted by the material. Readers may be invited to consider the possibility of relatively less "American" - and that may be my particular take on the information - but readers are not being led to that conclusion by neutrally reporting the facts. To which I get the response that it doesn't matter if that's the conclusion that is in fact "reach"ed, it only matters if it is "implied", and in any case the case is closed because OR policy indicates two hoops both be hurdled, drawing the fact about Obama from an RS being merely the first and the RS spending more time talking about Obama than Indonesia (or rendering explicit possible implications like being less than all-American) being the oh-so-critical second.

You see the problem here? Almost anything can be "implied" if one is looking to read in the implication one wants to read in. I think we could agree that pointing out that Obama lived in Indonesia is not a coattrack, never mind what else the cited RS talks about. But OR policy as it is written right now is so broad in terms of how much OR it identifies that the material gets deleted. "To demonstrate that you are not adding OR, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that... directly support the material being presented" would correctly place the burden of proof. But what we have instead is an additional hurdle for inclusion, namely, that the sources cited be "directly related to the topic of the article" which I think fails to resolve the issue, instead generating an argument over whether it is good enough for X% of the source to be "directly related" and over how to define the "topic" or "directly related" (e.g. whether A being directly related to B which is in turn directly related to C shows a sufficient relationship between A and C or not). In my view, the burden should be placed on the party alleging OR so that this policy is more consistent with the instruction in WP:UNDUE to "Remove material only where you have a good reason to believe it misinforms or misleads readers in ways that cannot be addressed by rewriting the passage..." Does the material misinform or mislead readers? No? Then presumptively not OR in my view. What OR should provide, and only provide, is an explanation for why it misinforms or misleads (the reason justifying exclusion).--Brian Dell (talk) 00:14, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Did you have a specific edit in mind, or were you just venting? Blueboar (talk) 11:41, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I reckon I got pretty specific in that hypothetical I detailed above. I run into variants of it most of the time I get accused of OR, and I think it's a problem, not a single, specific, one-off problem, but a general and recurring one. Here's the executive summary: almost any exercise of editorial judgment, something that's basic to our job as content builders, can be potentially (mis)construed as OR. Pretty much everything you do to an article, for example, is going to "imply" some change to some "conclusion" somewhere to at least some degree, even if just at the overall article impression level. The United Nations example shows how OR can misinform or mislead. What's needed is a discussion of material that neither misinforms nor misleads, since that's where reasonable people can and do disagree. WP:COATRACK is an example of something that's more concerned with making the point clear than with overbroad abstractions.--Brian Dell (talk) 04:50, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Fiction

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

What is "original research" in regard to fiction? 174.226.136.202 (talk) 19:30, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

It means we can't add your stupid little joke that you made up about a fictional character in a Japanese children's television series just because you think it's funny and you made up a link to post alongside it. The person on this IP address has repeatedly added a stupid joke sentence to a page on my watchlist [17] [18] [19] and used this non-existant website to support the inclusion. The IP editor is clearly acting in a manner to attempt to game me into violating 3RR, or is acting on the pending arbitration case outcome.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:13, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Don't you think you're taking that too personally and your pet project too seriously? You have an interest in Japanese culture, fine. But can't you at least change and not take every "joke" edit personally? 174.226.194.69 (talk) 21:13, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

You added a joke to the page. I removed it. This isn't my "pet project". I'm preventing your vandalism from appearing in articles.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 21:19, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

While I can't deny you being a good contributor, the way to handle others is the main reason of concern. Namely excessively use of profanity, poor communication with others and repeated efforts to get people you dispute with blocked via off-wiki requests though admins and IP checkers you know will fulfill your wishes. Taking the humor edit as a direct attack against you shows you need to work on communicating and not lose your cool. Let that be a lesson to you. 174.226.194.69 (talk) 21:23, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

So yet, again, some random IP editor with a grudge against me has decided to vandalize Wikipedia to spite me. And, please, Mr. IP editor, point out where I was profane to you in regards to the addition of the sentence on the fictional character named "Ticket" or provide proof that I went off-site to ask that you be handled properly, seeing as I posted the page onto WP:RFPP and have been in open discussion on site with another administrator regarding how to handle these articles that you and others have decided to vandalize and disrupt solely to get my goat.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 21:27, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

The language of your edit summaries speak for themselves. To you is was a "stupid joke". A lot of times you used profanity on your talk page to voice your frustration. You often assumed someone that made edits like mine was blocked or banned and "out to get you". When you reported someone and the block was not enacted, your next stop was SPI. Maybe if you said "that's funny, but it doesn't go here". I also pointed out that fiction is "original research" by nature as anyone can write a story and tell a story. There no way to prove the story or movie plot is true. 174.226.194.69 (talk) 21:35, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Nobody likes to be told they're wrong, and I'm not surprised to hear your "give me the goat" claim. 174.226.194.69 (talk) 21:47, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

If I'm doing this to spite you, then it means that I'll add the stubhub joke after the protection expires. If you see that again, then you can truly say I'm trying to be spiteful. 174.226.194.69 (talk) 21:53, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"Stupid" is not profanity. And this series of events you describe is untrue. Usually, I reported obvious sockpuppets to WP:AIV because of their current disruption and when administrators do not respond to those requests I have to officially open the WP:SPI case to get the obvious sockpuppetry taken care of in an official manner. I don't see why I can't use my own talk page to express my own frustration at things happening to me with regards to things happening on the project. But this is neither here nor there with regards to your question on writing about fiction on Wikipedia.

Works of fiction are described on Wikipedia as is. It is not original research to describe the events in a work of fiction because the work of fiction is a source for itself in writing about itself. There is nothing against this policy or others that forbids me from writing about King Arthur having received Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake because this is a fictional event and I am describing it in the context of its fictional nature. It is not a violation of this policy to present this information because it is a part of a written work of fiction/oral legend. Now, anything beyond the basic description of the events of a work of fiction requires reliable sourcing. I cannot present my personal literary analysis of Arthurian legend on Wikipedia no more than you are allowed to post what you thought was a funny joke that you made up yourself because that joke does not exist in any form in the original work of fiction. It is not as if there is a running gag present in each episode of that Japanese television series regarding the American company Stubhub, unlike the running gag that the character demands not to be referred to as a handpuppet despite that being the obvious situation to all of the characters. That is something that could be brought up as it is explicitly stated in the source material. Again, anything that is not explicitly stated in a work of fiction requires sourcing otherwise it's original research. I hope this cleared things up for you.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:06, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

No OR is a bad policy, in my view.

No OR impoverishes Wikipedia. It would be much more valuable if reliable original research could be included. deisenbe (talk) 23:39, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

• @Deisenbe: I don't agree it "impoverishes" the project. Rather, it provides focus and scope to the content. There could be a choice by the Foundation to at some time provide a section or a new wiki instance for original research, but including that in the encyclopedia proper would change its nature in a fundamental way. I'm not saying that would be good, bad or of no consequence, but it would certainly be a different product. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:00, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Are you aware of our sister project called Wikiversity? It was set up in part to give the community a place to present original research. Check it out some time. Blueboar (talk) 00:37, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

@Blueboar: I thought this was primarily focused on housing teaching / tutorial materials rather than being a place for hosting original research. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:06, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikiversity is mostly about teaching, but Wikibooks: is happy to accept books on just about any subject, so long as it is "instructional". WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:34, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Back on topic (whether OR is a good or bad policy) imagine if there was no prohibition on OR. Wikipedia is here to allow editors to conglomerate published material into useful articles. No OR policy? Egad, we already have enough trouble herding cats as is. Without the OR policy we would descend into a treacherous blogdom. – S. Rich (talk) 06:58, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

@Deisenbe: the real issue is your word "reliable". Who would decide what is "reliable" OR? You? Me? It just wouldn't work. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:19, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Of course "reliable" is the issue. "Peer review", done with the reviewers' names usually unknown to the author, though not to the journal editor, is the gold standard. Yet I don't see that WP is incapable of carrying out the function of peer review. Informally, not formally. If you publish OR by an expert, or even by Joe Shmoe, other experts will edit it. If somebody puts in garbage (and there are plenty of published sources for garbage, so insisting on "a published source" is not necessarily infallible), someone else shovels it out, just like now. And to say it has to be "a reliable source" unavoidably involves human judgments, however fallible, about what is reliable.

WP isn't going to change the no-OR rule. I'd be very surprised if it did. But the current system is not without its shortcomings and costs. Just to mention one: if someone with OR comes to WP s/he will be told to publish it elsewhere. At the very least, this brings delay. And those peer review panels are not that infallible. Hell, they gave an academy award to "Driving Miss Daisy" over "Do the Right Thing". And Bush over Gore.

Well that's my 2c for a Thursday morning. deisenbe (talk) 16:43, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

No. They did not give an Academy Award to Bush, and they did give an Academy Award to Gore. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:34, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is incapable of peer review as practiced by good academic journals. Editors assign papers to reviewers who the editor knows are well-qualified in the subject of the article. Most Wikipedians edit anonymously and there is no mechanism Wikipedians, whether they edit with their real names or not, to establish their credentials in any particular subject. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:00, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Not to mention we'd be inundated with "research" supporting fringe theories. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:07, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a battleground of OR publishing academics (or any others). We summarize reliable secondary sources (and sometimes tertiary). Primary sources are not completely excluded either, but they are ought to be used with care. For example, a primary source on religion could be used if there are secondary sources supporting the very claim. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 20:01, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

The issue, as noted above, is precisely what is reliable original research. Maybe the original poster hasn't seen, in ten years of editing, just how bad most of the original research that we see in Wikipedia is. Wikipedia doesn't have an infrastructure capable of peer review of original research. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a peer-reviewed journal. We do get a lot of poor-quality original research, and we are able to reject it as original research; we don't have to spend months waiting for peer review to reject it as bad original research. A real academic scientist who has done high-quality original research knows not to submit it to Wikipedia but to a journal, and some journals do fast peer review for fast-breaking research. How would we, Wikipedia, determine what is reliable original research? It is better to have a policy against it than to have a lot of individual heated arguments about what is reliable original research. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:34, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

And even so. Peer review is to some extent the best system we have, but still lots of substandard (and even rubbish) research gets published often in low ranking but sometimes even in good journals. I have encountered these when making reviews or just reading up on a topic (and I am a regular reviewer for a host of highly rated scientific journals and am on the editorial board of one next to having published over 40 papers in scientific journals). So even the golden standard (as mentioned above) let's stuff slip through it shouldn't. However, in practice the damage is often limited as poor articles tend to be ignored; as on almost any topic many articles are written. (This is btw a good argument why scientific papers should often be considered a primary source but that is another discussion).

On Wikipedia, however, we aim to write only a single authorative article on each topic. If even peer review conducted by fellow scientists, personally known to editors cannot always guarantee high quality for original research; how can we aim for better here? Not a good idea to even try. Arnoutf (talk) 13:35, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

The OP is right - NOR leaves us impoverished. We can't look up census records, birth certificates, or marriage certificates to improve biographies. We can't quote from someone's unpublished letters that we find in an archive. We can't email a scholar to ask them "what did you really mean when you said x, x1 or x2?" We could do better work if we relaxed our NOR policy. The problem is, we would do it at a price. That price would be someone reading a couple sources and drawing a conclusion that's just plain wrong. That price would be endless debates about what a source really meant (or rather, even more endless debates, since they're easy enough to find, even now) with no good mechanism to shut them down. That price would be more people posting obviously crazy ideas. Guettarda (talk) 21:46, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Vital records ARE NOT original research. They are primary sources. As our policies on primary and secondary sources explain, secondary sources are preferred, but reliable primary sources, and census records, birth certificates, and marriage certificates are reliable sources, do have their place. I strongly disagree with a statement that NOR leaves us impoverished. It does leave us without the "truth" resulting from reliable original research, but it also excludes a lot of really crazy ideas. That isn't impoverishment. At least, I don't think it is impoverishment. And we can cite primary sources when there are no secondary sources or when secondary sources disagree. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:14, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

One of my wife's great-great-great grandfather's marriage certificate is marked with an X with the notation "mark of [his name]". From that I can deduce that he was probably illiterate. Had their child been notable, that deduction might be interesting. Another one of her great-great-great-grandfathers (who is notable) was, according to his grandson's self-published memoir, married in Canada, but his wife was American. No published source will tell me what she was doing in Canada, but census records tell that her younger half-siblings were born in Canada, and that their father was Canadian. Mystery solved...not that it's interesting enough for this bio, but it's the kind of thing that can make sense of a life that sources don't bother to talk about. Finally, I recently found a photocopy of a letter from Susan B. Anthony to the same guy's father. He might be marginally notable, and if he were, this would complement nicely that published mentions I have found that mention him as a terminal 'stationmaster' in the underground railroad. Adding "women's rights supporter" to "anti-slavery activist" rounds a bio out nicely. But I can't use the letter.

This isn't a complaint. The benefits are 'well worth the cost. Guettarda (talk) 23:11, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, the OP has not been editing for ten years. I would state more, but the OP would likely be offended. Anyone is free to see why on my talk page. Flyer22 (talk) 21:54, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Guettarda, we can email a scholar to ask them "what did you really mean when you said x, x1 or x2?." Editors have done that on Wikipedia, but we obviously can't use the scholar's words via email as a reference in the article. Flyer22 (talk) 22:03, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

This (KateWishing's "22:31, 29 December 2014 (UTC)" post) is a recent example of an editor having emailed a scholar for clarification. Flyer22 (talk) 22:10, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Editors have done it. But if you say "I emailed [person] and they said it's actually x2", I'm going to say "not a reliable source" - mostly because I don't agree with you, of course. (If I already believed it was x2 we wouldn't be arguing about it.) Guettarda (talk) 23:12, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree that it's become bad policy as far as it is typically interpreted these days and should go. And I'm basing that on my editing experience since 2005. It's become a short cut for people who feel that a conclusion or created impression is unfounded but can't come with an argument why. In the policy we read "...original research because it expresses a Wikipedia editor's opinion..." Yet everything Wikipedia says is said because editors are of the opinion Wikipedia should say that. It's in fact quite rare to encounter situations where WP:RS, WP:NPOV, etc would not be sufficient to address the problem AND you couldn't get a local consensus against the edit but for this policy. I am quite confident that the examples presented on this policy page could be quite readily dealt with simply by editors explaining why the implied conclusion is doubtful and getting consensus for that. As it stands now, the validity of the conclusion is irrelevant, just that it's made, as if Wikipedia isn't implying conclusions all the time. As I noted earlier on this page, "pretty much everything you do to an article... is going to "imply" some change to some "conclusion" somewhere to at least some degree, even if just at the overall article impression level." If the brakes were put on so that WP:OR were not used by deletionists with respect to editorial decisions to include material (so they'd just have "not RS" or "UNDUE" arguments available as trump cards), the policy would at least be circumscribed and accordingly might be salvageable. I have presented controversies and tried to dial down the hotly-expressed-dueling-opinion angle of "he said, she said" in favour of hewing closer to a less scandal-implying presentation of facts that may or may not imply controversy and been accused of OR. I then concede and present the battle just like it appears in the general media and I'm then told that we're not a general source, we're an encyclopedia, and therefore need to be more detached in tone. Well then, it's either one or the other. Either use sources just like the typical reliable source does, even if that typical reliable source happens to be low brow/mass market/attention-seeking, or we go the "more encyclopedic" way. If the latter, then the OR argument shouldn't be trotted out in order to argue for deletion of the Wikipedia-toned material. WP:OR at bottom reflects a lack of confidence that the Wiki concept works. An editor dares to think about the matter, and we can't handle that? In fact, we handle it all the time when people are reasonable enough to point out the problems with another editor's thinking instead of saying that the way the RS-cited material was put together has an element of originality as if precluding a substantive discussion of the dispute thereby solves it. As I note in the next section, a SYNTH charge is the most typical form of OR accusation as it has the best trumping power of this sort (calling a source primary is not as decisive).--Brian Dell (talk) 00:45, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Is WP:Cherrypicking#Contradictions invalidated by WP:STICKTOSOURCE?

WP:Cherrypicking#Contradictions says, "As to contradictory information, if, for example, a source says 'Charlie loves all blue coats and hates all red coats', to report in Wikipedia that according to the same source "Charlie loves all ... coats" is cherrypicking. It is cherrypicking even if the source is precisely cited."

WP:STICKTOSOURCE says, "Take care not to go beyond what is expressed in the sources, or to use them in ways inconsistent with the intention of the source"

Suppose a source itself baldly commits exactly the example error by saying "Charlie loves all blue coats and hates all red coats; therefore Charlie loves all coats." To avoid cherrypicking, it would be necessary to report on the contradiction. However, the intention of the source is to prove that Charlie loves all coats, so it would not be sticking to the source to mention that Charlie hates red coats.

Sticking to a source belongs to WP:OR, so would seem to be more vital than the essay on Cherrypicking. More vital still, though is WP:V. Something that is verifiably false from a source is not verifiable from that same source. WP:EP also says, "a lack of information is better than misleading or false information". A source like this is unusable if the contradiction can't be raised.

"Charlie hates all red coats" might be an important claim for an article, though. It would be a different instance of cherrypicking to use it without mentioning the source's spurious conclusion of loving all coats, but I think as long as that's mentioned, the source's intent should not prevent the citation of Charlie hating red coats. STICKTOSOURCE just needs to be interpreted less encompassingly. While the source intended to conclude that Charlie loves all coats, it also intended to say Charlie hates red coats at the point that it said it.

WP:NOTOR has some things to say about handling two contradictory sources that I think apply equally well to a single source contradicting itself: "We have a responsibility to present an accurate and factual overview of the topic addressed in the article. This may include indicating when a given authority may be wrong and presenting contradicting claims using proper weighting. A solution is to accurately and honestly cite the authority, while also citing the conflicting fact(s); point to the problem, but do not attempt to solve it with your own arguments." Rhoark (talk) 02:48, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Suppose a source itself baldly commits exactly the example error by saying "Charlie loves all blue coats and hates all red coats; therefore Charlie loves all coats." To avoid cherrypicking, it would be necessary to report on the contradiction. No, it's not necessary. A contradiction conveys no useful information; any part of a source that contradicts itself is clearly unreliable. So simply don't use it at all. This isn't "cherrypicking" which is selective use of sources intended to mislead. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:10, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

To clarify, its not a priori necessary to report on the contradiction, but if any of the three prongs (loves blue, hates red, loves all) is reported, it would be cherrypicking unless all three are reported. Rhoark (talk) 13:45, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Precisely. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:34, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Definition of Research

Perhaps I'm missing something, but isn't all research by definition - unless plagiarized - original research? Further, if one relies on publishment as a means to legitimize research, what legitimizes a publisher? Surely not consensus - for myriad logical as well as ethical reasons. Just looking for clarification -- thanks. Amizzo (talk) 01:20, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Original research is a term usually reserved for collecting, analyzing and interpreting primary data to gain answers to a thus far unanswered research questions. Almost all scientific research aims to be like that. Wikipedia is however not into primary scientific research but in aggregating existing knowledge.

A publisher can publish what they want using whatever quality standards they use. No consensus needed, and that is one of the reasons why scientific research is considered a primary sources in Wikipedia. Primary sources in themselves are fine, however without knowledge of the context it is hard to judge their contents at the right value.

However, the value of a journal depends highly on consensus in the academic field. Some journals are considered essential to a field, and those will be present in almost all scientific libraries, these are the journals scientists send their best work to, and these are the journals where publications contribute to the esteem of the author. Obviously such a journal gathers more revenue for a publisher.

If a respected journal lowers its standards, its desirability will drop over the years, number of good papers submitted to it will drop, etc. On the other hand new journals often need a number of years of uphill struggle to be accepted as a good journal. So there is definitely some consensus going on in determining what good journals are. (Of course an editor would need intimate knowledge of a field to know this). Arnoutf (talk) 09:03, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

On Wikipedia I think the term is more frequently used with respect to the collecting, analyzing and interpreting of secondary sources. The SYNTH section here doesn't mention "primary" even once, and most accusations of original research are accusations that someone has engaged in SYNTH. There is no absolute ban on using primary sources. There is on SYNTH. It follows that making out a SYNTH charge is more likely to get a decisive settlement in one's favour than accusing someone of using a primary source. Some people argue that there's a de facto ban on primary sources by making a big deal out of "secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability" since when there are such secondary sources, there is no longer a need to use the primary source and the source could just be switched to the secondary. This notion of a double-cite RS policy (one cite for the material, and one cite for its "notability" even though the second cite would usually make the first cite redundant) is, however, not clearly and unambiguously WIkipedia policy (WP:RS doesn't indicate a need for two cites) unlike SYNTH hence a charge of SYNTH is the most common form of OR accusation.

That doesn't mean editors alleging OR won't try to run with whatever works, e.g. I add material to an article about an advocate of fringe theories like WiFi causes cancer, material I cite to secondaries that challenge the fringe theory, and I get accused of SYNTH because I've caused readers to think the advocate might have an axe to grind and the cited sources don't criticize the advocate directly, just the theory. I then try to accommodate by substituting in direct criticism of the advocate cited to a widely cited critic but use the critic as a primary. I'm then called upon to produce a secondary source in order to show that the controversy is "notable" (both because WP:OR says "secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability" and the now more direct criticism means there's supposedly a BLP issue that in turn requires "multiple reliable third-party sources documenting the allegation or incident"). Well the reason why secondary sources covering the "controversy" are hard to come by is because the advocate is too fringe to get equal time with the critics or, more to the point, get the attention of critics! You end up with a Wikipedia with all sorts of article subjects who are notable enough to get an article but not notable enough to get secondary source coverage of their deviation from the mainstream that explicitly expresses it as such. People read these stub articles and reckon the subject is every bit the authority the subject claims to be, use of sources other than the subject being so sharply circumscribed. The way WP:OR is often used thus frequently enables the very quackery it's supposed to limit. WP:OR nonetheless makes perfect sense if one believes most of the dubious information in Wikipedia did not originate off-Wiki or with editors not following WP:RS and WP:NPOV but right here on-Wiki with WP:RS and WP:NPOV-following editors who synthesize secondary sources or use primary sources.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:13, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

At a university I was attending an assistant professor was dismissed because although he had published many papers over the previous few years, the university decided that they were only summaries of other people's papers, and that he had not published any original research of the quality the university expected its factuality staff -- in other words the diametrically opposite of Wikipedia's criteria. -- PBS (talk) 15:11, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Can Cabinet Papers be used as sources?

Usually, after 30 years or so, some governments including the UK Government, publish the minutes of the Cabinet meetings and lots of Government papers. Are we allowed to use those Cabinet minutes and Government papers to feed into edits on Wikipedia? Or are we limited to whatever books or papers are published by others that refer to them and can't use them as sources without secondary sources referring to them? Frenchmalawi (talk) 14:11, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

@Frenchmalawi: They would be primary sources, so should be used cautiously - but they are not ruled out. You should present specific passages and the claims you'd like them to support at the reliable sources noticeboard. This doesn't really have anything to do with OR policy. Rhoark (talk) 16:55, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Twitter and other online posts as a primary source.

One thing I've seen come up several times recently is people using quotes from Twitter and other online forums where an article's subject has posted in order to make implicit statements about their beliefs, history, and so on. For instance, they might dig through someone's twitter feed until they find a politically-controversial statement, then put it in the article with the quote on Twitter itself as the only cite. I feel that this is likely to become common enough in an internet age that we should have a specific rule or guideline referencing it -- as a general rule, I think that quotes like that should require a reliable secondary source to establish relevance. (Ideally one qualified to be used as a source for statements of fact, although opinion pieces could be cited when they're high-profile and the opinion is attributed in text.) The issue is that without this, Wikipedia becomes a place for people to perform opposition research about figures they disagree with, to use quote-mining to make their own argument about how some popular figure holds a particular position, or similar things -- the sheer volume of quotes available in an electronic age (and the amount of searching that can be done with crowdsourced efforts) means that it is relatively easy to find quotes to support your own personal reading on a public figure, even when that reading has no coverage in reliable secondary sources. If a quote is genuinely significant, it should always be easy to find a reliable secondary source reporting on it, shouldn't it? --Aquillion (talk) 22:43, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Selective quoting is certainly a problem when it occurs. I think the relevant policy is really WP:NPOV rather than this one. I wouldn't want to make a blanket rule against sourcing something to someone's twitter account. If it's uncontroversial, why not? (There's an example of reasonably appropriate sourcing to twitter in Anthony Head's article.)—S Marshall T/C 23:24, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Aquillion "If a quote is genuinely significant, it should always be easy to find a reliable secondary source reporting on it". So I do not thin that quotes from "Twitter and other online forums where an article's subject has posted in order to make implicit statements about their beliefs, history, and so on." should be used, unless they are republished in a reliable source. If this seems unreasonable could someone give some examples of where it is unreasonable from examples in Wikiepdia articles (I don't think the example given helps improve that article). -- PBS (talk) 09:39, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

I totally agree. Another factor is that someone could be posting ironically (or drunkenly, or whatever), or making what they hope is a joke—such comments should not be used in an encyclopedic article. A secondary source is required to interpret comments and provide context. Even something as apparently simple as "I was born on April 6, 1994" could be a joke or even a mistake due to a typo. Johnuniq (talk) 10:03, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Note that the tweet above if used properly can only be included as something like "X once stated to born on April 6, 1994 REF TWITTER" as anything beyond that would most likely be synthesis. So I am not sure we should write a policy on this, although we may emphasise that statements on social media should be considered with caution. On the other hand we would not want to exclude a well thought through blog post by an expert out of hand either..... Arnoutf (talk) 15:32, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm from Argentina, and the president usually post things on Twitter or Facebook, to avoid press conferences. When this happens, the newspapers report the things she said, what other politicians think of the things she said, etc. It is perfectly possible to make an article "Cristina Kirchner on social media", without a single direct link to Twitter or Facebook. Cambalachero (talk) 16:51, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

True, but the source would be the newspaper; a secondary source; not the tweet itself, the primary source. Arnoutf (talk) 17:02, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Synthesis is synthesis, whether or not it uses Twitter. As to the expectation that anything worthwhile has a secondary source, the same theory could be wielded against any primary source on any topic, so it should be plainly clear that that is an unworkable guideline. There are many facts of encyclopedic interest that are not repeated in a newspaper or academic journal, because those things are not encyclopedias. As always, it is the role of Wikipedia editors to form consensus on what belongs in Wikipedia - that is all the defense that is needed against the types of abuse or error described above. Rhoark (talk) 17:08, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

All policy must fit in one sentence

The title of this thread is a bit facetious. But in this edit User:Jayaguru-Shishya reinserts words into the policy in yet another spot that sources must be reliable. Apparently Jayaguru-Shishya feels every sentence must mention every rule that applies to the subject matter of the sentence. The logical conclusion of this approach is that we must get rid of all our current policies, and instead write one sentence that contains every bit of Wikipedia policy. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:13, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

@Jc3s5h: And apparently you think it's okay to introduce a loophole that can be easily fixed. If someone objects to a change in policy wording, the solution is not to revert it back in but either join the discussion (one exists above) or start a new one. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:57, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

There is no loophole; sources must be reliable, even though that requirement is not repeated in every single sentence of the policy. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:05, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

If the policy page uses the term "reliable secondary source" in most sentences and paragraphs, but does not use it in others, then a person reading it for the first time will assume that there is a significant difference and for those sentence where "secondary source" is not proceeded with reliable will not unreasonably assume that in those situations all secondary sources, both those that meet the level of reliability as defined in WP:V and those that do not, are acceptable. It is therefore necessary to always qualify "secondary source" with reliable so that this policy is non-ambiguous with regards to sources. Far from getting rid of all our current polices, it is reinforcing the concept that WP:NOR relies on WP:V for what is an acceptable source instead of redefining it in this policy. -- PBS (talk) 19:45, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Take for example this sentence "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation." which was changed to "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source for that interpretation."the alteration states that any secondary source will do it does not have to meet the requirements of WP:SOURCE (a subsection of WP:V) -- PBS (talk) 19:50, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Copied the following comment by Jc3s5h from above into this section as this section is more specific to this issue. -- PBS (talk) 20:30, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Adding a citation to a secondary source requires adherence to all policies, not just the one given before the phrase "...secondary source for that interpretation." If you say "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation" (emphasis added) I could argue it's OK to add the reliable secondary source that I wrote myself, even though my primary motive was to sell more copes of my book, because you forgot to write "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation which is cited by an editor who does not have a conflict of interest". Jc3s5h (talk) 19:56, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Conflict of interest is a guideline not a policy, so there is no reason to include it, nor any other guideline (other than to help explain policy). This is one of three content policies and they ought not to contradict each other. One way of helping to keep possible contradictions to a minimum is by using clearly defined phrase such as "reliable secondary source". Also one has to read it as a reasonable person would, and if "secondary source" and "reliable secondary source" are used inconsistently, it would be reasonable to assume that the inconsistency is significant. Your hypothetical inclusion would only become significant in this respect if its use was inconsistent in this policy which is not the case. -- PBS (talk) 20:43, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

No, when we have just spent an entire section insisting that all sources must be reliable, I don't think that a reasonable person will assume that unreliable sources may be used because we don't insist one more time. Absolutely not. Sorry, but I'm not going to give up on this because another editor is more stubborn tenacious than I am. I really, really want this policy to have a clear explanation of the difference between primary and secondary sources, and I want it to be very clear that the lazy and very common misconception "secondary = reliable" is wrong.

How about if we compromise? If you allow me to delete the distracting and irrelevant "reliable" from "reliable secondary source", I will insert the following, from the essay Wikipedia:Identifying and using primary and secondary sources, which we cite in this section of the policy: "Secondary does not mean that the source is independent, authoritative, high-quality, accurate, fact-checked, expert-approved, subject to editorial control, or published by a reputable publisher. Secondary sources can be unreliable, biased, self-serving and self-published.". And then we can insert a statement, do not use those sources. It can go anywhere you like, in the text or in a footnote. But I would like it to be separate from the explanation of what makes a secondary source secondary. – Margin1522 (talk) 15:52, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Are you deliberately using rhetorical trick with this statement If you allow me to delete the distracting and irrelevant "reliable" from "reliable secondary source", or is it an accident? I do not thing that the use of "reliable" is irreverent. So do you mean "If you allow me to delete what I think is the distracting and irrelevant 'reliable'..." my answer is that is I think it is a fundamental alteration to policy and that you need to see if there is a consensus via an RfC for such a change. If you were to include such a sentence in this policy, then what you would do is set up an alternative to WP:SOURCE as the definition of what is a reliable secondary source. I think such a step is a bad idea as the policy definition of a reliable source ought to remain in WP:V alone. As to your statement "I really, really want this policy to have a clear explanation of the difference between primary and secondary sources, and I want it to be very clear that the lazy and very common misconception "secondary = reliable" is wrong". (1) I do not think it is a common misconception (how large is your sample size). (2) The whole point of using the formulae "reliable secondary sources" is to differentiate between "reliable secondary sources" (per WP:SOURCE) and "unreliable secondary sources". Reliable ones can be used to interpret primary source, unreliable secondary sources may be used not. I think that the removal of reliable would do exactly what you say you wish to avoid and cause the "misconception [that all] 'secondary = reliable'" or at the least that any secondary source (not just reliable ones) can be used to interpret primary sources. -- PBS (talk) 19:53, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

WP:SOURCE has a lot to say about the difference between reliable and unreliable sources. That is fine. Reliability is the topic of that section of WP:V. The WP:SOURCE section of WP:V does not use the phrase "reliable secondary source" because defining "secondary" is not the responsibility of that policy. Defining "secondary" is the responsibility of this policy. Before we can say whether a secondary source is reliable or not, we have to define what a secondary source is. Can we start at the beginning? A very basic question. Since you are so sure that you know what a secondary source is, could you please define it for us? – Margin1522 (talk) 22:40, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

The definition of what a secondary source is here. The definition of what is reliable is there (WP:V). If you see a problem with that then you are 8 years too late see WP:ATT and Wikipedia talk:Attribution/Archive 14#This merger is a really bad idea and Wikipedia:Attribution/Poll. With nearly 800 participants expressing an opinion for and against and another 102 undecided that was probably the biggest attendance of a poll ever held on Wikipedia, and I suspect few want to go through that again (I was in favour of a merge, but not the way it was done, so I did not express an opinion either for or against it). This is why this policy last sentence after defining what a secondary source is states "Articles may make an analytic or evaluative claim only if that has been published by a reliable secondary source" (my empasis).-- PBS (talk) 17:12, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

What? I am not in favor of merging V and OR. They are different concepts. Merging them would be a terrible idea. You are the one insisting that if we define OR without mentioning V, editors will feel free to ignore V. Which I think is wrong and certainly not helpful.

Earlier you asked for example of this policy being misunderstood. Here is an example from a just a few hours ago. An editor claimed that a source was biased and therefore not a "reliable secondary source". So he assumes that since it's not a "reliable secondary source" it must be a "primary" source. Which is wrong. This is exactly the kind of misunderstanding that I would like to fix, and it can only be fixed by emphasizing that "reliable" does not mean "secondary", and "unreliable" does not mean "primary".

Since "reliable" is a different concept from "secondary", it would be helpful if we could keep it out of the definition of "secondary". That's all I'm asking. Later, once this is understood, we can insist that secondary sources must also be reliable before they can be used in Wikipedia. We can go on at great length, I'm fine with that. But let's keep it out of the definition. – Margin1522 (talk) 21:48, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I think you are doing NorthBySouthBaranof a disservice as I do not think that NBSB makes the mistake you claim. Besides a primary source can be used to express an opinion a serach of this talk pages's archive on "Wellington" brings up long conversations on this very point.

The definitions of Primary Secondary and Tertiary do not mention the word reliable. It is how the are applied in policy were the word reliable is added. There are two good reasons for this. The first is that in discussion on talk pages such as the one to which you link, it helps if the wording in the section is unambiguous and can not be read in such a way that it contradicts another policy (as all polices are equal). It is no good arguing that the overall policy does not contradict another, because people often discuss by the linked section not by the total content of the policy. The second reason is because all polices are equal if one can be read to contradict another then much time is wasted arguing which is the correct interpretation. Can we go back to the sentence "Articles may make an analytic or evaluative claim only if that has been published by a reliable secondary source" (my empasis) and can you explain why you think the word reliable is superfluous because I think that the meaning of the sentence is altered by its removal. -- PBS (talk) 09:23, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

The fact that the source is biased is not what makes it a primary source, in my estimation. Rather, it is the fact that the source is written by someone who is effectively directly involved in the dispute - it is the corporate perspective of the company involved in the argument, and there is no detachment from the argument or competing analysis of whether or not this perspective is honest, fair or well-founded in fact. These are the hallmarks of a secondary source — a newspaper, magazine, journal article, scholarly book/monograph, journalistic website/blog, etc. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 15:13, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I think the sentence "Articles may make an analytic or evaluative claim only if that has been published by a reliable secondary source." [emphasis added] has a bigger problem than the word reliable. PBS is concerned that if we leave out "reliable" people will think this is an exception to the other sections of the policy that say all sources must be reliable. I think it's pretty obvious that the sentence must be interpreted in the context of the rest of the policy, and it's obvious the secondary source must be reliable. After all, the sentence requires the reader to make a more subtle contextural inference: since the preceding paragraph describes what secondary sources do, the sentence in question is telling editors they are not allowed to make the sort of analysis and evaluation that authors of external secondary sources may do. But an editor who failed to make that inference would think that a primary source must not be used if it makes analysis or evaluation of the author's own work. So the editor who is incapable of reading a sentence in context might think that since the National Geodetic Survey performed a variety of experiments and reported "a new architectural height of the Washington Monument using the CTBUH standard as: 554 feet 7 and 11/32 inches +/- 1/32 inches" because the NGS report is a primary source, the NGS made an analysis of their own measurements, and analysis can't be put in Wikipedia unless it comes from a secondary source. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:04, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to remind NorthBySouthBaranof that the name of this policy is "No original research". Wikipedia editors can't make their own original analytical claims. Not original. That's all. There is no requirement in the "No original research" policy that claims be honest, fair or well-founded in fact. The claims can be dishonest, unfair, and factually off the wall. The "No original research" policy doesn't care, as long as they aren't original.

But, but, but... you protest. What's the use of a policy so spineless that it doesn't care if a claim is honest or not? Very simple, it prevents editors from writing essays that describe their own opinions, their own discoveries, their own interpretations of the world. There are many editors who want to do that and we need a policy to tell them why they can't.

So what about honest, fair or well-founded in fact? Don't we care? Yes we do care, and that's why we have the other two core policies, namely Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:Verifiability. Those are separate policies, and they have their own words. If you want to talk about those concerns, you should use the words from those policies, not "primary" and "secondary", which are words from this policy. – Margin1522 (talk) 22:19, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

On third thought, I think I am going to have to concede that the author of this blog post is a primary source insofar as he is writing about himself and his own Twitter feud. NorthBySouthBaranof was correct about that, so I should concede that much. Sorry. I still don't want to concede that a source can be labelled primary because of the source's affiliation, political or religious beliefs (e.g. the Dalai Lama's beliefs about Buddhism), perceived accuracy, or general "reliability". Those things probably account for 90% of the usage of "primary" on talk pages and notice boards, and my position is that this usage is wrong. Most of the blog posts that editors attempt to cite are not talking about the author's personal experiences. Usually they are commentary on something else. They should not be labelled "primary" simply because they are self-published and not fact checked. They can be rejected as unreliable for those reasons, but not labelled "primary". – Margin1522 (talk) 17:17, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

RfC at WikiProject Film

There's a discussion that partly concerns this policy at WT:FILM#RfC: Do list items need their own WP article in order to be sourced in list articles?. More input is appreciated. Lapadite (talk) 13:55, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Flat statement in lead that NOR does not apply on talk pages

If this is taken literally, it allows talk pages to be used as forums. An example is Talk:Number of the Beast where we often have posts such as: subject the right hand[edit] "Ok!Here is some original research which maybe allowed in talk page in which it is allowed for truth sake as long it is validated.Base 18, first count with multiples of 18, second 17 as long the quotient remains the same and 17 can be multiplied by 18 and the result is 306,third 34 and the sum of of digits equals to 34 ,of course which is the quotient, and their multiple by 18 equal 612 and on the fourth term the numbers of sum for 37 multiplied by 18 give 666. quotient:

      :17*18 for first
      :34*18 for second
      :37*18 for third"

See also the editor's earlier posts. I think the "OR is ok on talk pages" needs qualifying, at least. Doug Weller (talk) 12:10, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

• How would you suggest we qualify it? Blueboar (talk) 12:29, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

If no original research were allowed on talk pages, we would not be allowed to sketch an argument showing that some bit of information in the article is ridiculous and should be deleted. It would also be very hard to discuss contradictions between various sources; without such discussion it may not be clear which sources are fringe, outdated, or mistaken on a particular point. (Of course, once the actual situation is figured out, we would then want to find a source that describes the actual situation, or list all the non-fringe results that appear in reliable sources.) Jc3s5h (talk) 13:08, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I understand all of that and agree. That doesn't help with editors adding, for instance, numerology to talk pages, or their own ideas which have no sources whatsover and that they are just trying to publicise. I'm saying that we need to qualify the statement. Maybe just adding "a limited". We can't be too prescriptive and shouldn't try to cover all bases, but at the moment policy allows an unlimited amount of OR on talk pages while at the same time we say they are not forums. Doug Weller (talk) 18:01, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

From the 1st paragraph of WP:NOR,

"The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist."

So just about everything on a Talk page is original research. To treat the present situation, editors can use the following from WP:NOTAFORUM,

"In addition, bear in mind that talk pages exist for the purpose of discussing how to improve articles. Talk pages are not for general discussion about the subject of the article, nor are they a help desk for obtaining instructions or technical assistance. Material unsuitable for talk pages may be subject to removal per the talk page guidelines."

and the following from the beginning of talk page guidelines,

"The purpose of a Wikipedia talk page (accessible via the talk or discussion tab) is to provide space for editors to discuss changes to its associated article or project page. Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views on a subject."

and from the section Behavior that is unacceptable

"Please note that some of the following are of sufficient importance to be official Wikipedia policy. Violations (and especially repeated violations) may lead to the offender being blocked or banned from editing Wikipedia.

...

Do not use the talk page as a forum or soapbox for discussing the topic. The talk page is for discussing how to improve the article."

--Bob K31416 (talk) 21:56, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. That's basically what I do when obviously appropriate. Doug Weller (talk) 18:19, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't allow talk pages to be used as forums, since WP:NOT#FORUM policy and WP:TALK guidelines don't. If we already have a rule against something, "failing" to re-mentioning the rule on some other page doesn't undo the rule. Having something in another page that a bad-faith editor could try to exploit as a loophole to get around a general rule doesn't actually permit them to do so; that's WP:GAMING the system. That said, there is no problem adding some clarifying wording that points to that policy and guideline, to forestall misinterpretations that might occasionally lead people to treat talk pages as forums. I don't see an extant problem to address, though. People using article talk pages as general debate pits are usually new arrivals who haven't learned how WP operates yet, and we're usually pretty lenient with them. For inveterate POV pushers and edit warriors who already know better, we have WP:ANI and WP:AE. We can't strip NOR policy of the rule that it does not apply to talk pages, just to address an issue that doesn't seem to be an issue. Much of what goes on at talk pages is OR, and discussing it and working through it to tease out what is sourceable and what is novel synthesis, etc., is much of what we do. It's not necessarily instantly apparent what proposed change is and isn't proper in what exact wording. WP:NOTOR and WP:NOTSYNTH would not exist in such detail otherwise. PS: A clear problem with saying "a limited amount" of OR on talk pages, is it immediately raises the question, "where is the limit specified?" I.e., it wouldn't seem to solve anything, and would just be another thing to try to game. A simple parenthetical clarification can be cribbed and inserted: "Talk pages are for discussing how to improve articles, not for general discussion about the subject of the article, nor are they a help desk for topical questions or advice."  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:48, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Reliably published

See Wikipedia talk:No original research/Archive 59#Reliably published

I have reverted the change by user:Bob K31416 (05:58, 7 June 2014). There is a fundamental difference between a reliable primary source and a reliably published primary source. The whole point of reliably published, is to stop OR with primary sources that have not been reliably published. For example a letter from Winston Churchill in an archive that has not been indexed would still be a reliable primary source, but if it has not been published in a reliable source, then to use it on WP would be OR. -- PBS (talk) 14:57, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

The consensus of that thread (Wikipedia talk:No original research/Archive 59#Reliably published) seems to have been that "reliably published" is a "dreadful phrase...confusing...abuse of the English language". So why are we putting it back in?

Originally this sentence contained a link to WP:RS#Definition of a source, which says that "source" can refer to (a) the work, (b) the author, or (c) the publisher, and that each of these has a different kind of reliability. Exactly how they can be reliable is a complicated question, with criteria that are different from the criteria we use to tell whether a source is primary. So what I would suggest here is that we just leave the question of RS up to WP:RS and concentrate here on the distinction between primary, secondary, and tertiary. This is complicated enough without getting into arguments over reliability. For example, whether a blog post (self-published!) by Ben Bernanke (expert!) on interest rates can ever be an RS.

What I am suggesting is that we simply remove both "reliable" and "reliably published" from this section. So that's what I'm going to do – edit this sentence to read "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia;". That seems to me to be the simplest and easiest to understand.

If someone wants to insist that "primary sources" are unacceptable unless a reliable publisher is involved, could they please come up with a better phrase than "reliably published"? – Margin1522 (talk) 08:08, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Blog posts by Bernanke are not, afaik, peer-reviewed - a criterion that is met by many other publications on the topic of interest rates. Samsara 08:33, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Peer review is a kind of quality check for academic papers. Most other sources are not. The mentioned letter of Churchill is unlikely to be peer reviewed, a broadcast interview on a reliable network is not. So let's not bring in yet another layer of complexity. Arnoutf (talk) 09:32, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

About Bernanke, as the two-time chairman of the FRB he is a widely recognized authority on interest rates. As widely recognized as you can get. And there are many passages in our policies that allow for exceptions when the "author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications." (WP:USERG) It is also true that many editors refuse to recognize these exceptions and insist that a blog post can never, ever be an RS. This is an endless dispute that will never be settled. What I am saying is that we don't need to settle it. OR is original interpretation by a Wikipedia editor of any primary source. Can't we concentrate on that, and leave the disputes about what is or isn't a reliable primary source to some other forum? – Margin1522 (talk) 09:36, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

I wonder who comes up with utter nonsense like that - "author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications" is a hurdle that probably virtually all active researchers can meet. In fact, that definition would embrace the opinions of lab technicians if they've ever been granted co-authorship, which is not all that uncommon (most of them splendid people, but not generally considered notable). I would suggest that phrase be sent straight to the bin, which is where it belongs. Samsara 09:56, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Samsara, your argument is a very valid argument why we should be very cautious with primary sources (which most empirical scientific papers are). The peer reviewed scientific journal is a reliable source for the primary evidence from the empirical study but not what it means in the larger scientific development, just as much as Bernanke's (or in fact anyone else's) blog is a reliable source of the opinion of that person (assuming the blog is not hacked of course). In my view it has little to do with reliability of the source, but with the use of primary sources. Can we try to disentangle those arguments. Arnoutf (talk) 14:32, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

@Margin1522 the addition of the link to WP:RS is relatively new and it was an incorrect addition as WP:RS is a guideline not a policy. WP:SOURCE links to policy and describes what reliably published means.

The question of whether or no a blog page is reliable is a question for WP:V and I think confusing this issue.

I am coming from this from the point of view of history and literature and the fact that this is the policy called "No original research", a primary source may not be a reliable source in any usual meaning of the word, for example an eye witness account of an event, in that it would never be considered a reliable secondary source. Without the criteria of reliably published it is far too easy for an editor to carry out original research in those fields.

Let me give you an example: There is a controversial British military officer called Orde Wingate, and as often happens with controversial men he has his detractors and admirers. Some years ago I was involved in a debate about some meetings Wingate attended with General (later Field Marshal) William Slim. Slim records the meetings in his military history Defeat into Victory, the admirer wished to add text to a Wikipedia article that contracted Slim's account based on an unpublished manuscript he [said (AGF) he] had found in the archives. There is no doubt that a manuscript by Wingate about the meetings is a reliable primary source and if this manuscript is ever published and a reliable secondary source concludes that the meetings were not as Slim describes then that of course should be added to a Wikipedia article, but as it is not, it is a classic example of OR. Allowing editors to use unpublished primary sources, is in many fields, to give cart blanch to editors to add "novel narrative or historical interpretation" into Wikipedia articles, something that is against the spirit of this policy.

There is nothing new in this phrase "reliably published" it was added to this policy with Revision as of 23:02, 12 March 2010 (The discussion linked to that is to he found here Wikipedia talk:No original research/Archive 50#Primary sources reliably published.). But it replaced similar wording that has been in the policy for many years. It was in this policy back in April 2008 (before the current reformatting of the section) as "Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source may be used in Wikipedia", and as early as April 2005 this policy stated "it is essential that any primary-source material used in an article has been published or otherwise made available to people who do not rely on Wikipedia". So if you want to remove it Margin1522 I suggest that you author a fully blown RfC to see if there is a consensus to remove a concept that has been part of this policy for at least 10 years.

If other editors consider "reliably published" to be difficult to understand, then we could go back to the older wording (pre-March 2010) "published by a reliable source". -- PBS (talk) 17:40, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is disputing the concept, but rather the way it is expressed. The phrase "reliably published" is unclear. If you want to use it, I suggest you explain its meaning with a footnote.

Re the suggestion, "primary sources that have been published by a reliable source" — It's confusing because it uses "source" twice with different meanings, and a publisher may not be reliable in general but reliable for presenting a particular primary source.

This idea has complications and may best be discussed at the WP:V policy. Then there can be a reference to that part of WP:V from WP:NOR. I think this is essentially the approach suggested by Margin1522. --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:51, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Are you confused by the wording? If not what make you think others would be? It is generally not a good idea to footnote a concept that is defined in another policy, as the two tend over time to drift apart and that causes problems. The link WP:SOURCE defines what is and is not reliably published. -- I don't agree with the footnote -- but that is what it is. However as my major concern is to make sure that information in archives that has not been catalogued and/or is not available to the public is not used to introduce novel history or novel interpretations of literature, I can live with it: It is in WP:V in the section " Reliable sources": Source material must have been published, the definition of which for our purposes is "made available to the public in some form".^{This includes material such as documents in publicly-accessible archives, inscriptions on monuments, gravestones, etc., that are available for anyone to see.} Unpublished materials are not considered reliable.. So one option rather than adding a footnote is to add WP:SOURCE (although I would have thought that anyone who read the paragraph in the lead "(NOR) is one of three core..." would make that association without a link). -- PBS (talk) 09:25, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Regarding WP:SOURCE, are you OK with the following part of it?

"Source material must have been published, the definition of which for our purposes is "made available to the public in some form".^[6]

and footnote 6 is

"This includes material such as documents in publicly-accessible archives, inscriptions on monuments, gravestones, etc., that are available for anyone to see."

The reason I'm asking is because of the example in your opening message, "For example a letter from Winston Churchill in an archive that has not been indexed would still be a reliable primary source, but if it has not been published in a reliable source, then to use it on WP would be OR." --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:30, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

But if the letter would be in a publicly accessible archive - it would be available to the public and thus be verifiable. Arnoutf (talk) 16:19, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Most archives of unpublished works are not open to be public, but may be open to accredited scholars. But without an index (catalogue) an archive may theoretically be open to scholars but before the material is catalogued there is no easy way to find the material and citing the material (in such a way that others can access it in the future is not possible), so such archived material is not reliably published. Of course if the archive is catalogued and accessible to the public is by the criteria of Wikipedia reliably published (because an archivist has been through the papers and verified who wrote what). Stuff in "Grandma's attic", is also not reliably published, because even if a photograph is taken of a letter purportedly by Churchill is placed on the web, without an expert verifying that it is indeed a letter by Churchill, there is no way for Wikipedia editors to judge if it is. -- PBS (talk) 17:14, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Maybe it's because I don't edit history, but I've never encountered an editor who wanted to use an unpublished manuscript. But even if the manuscript was published in someone's collected papers by Oxford University Press, it's still a primary source. Calling it "reliably published" gives the impression that it's OK to cite that manuscript to make whatever point the editor wants to make. But it's not OK. Anything that is controversial or involves interpretation or judgment has to come from a secondary source. That's what we should be focusing on in this policy.

The other reason I want to avoid "reliable" is not because I don't think it's important for sources to reliable. Of course I do. It's because there are endless edit wars in articles, and endless disputes at WP:RSN and WP:AfD over the exact definition of "reliable". Edit warriors are constantly finding new and ingenious arguments to show why the other side's sources are "not RS". I just think it would be simpler for this policy to avoid getting entangled in these arguments and the 15 different interpretations of "reliably published".

Basically whether a primary source is reliable has nothing to do with whether using it is OR. It's OR if you want to use it to make a point, advance an argument, settle a dispute, or say anything that involves evaluation or judgement. All of that has to come from secondary sources. That's the policy we want to define here, and I think we should try to define it as clearly and as simply as possible. – Margin1522 (talk) 19:58, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

PBS, The phrase “reliably published” is not defined and is thus not useful for your purpose of excluding material from unindexed archives. If you want to exclude such material, you can do that by adding to footnote 6 in WP:SOURCE the word “indexed” so that footnote 6 becomes the following (where I have underlined the addition just for this discussion).

This includes material such as documents in publicly-accessible indexed archives, inscriptions on monuments, gravestones, etc., that are available for anyone to see.

I can’t say whether or not I would support that because I don’t know enough about archives or indexing them, but I would be willing to read arguments from both sides. --Bob K31416 (talk) 02:02, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Margin1522 given the phrasing in the lead "Because these policies work in harmony, they should not be interpreted in isolation ...", reliably published is obviously referring to that part of WP:V in the section WP:SOURCE which is about the publication of "Reliable sources". As you will know, as you have been edition since 2008, the phrase has been in the policy since before you arrived on the scene and in its current form for just over five years, that it refers to just one definition at WP:SOURCE not another and certainly not one of "15 different interpretations of 'reliably published'". If you think it necessary (although I do not) I would not object to a specific link to WP:SOURCE. -- PBS (talk) 13:10, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Bob K31416 I ought to have used the phrase "catalogued", rather than "indexed", I do not think that the change you suggest is necessary because in practice no uncatalogued archive will be open to the public. Also in practice it is reinforced with the bullet point in WP:EXCEPTIONAL "challenged claims that are supported purely by primary...". My objection to the definition in "WP:SOURCE" is the "inscriptions on monuments, gravestones, etc., that are available for anyone to see." which is beyond the scope of this conversation, as that is an issue for WT:V. -- PBS (talk) 13:10, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

PBS, Re your comment, "in practice no uncatalogued archive will be open to the public" — If that's the case, then the example in your opening message has a false premise because according to WP:SOURCE, material from an uncatalogued or unindexed archive is not "published" because it is not "publicly-accessible" and "Unpublished materials are not considered reliable." For reference, here's the false premise in the example from your opening message, "For example a letter from Winston Churchill in an archive that has not been indexed would still be a reliable primary source". So I have restored the phrase "reliable primary source" [20] by reverting your recent change. --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:04, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

It is not a false premise because of the assumption around WP:SOURCES is that reliability consists of three parts one of which is the author and their expertise to a particular subject, the issue is that a source that would otherwise be reliable is not reliable if it has not been reliably published. Without this association to reliably published (however that is defined in WP:V) we end up with OR and V in a position where they can be seen to contract each other. "primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia" is different from "Reliable primary sources may be used in Wikipedia". -- PBS (talk) 14:30, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Another option is to alter the sentence to read "Published primary sources..." -- PBS (talk) 14:38, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't think so. I'll be leaving the discussion now. The current status of the policy is that PBS made an edit that reverted to his previous edit that put in "reliably published" after this phrase had been replaced following discussion in June 2014. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:18, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I think that if the wording you prefer is to be used then there should be an RfC as the wording to which I reverted has been in the policy for a decade or more and it was changed by a handful of editors without wider input. I have only looked at it recently because I was involved in a conversation where reliably published is of far more use than reliable primary source because of the ambiguities involved in the a meaning that has three parts. -- PBS (talk) 15:28, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

It seems to me that "published" is being used here as a synonym for "verifiable", rather than in the vernacular sense of being published. As such, I think the word "published" should be deprecated in favor of "verifiable" if it needs to be specified. However, I concur with Margin1522 that it would suffice to say only "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources may be used in Wikipedia." This does not need to be an all-singing all-dancing policy that encompasses WP:V and WP:RS within itself. Situations like the opinions of a non-notable lab tech are addressed separately by considering due weight and WP:ONUS. Rhoark (talk) 19:57, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

WP:VERIFY discusses the reliability of published sources separately, so these two are different things. For example,

Attribute all quotations and any material [...] to a reliable, published source -WP:BURDEN

I don't really see how these two, "verifiable" and "published", could be used as synonyms. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 16:53, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

What is published? Is the inscription on a public monument a publication of that text? It is however verifiable... and a primary source.

Is a top secret report, produced in several hundred copies by a secret service a publication? As long as that remains top secret it is not verifiable.

Adding the text of the monument should be fine within Wikipedia standards (as it is verifiable); adding text from the top secret report not. So regardless of publication status, I go with Rhoark here that (at least for primary sources) verifiability is the key word, not reliability of publication. 17:24, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Let us suppose that the Churchill letter is sold at auction, and that Christie's experts verify that it is a letter by Winston Churchill, but the content is not published and it goes into a private collection. I can verify that the letter is by a reliable source (Churchill) and therefore it is a reliable primary source, but it has not been published. So the part of verifiability we are addressing is its publication. -- PBS (talk) 02:14, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree that an unpublished letter by Churchill should not be used. We should address that issue somewhere. But the number of editors who want to use unpublished sources is small, and the number who don't understand the difference between primary and secondary is large. From the cites on talk pages and RSN, most many Wikipedia editors seem to be under the mistaken impression that WP:PRIMARY means "having a prior opinion on a controversial subject" or "affiliated with the subject" and WP:SECONDARY means "neutral" or "third party" or "no prior opinion". This is wrong. Bringing in the publisher just confuses the issue that editors need to understand, by diverting their attention to other issues that they are keenly interested in and eager to talk about.

Especially since in ordinary English "reliably published" means that the act of publishing is reliable. Something like "no missing pages", or "delivered to your doorstep every morning, without fail, regardless of the weather". That's not what we're trying to explain here. Nor are we trying to explain WP:V or WP:NPOV. On this page, which is about the third major policy, we have already spent several paragraphs explaining the other two – WP:V and WP:NPOV. Including several paragraphs in the lead. Now can we please move on to explaining Wikipedia's third major policy, which is WP:No original research? – Margin1522 (talk) 09:51, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

"the number who don't understand the difference between primary and secondary is large" then that is something to do with the definition part that starts "Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event...". "the number of editors who want to use unpublished sources is small" but those who do want to use unpublished sources are often tenacious. "[in] ordinary English 'reliably published' means..." if you say so, but then in the same paragraph it says "a reliable secondary source for that interpretation" would you suggest removing the reliable in front of secondary source as well? If you do then people will argue, not unreasonably, that a unreliable sources is OK to use, as else where in the page the use of secondary sources are preceded by reliable. What makes you think that a person reading this page is going to use two different interpretations of reliable in the same paragraph? As I said above if that phrase is a problem for you we can link to WP:SOURCE which defines what is reliably published. -- PBS (talk) 14:39, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, well, there are disruptive editors on Wikipedia, people who don't want to follow the policies even when they understand them. Part of the reason why the policies sound so overbearing and distrustful of the reader is that they are written like an extended argument with people who simply don't want to listen. Hammering home the same point over and over. This policy uses the word "published" 28 times, and the word "reliable" 38 times. If editors still want to use unpublished materials, it's not going to help to tell them one more time. We do have a link to WP:SOURCE, in the "Reliable sources" section, plus a link to Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources. My point is that the "Primary, secondary and tertiary sources" is supposed to be about something else. Namely that there are three different types of sources, and that the differences are important even when everyone agrees that the sources are published and reliable. As for deleting "reliable" from the rest of this paragraph, sure, I think that would help. Including it in doesn't get you very much, because basically "reliable" is an extremely broad category that includes every source that is safe to use on Wikipedia. It contributes nothing to understanding the difference between a source that includes analysis and interpretation and one that doesn't, and in fact hinders understanding by bringing up a different topic. – Margin1522 (talk) 10:49, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

As the discussion seems to be over, I went ahead and simplified this paragraph to focus on the primary/secondary distinction. There is no disagreement that all sources need to be reliable – this is purely a matter of writing style. So if anyone prefers a different style they can go ahead and do that instead. – Margin1522 (talk) 19:16, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry, but I have to disagree with the last edit.[21] As far as I am concerned, "primary sources" are different from "reliably published primary sources", as well as "secondary sources" are different from "reliable secondary sources". See, for being "reliable", the source needs to be an independent third-party source, i.e. not just any source that is "published" will do. That's being explicitly pointed out in WP:V and WP:RS.

For example, it is very different if you keep record of the daily temperatures and publish your findings yourself rather than, let's say, a University Press will publish those. That's the case for primary sources. Also, if you conduct a study that summarizes several scriptures of Tibetan Buddhism, if you may, again it's different thing if the source is published by oneself rather than a well-standing third-party institution. As per WP:V and WP:RS, I think the "reliability" is of the utmost importance here. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 16:36, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Completely agree with you. New editors are frequently pointed at WP:NOR and is important that they fully understand that something like someone's blog is not a reliable source. Otherwise we'll have, "someone wrote this on the Internet!". --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:45, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

User:Jayaguru-Shishya, as explained in his talk page edit of 16:36, 17 April 2015 (UTC), is not in agreement with policy. It is totally unacceptable to mash together the separate concepts "self-publshed", "third party", "primary", and "secondary". Policy and the WP:Identifying reliable sources guidelineallow the use of self-published sources in some situations. Primary sources are allowed in some situations. I reject User:Jayaguru-Shishya's edit. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:16, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

@Jc3s5h, Jayaguru-Shishya's edit was a revert of the edit made by Margin1522 immediately before it. -- PBS (talk)

Margin1522 you wrote "As the discussion seems to be over," The discussion was over but that did not mean that I agreed with your proposed change, which you then implemented. For example you totally ignored the point I made with a question "would you suggest removing the reliable in front of secondary source as well? If you do then people will argue, not unreasonably, that a unreliable sources is OK to use, as else where in the page the use of secondary sources are preceded by reliable." So what made you think there was a consensus for the change you made with Revision as of 19:11, 16 April 2015? -- PBS (talk) 19:25, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Adding a citation to a secondary source requires adherence to all policies, not just the one given before the phrase "...secondary source for that interpretation." If you say "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation" (emphasis added) I could argue it's OK to add the reliable secondary source that I wrote myself, even though my primary motive was to sell more copes of my book, because you forgot to write "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation which is cited by an editor who does not have a conflict of interest." Jc3s5h (talk) 19:56, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

I am going to copy this down to the new section you have created at the bottom of the page. As we are now splitting this second issue over two sections. -- PBS (talk) 20:28, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

@PBS: I thought I made it clear that, in my opinion, it would indeed be unreasonable for editors to argue that it's OK to use unreliable sources. Very unreasonable, given the amount of space we have already devoted to driving that point home. But it seems that my objections to the phrase "reliably published" still haven't gotten through. Let me explain one more time, and sorry if this sounds pedantic.

In a word, nowhere except in Wikipedia jargon does the phrase "reliably published" mean "published by a reliable source". In normal English, "reliably published" means that the publishing is reliable. This is because "reliably" is an adverb. Adverbs modify verbs, and in this case is the verb is "published". Therefore it is the publishing which is reliable.

How can publishing be reliable? Here are three examples from the first few pages of Google results (excluding examples from Wikipedia), which show how.

• "Another reliably published magazine, one that reliably kept its publication schedule for more than a decade (something of a miracle in the semiprozine world!) ...." – The Year's Best Science Fiction
• "Since the early nineties, she has reliably published a novel or a memoir every few years." – The New Yorker
• "While Green reliably published a new edition every Monday ..." – The Oldest US Newspaper in Continuous Publication ConnecticutHistory.org

In each of these cases, the publishing is reliable because the material appears on schedule. So if we say that sources should be "reliably published", we are saying that it's OK to use the National Enquirer, because however unreliable it may be as a source, it is at least "reliably published", in that it appears in the magazine rack every morning, without fail. You can count on it.

Now, you may say, "No no, that's not what I meant." But as an editor (in the normal sense of the word) my job is to have no patience with that and not care what what you meant. The only think I care about is what you said. If the text that you wrote says something other than what you meant, you should fix the text. We are writing an encyclopedia here and are supposed to be literate people. So we should at least be able write our policies in language that doesn't do violence to the normal rules of English. – Margin1522 (talk) 20:41, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Margin1522, you said: "I could argue it's OK to add the reliable secondary source that I wrote myself, even though my primary motive was to sell more copes of my book". No, I am afraid that's not possible. For those we have WP:SELFPUBLISH and WP:UGC, according to which: "Anyone can create a personal web page or publish their own book, and also claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published media [...] are largely not acceptable as sources." Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 15:55, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Jayaguru-Shishya, your dismissal of a book written by a wikipedian incorrectly presumes the wikipedia published the book through a vanity press; I know of at least one wikipedian who has published trough well-known publishers, and at least one other who has published in scholarly journals. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:05, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Reliable has more than one meaning when used as an adjective and according to the OED you are using one from a statistical derivation. It use in "reliably published" is 1.a of the OED definition:

A. adj.

1. That may be relied on.

a. Of a person, information, etc.: able to be trusted; in which reliance or confidence may be placed; trustworthy, safe, sure.

b. orig. U.S. Of a product, service, etc.: consistently good in quality or performance; dependable.

2. Statistics. Originally: accurate; free from error. In later use: (of a method or technique of measurement) that yields consistent results when repeated under identical conditions.

As I said if you think that is ambiguous phrase we can link it to WP:SOURCE which defines for better or worse what "reliably published" means in Wikipedia policy. --PBS (talk)

Again, sorry for being pedantic, but "reliable" is an adjective. "Reliably" is an adverb. If you want a word that modifies a noun (a source) use the adjective. If you want a word that modifies a verb, use the adverb. We are not arguing about policy here; this is grammar. – Margin1522 (talk) 21:30, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

OED reliably, adv. "In a way that may be trusted or relied on; in a reliable manner; dependably." -- PBS (talk) 22:13, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Fine. But as the examples I gave above show, "dependably published" means that they meet their deadlines. In normal usage it has nothing to do with fact checking or independence. It is the publishing that may be relied upon, not the publisher. If we want to say that the publisher may be relied upon, let say that. I bring this up because in an earlier discussion the normal English wording "reliable, published sources" was suggested and rejected in favor of the grammatically incorrect "reliably published". I don't know why. Perhaps because it left the publisher's fact-checking process out? If that's the reason I can understand that. The problem is that readers won't understand it. – Margin1522 (talk) 23:17, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

If you think that is ambiguous phrase we can link it to WP:SOURCE which defines what "reliably published" means in Wikipedia policy, this will allow editors, who are not aware of the [WP:SOURCES]] section in WP:V to follow the link. -- PBS (talk) 20:00, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

@Jayaguru-Shishya: I completely agree that a "reliable primary source" is not the same as a "primary source". However, that is irrelevant in this paragraph, because in this paragraph we are not about talking about how one primary source is different from another primary source. We are talking about how all primary sources differ from all secondary sources. Do you see the difference?

I am especially eager to make this clear because it is a very common misconception to think that "primary" means "not independent" and "secondary" means "independent". No. That is not what it means. It says in the policy "Primary sources may or may not be independent or third-party sources." (My emphasis). Is that OK? Do you agree with that? And do you still think that we should insist that independence is a key attribute of "primariness"? – Margin1522 (talk) 21:16, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

The paragraph you altered is not just about how primary sources differ from secondary sources, the paragraph is also defining how to extract information from a primary source, and that involves using reliable secondary sources which is a a subset of all possible types of secondary sources. -- PBS (talk) 22:13, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Greetings Margin1522! I never said that "independence is a key attribute of primariness". I clearly made the distinction in my post earlier[22], distinguishing between self-published primary sources and independent primary sources, as well as self-published secondary sources and independent secondary sources.

As you agreed, a "reliable primary source" is different from a mere "primary source"; the previous is consistent with the other WP policies, whereas the latter creates confusion over the matter. We should use the concise one that is less ambiguous and communicates the WP policy better. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 16:00, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

So you so want the Original Research policy to depend on the Verifiability and Neutrality policies. Among policies, a second-class citizen, so to speak. Can I give an example? Suppose we have an editor who wants to interpret Buddhist scriptures. We say, no you can't do that because that's original research. You need to get your interpretations from a secondary source. So he quotes from a book written by a scholar of Buddhist theology. Is that OK? No, it's still not OK because we have edit warriors on Wikipedia who object to the fact that this book was published by the publishing arm of a Buddhist new religion, and they disagree with the theology. That is, they have Neutrality concerns. This is the kind of problem that comes up when you mash all the policies together. The editor thought he was quoting a secondary source, which should be OK, and all of sudden we're embroiled in disputes over Buddhist theology. – Margin1522 (talk) 23:40, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

If the scholar's book is published by an independent publisher (e.g. some university press), then it's OK. If it's published through some religious affiliation movement, then we should look for a reliably published source instead. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 16:20, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Jayaguru-Shishya's position is untenable. If religious ideas can't be mentioned unless they are published by publishers with no religious affiliation, Wikipedia becomes hostile to religion. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:25, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

This seems to be more a matter of neutral point of view or even not accepting fringe theories than of original research. If we start to prefer some publishers over others, I can also argue that any US source talking about the US is almost certainly biased and should for that reason not be used. Let's keep the policies separate. Arnoutf (talk) 16:45, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Sources with some religious affiliation movement can be only used to a limited extent, and independent scholarly sources should be preferred whenever available. I've been editing Buddhism-related articles quite a bit, and I am not hostile to religion. Trust me, there's plenty of academic research on religious issues available.

Ps. There was a discussion at WikiProject Buddhism tangenting this subject. Anyway, I believe we are getting off track here, and this sort of discussion would belong to WT:IRS. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 16:48, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

This is really less straightforward than you assume. What do we do with Christian Universities? Should we exclude them and label the work of their scholars as unreliable? That would be weird, we would e.g. be forced to disregard any work of VU University Amsterdam which is ranked 144 best University in the world (!) in the Times Higher Education index. Arnoutf (talk) 16:57, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. This discussion belongs at WT:IRS. I completely agree with the comment by the closer of the (discussion at WikiProject Buddhism): "Where the source makes analytic or evaluative claims of other primary sources, it is a secondary source. It may or may not, upon its own merits, be a reliable secondary source." You can call it unreliable for any reason you like, but if makes analytic or evaluative claims it is Secondary. Period. Among editors who understand it, this policy is not controversial. It becomes controversial only when Secondary and Primary are misused as synonyms for "reliable" and "unreliable". – Margin1522 (talk) 19:17, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

@Arnoutf: Ooops...! I did mean to speak about "religious movement", not a "religious affiliation"! I wonder how I was so inconsiderate as I strongly emphasized that "the religious affiliation of a scholar should not matter" in the RfC at WikiProject Buddhism.

Anyway, here is my answer in short: If there is a scientific piece of work that has been published by some reliable institution, such as an university press, I don't really see a problem there. But if the same work is released through some revivalist movement's own publishing house, if you may, that's a whole different case already. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 08:52, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Just because something is published in a book does not make it reliable. I have seen many items by one professor in his books with no citation and can prove by citable sources that his "facts" are untrue. He does not cite to sources because he cannot; they do not exist!

I agree witht the person who has criticized this article on the basis of the “best evidence rule,” a legal principle. As an attorney, I have serious questions about the intellectual value of this policy. Surely, the best evidence is original research (unless we have a disagreement about the definition). Here is a specific example. I discovered a newspaper article about convicted pickpocket Abraham Greenthal, then using the alias of Myers, and attacking then Gov. (and President-elect) Grover Cleveland of New York for “pardoning” Greenthal. Here is but one of several citations: Wednesday, 10 December 1884, The Evening Journal, Jersey City, NJ, p. 4, col. 3. So I wrote to the New York State Archives for a copy of the “pardon.” What came back was a copy of his “commutation of sentence,” clearly so labelled, not a pardon, with the autograph signature of Gov. Grover Cleveland on it. See New York State Archives, Record Group A0597, Box 31, Folder 12. The folder contains an Application for Pardon cover sheet for Abraham Meyers. The pardon application was denied on Wednesday, 26 September 1883, but granted as a commutation on Friday, 16 May 1884. Meyers was one of Greenthal’s many known aliases. See, for example, Sunday, 26 November 1871, New York Times, “Grenthal Caught,” p. 3, col. 3, in which it states that he identifiied himself as Abraham Myers. Surely that is the best evidence of what happened and not the newspaper articles written by political enemies and ignorant copiers of what others wrote. There is a huge difference between a pardon and a commutation of sentence. When a pardon is issued, all citizenship rights are restored; when a commutation of sentence is issued, the convict remains a convicted criminal with no right to vote (at that time), and in this case, since it was at least his fourth felony conviction, the law enforcement community could simply stop, search, and detain the convict without a showing of probable cause. That was the law in New York State at the time. It was the Republican press that called the document a pardon, probably for political reasons. The rule, as expressed in the article shows a lack of understanding of what is the best evidence. Surely, it was a good thing that I obtained the original document, using “original research.” So far as I know, the "original document" has never been published, but no one can credibly deny that Gov. Grover Cleveland legally "uttered" it; it is the best evidence of the facts. Either the article is using words in a tortured manner or the concept is faulty altogether. The policy needs to be amended to take the best evidence rule into account. 73.129.214.54 (talk) 11:45, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

73.129.214.54, you didn't issue the commutation of sentence. You didn't interview Grover Cleveland and ask him about it. You relied on a source that is available to the public, so for Wikipedia purposes, is published. You didn't engage in original research, you engaged in source-based research. Also, old newspaper articles are often considered primary sources, so all the sources you found could be thought of as primary.

Also, your phrase "I agree witht the person who has criticized this article" is confusing. Wikipedia articles are the finished products we present to our readers. When you look at an article, the title will just be the title; it is in what we call the main namespace. The "Wikipedia:No original research" policy is not an article, it is a project page, and it is in the "Wikipedia:" namespace. I hope I have correctly understood which page you are referring to. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:14, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Closing lame loopholes

WP:PSTS had a silly loophole in it, which lead to some actual confusion (see Wikipedia talk:Use of tertiary sources#Interpreting NOR differently), and could in theory lead to someone actually attempting to WP:GAME the discrepancy, in any of at least four ways.

The policy section said the same thing twice, in different wording:

• Somewhat precise: 'All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source [...]'
• Vague: 'Articles may make an analytic or evaluative claim only if that has been published by a reliable secondary source.'

The vague version had two loopholes:

1. It accidentally allowed "interpretive" and "synthetic" claims, while disallowing only "analytic" and "evaluative" ones, to be cited to primary and tertiary sources (I just also noticed the first one omitted "evaluative", so we have a two-way loophole.)
2. It didn't actually require a citation, only the known fact or perhaps even deductively reasoned assumption that such a source "has been published".
   1. At the discussion I linked to above, someone seriously argued that any tertiary reliable sources can be used to source these kind of claims, because reliable tertiary sources summarize reliable secondary sources, so we can "assume" that the claim must have been published in a secondary source at some point.
   2. It could also be used to reason that if an ostensibly reliable primary source had such a claim in it, and itself cited a secondary source the editor doesn't have on hand, then citing the primary source which cites the secondary source would satisfy this policy, without WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT being triggered.
   3. And, if an ostensibly reliable source was published, but later retracted an error, or was superseded by a later edition with a different claim in it, someone might argue to keep the obsolete version, because it "had been" published. I've actually encountered similar arguments to this, in the form of resistance to updating citations to refer to a newer edition of a source, even though I was the one doing all the work to check them, fix page numbering, etc. "The original edition was reliable enough" went the reasoning.

None of these are practical arguments of course, but people will waste a lot of editorial time arguing about this kind of thing. Just dealing with the one case linked above has cost plenty of time I would have rather spent on something more productive today.

The vague version also didn't make sense in another, less serious, way. Nothing is published "by" a source; sources are published by publishers, and claims are published in sources. A further, trivial, problem was the weird back-and-forth syntactic structure of "interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims" in the first case.

I fixed all of this by normalizing the two passages (with some exceptions, pending further discussion):

• Clearer than before: 'All analyses and interpretive or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source [...]'
• Not vague any longer: 'Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if that has been referenced to a reliable secondary source.'

I'm not sure why the policy was saying the same thing twice anyway, but at least it's doing so more consistently and less confusingly now.

One remaining interpretational issue is that the first of these (in the original version and my version) limits its applicability to claims "about primary sources", while the second does not, and would seem to broaden its applicability to cover anything in an article, which I think is the actual intent. I shouldn't be able to make such a claim about secondary source material without being able to back it up either, nor about any series of isolated facts, whatever their disparate sources. If the broader meaning is intended, the narrower statement in the other passage is apt to be used to try to game it, and such attempts might even be successful, on the basis that the more specific wording intentionally "clarifies" the broader version.

Another maybe-issue is that the first of the two sentences does not state that the secondary source be reliable, but perhaps this is not problematic in the context.

Also for further resolution is whether the four-point consolidated list, "analytic, evaluative, interpretive, synthetic" should be compressed. Are any of these words redundant? I think I'd be in favor of dropping "evaluative", as essentially redundant with "analytic" but also suggestive of value-laden POV, which we're supposed to avoid. I left this word out of the sentence that didn't already have it. I also like "analyses" better than "analytic claims", because the former is broader. I left it in the passage it originated in, but did not add it to the second one.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:31, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi User:SMcCandlish. Just dropped by to leave a few comments (the numeration is corresponding yours):

1. Does it? To me, neither of the passages seem "vague". They allow interpretive, analytic, synthetic and evaluative claims about primary sources only if they are referenced by a reliable secondary source. I can't see the two passages really disallowing "analytic" or "evaluative" ones. Besides, WP policies are to be interpreted as a whole, not as some separate fortresses fighting against each other.
2. "...published by a reliable secondary source", in contrast to being self-published (WP:UGC) or being published by advocate group, or a group without any expertise on the field. I can't see a problem with that either.
   1. Let them argue, but it's not alone a reason for policy change. WP:TERTIARY explicitly states that: "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are appropriate on any given occasion is a matter of good editorial judgment and common sense, and should be discussed on article talk pages." So you could just have pointed out to the specific editor(s) that not just "any" tertiary source shall do, but instead it's a matter of editorial and communal judgement.
   2. How I've always understood this, is that the primary source should be referred to in a reliable secondary source, not the other way. In other words, we might sometimes want to have a more in-depth interpretation of a reliable secondary source by actually using the details provided in a primary source, but that's been already used in the secondary source we have.
   3. This is everyday reality with MEDRS articles, and if we have two high-quality sources making different claims about the same subject, we are inclined to favor the more recent one. If the more recent one is of a lower-quality, however, we might stick to the older one. I don't think it's good enough reason for a policy change if you have encountered some editors arguing against. Have you asked for WP:THIRDOPINION, or an opinion of some experienced editor/administrator perhaps?

Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 12:12, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

@Jayaguru-Shishya:

1. One sentence says one thing, one says something considerably different in multiple ways. The one requires publication, the other requires citation of the publication. The first imposes limits on some categories of use, the other limits different, partially overlapping categories of use. I didn't say both were vague, I said one in particular was, obviously by implying that publication somewhere was sufficient, without an actual citation to that source (vs. a tertiary source that in turn cited it). That's the crux of the matter. I agree that policy should be interpreted as a whole, but I also linked directly to a case of this not happening (in good faith, not a gaming attempt). This example case is not the reason for the edit, just an illustrative case. If a policy is unclear enough, due to a minor wording self-contradiction like this one, to lead a logically-minded, experienced (and policy-experienced) Wikipedian to such an incorrect interpretation of policy, then the obvious and painless solution is to resolve the self-contradiction in the wording. It forestalls recurrence (and spread) of the misinterpretation, instead of blindly hoping it doesn't happen again, or not caring about the editorial time wasted when it happens again. It may be much worse than wasted time: It's highly probable that any editor with such an interpretation is actually making edits based on it, mostly undetected by anyone else – i.e., is improperly sourcing actual articles already, and will continue to do so unless and until the policy wording problem is resolved. So, this is not about an argument on a talk page. And the incorrect interpretation is neither crazy nor trivial to refute. It cost me several hours to research all the content policies in detail to refute it conclusively. The rubric that policy should be interpreted as a whole has real productivity costs when policy is unclear (and in this case unclear for no actual reason; it's just a gradual failure to keep two similar passages in agreement with each other).
2. I've already addressed why the "published by" wording is faulty in multiple ways. I feel that you have not closely read what I posted. Moving on, nothing about normalizing the two passages to both refer to citation, not just alleged existence, of the source would do anything to any WP:UGC/WP:SPS analysis. (Since a secondary source is, by definition, published [among other qualities], and we must actually cite it, then restating here that the secondary source "has been published" is pointless. It's worse than pointless, because it's come at a cost, of failing to say that the source also has to be cited directly. UGC/SPS material is a primary source, by definition, so it's automatically excluded regardless.) I thus see no actual objection rationale here.
   1. Copyediting to resolve inclarities in wording is not a "policy change"; nothing about the meaning of the policy would be changed in any way. Do you revert every copyedit to policy pages? Surely not. Your point about tertiary sources is non-responsive to the actual discussion I linked to, in which the "published by" language leads to an interpretation that secondary and tertiary sources can be evaluated for NOR purposes as if they are equivalent. Again, it seems to me that you are justifying your revert by making assumptions about what has been posted, rather than reading it closely to see what it actually says.
   2. I agree, of course, but that's not related to what I said. Please read it again more carefully. I'm not talking about citation, as a primary source, of a primary source that cited secondary sources. I'm talking about policy inclarity leading to an interpretation that a tertiary source (in the earlier point) or even primary source (in this point) which cites a secondary source can be treated as if it were WP itself citing the secondary source, for purposes of making analytic/evaluative/interpretive/synthetic claims. Aside: Your "How I've always understood this" comment highlights why I included a couple of illustrative examples (the discussion I linked to, and the case of people reverting upgrades of citations to newer editions of a source). Editors tend to rely on their own interpretations of policy, and we want to narrow those to a consensus interpretation, or we might as well not have policy at all. A rule that means something different to anyone who wants their own interpretation (like, to allow them to cite tertiary sources as if they were secondary) is not a rule, it's just noise.
   3. I'm glad we agree that obsolete source citations should be replaced, and that the need to do so is commonplace. I'm wondering, then, why you reverted a copyedit that reinforces this, then posted this talk page message which has not provided a clear rationale for reverting, and is largely unresponsive to the rationale for it. This numbered point, about updating citations, is illustrated by an example of the kind of lame dispute that can be avoided by copyediting the wording, but the example dispute is not the reason for the copyedit. The rationale for the copyedit is that the two lines of near-identical policy are conflicting sharply in their plain-English wording, and you have not controverted this fact, or that rationale. There is no need for WP:THIRDOPINION; this isn't (as you point out yourself) about any particular disagreement with any particular editor. Both parties in that case already qualify as "some experienced editor". What this is about is copyediting the two sentences so WP:PSTS is no longer self-conflicting, and such time-wasting debates do not continue.

I closed with :'None of these are practical arguments of course, but people will waste a lot of editorial time arguing about this kind of thing.' Your response the entire thread seems to consist mostly of also pointing out that those policy-misinterpreting arguments are not practical, while ignoring the point of the copyedit. Most everything in WP policies and guidelines was added to stop editors from doing things we know are unwise. Simply re-observing they're unwise is not a rationale for not having these rules.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:34, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm putting the copyedit back in, having addressed the only issued raised.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:55, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Can I use an educational institute's website to say it isn't accredited?

Raising this as "Cambridge Kipp" has just been removed from List of unrecognized higher education accreditation organizations.[23] I'd normally look for a source, but the only mention of accreditation or in this case accredited on their website says "The purpose of this document is to provide evidence that Cambridge KIPP is eligible to be accredited as an institute that offer a wide-spectrum of researches in different fields."[24] 'Doug Weller 09:21, 30 May 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs)

Probably not in this case as (a) I do see no claim on their website they claim to be an "accreditation organization" so they would most likely not belong on that list in any case. (b) The document you quote is talking about research not education accreditation (i.e. not the accreditation to pass diploma, but the accreditation to put in grants for specific types of research funding bodies). So the contents of the document appears not to be relevant to its educational aims. (and (c) the document is a primary source, so utmost caution in used should be applied) Arnoutf (talk) 10:35, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Oh I agree they shouldn't be on the list. And I agree about the document. They should be on List of unaccredited institutions of higher education. But I can't find an independent source saying they are unaccredited.

We need to be consistent. If a book can be the source for a statement that a certain thing is not in the book (see above), then an organisation's website can be a source for saying they don't mention something in their website. The problem I see is that our policy doesn't deal with this clearly. Doug Weller 10:41, 30 May 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs)

The problem is that not mentioning that you are accredited can only be interpreted as such (there is no mention of accreditation on their website). However an institution can be accredited without mentioning it. So in this case lack of evidence of accreditation cannot be interpreted as evidence of lack of accreditation. Arnoutf (talk) 12:01, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

The distinction that needs to be made here is the distinction between omission and commission. It is not Original research to leave an organization off a list (omission) based on lack of sources ... but it would be original research to include an organization on a list (commission) based on lack of sources... you need a source to actually support inclusion. Blueboar (talk) 15:49, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

User:Arnouff, are you saying that I can use the website as a source to state that the institutions website does not say that it is accredited? I take Blueboar's point about a list. Doug Weller (talk) 12:38, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Euhm yeah, but in what unbiased context would you want to use that? Not mentioning stuff on websites hardly seems evidence for anything.

In any case makes sure no to use it for anything like implicit synthesis, that is, if no accreditation is mentioned something is going on. To avoid a non-neutral point of view you should probably look at all websites of all educational institutions and consider all that do not mention accreditation under the same header. I had a quick look at the website of University of Oxford and could not find any reference to them being accredited......... So in my estimate we can extract no relevant information at all from an institution omitting such information. Arnoutf (talk) 13:05, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

That's not a good example, as it is a state university (with in this case a Royal Charter I believe)> So you wouldn't find the term accreditation. You'd have to compare it with private institutions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs) 14:02, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Most non-US universities would be bad examples, because most countries other than the US have meaningful regulation of universities by the government. In the US universities and colleges are allowed to award degrees without meaningful regulation by the states, so private accreditors are needed to assure quality. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:37, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Cambridge Kipp appears to be UK based. Arnoutf (talk) 14:59, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't see the relevance as it's a private institution. If UK law applies to it, then it can't grant degrees. You need authorisation from the Secretary of State, a Royal Charter or an Act of Parliament to grant degrees in the UK. Doug Weller (talk) 20:48, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Accreditation is a claim that must be reliably sourceable, as must "recognition" in whatever sense fits the inclusion criteria of the first list mentioned. I'm skeptical of the value or sourceabilty of negative lists like List of unrecognized higher education accreditation organizations and List of unaccredited institutions of higher education. They reverse the burden of proof, and would require proving a negative. That's not what WP is for.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:14, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

SMC is correct here... the problem lies in the fact that this is a negatively phrased list, and that makes verifiability difficult, if not impossible. Given the negatively phrased topic - "Not Accredited" becomes a claim that must be reliable sourced. If we can not find a source that says "X is not accredited" then we can not say "X is not accredited". The only option available to us is to remain silent on whether the institution is accredited or not... and silence would mean not including it on the list. Blueboar (talk) 19:44, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Publication by a Wikipedian?

If a Wikipedian writes and publishes a book that contains previously unverifiable information and the information is true, can that Wikipedian then add the information to Wikipedia and cite it using their book? Is that allowed? Is it considered OR? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.20.235.238 (talk) 12:51, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

It depends as OR is only one factor. Was the book published by a quality publisher (if it's self-published then OR basically applies)? What reception did the book have among experts in that field? Do the claims being cited differ greatly from the mainstream view? These points, along with conflict of interest guidelines, suggest the best course of action would be to first propose changes on the article's talk page. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:13, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

So if the book was published by a quality publisher and had decent reception and no outstanding claims and the Wikipedian wasn't in any financial or significant personal conflict of interest, then you'd think theoretically it may likely be allowable? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.20.235.238 (talk) 14:54, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I would say yes. It would be almost impossible to prevent this in any case, as most Wikipedians do not edit under their own name. We just have to use it as any other source if decently used (i.e. reliably published preferably secondary. No fringe views. No conflict of interest). Arnoutf (talk) 14:57, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Then it should be treated like any other potential source. Point five in this section of WP:EXPERT has helpful advice. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:00, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I swear one of these pages already covers this, in wording something to the effect that you can cite work that you've written and had reputably published, as long as you declare that it's yours, so others can evaluate whether you have a COI. I can't seem to find it, though. Anyway, WP:COI, WP:SOAPBOX, and WP:NPOV apply pretty clearly. WP isn't here for people to advance their own pet views on a topic. But we want subject-matter experts to edit WP, and they can't be banned from citing sources they're not entirely independent of, in a non-PoV-pushing way.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:16, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: Did you look at point five in the section I linked to? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 02:36, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Ah, that's it! I was searching for strings with "declare", and it was really "disclose".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:44, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Blueboar's History of Wikipeida Policies

The last few threads have made me think that it is time for another segment of "Blueboar's History of Wikipeida Policies" history lesson... Today's episode: A useful thing that the Policy used to say, but which got lost in rewrites.

Back in 2005 (or so) the policy noted that "Wikipedia should not be a Primary Source for information" (or words to that effect). I have always been sorry that this statement got lost in rewrites, because it did a lot to help explain the core concept of WP:NOR. the policy went on to explain that "Wikipedia should not be the first place to publish any information, because that would make Wikipedia the Primary source for that information."

This basic statement was actually the genesis of what is today the WP:PSTS section of the policy... it was felt that we needed to explain what a Primary source was... which in turn required explaining what a secondary and tertiary source was... And somewhere along the way, the explanations of primary secondary and tertiary took over, and the statement that they were originally written to explain got taken out. Unfortunately.

Would anyone object if I returned it (or something like it) to the Policy? Blueboar (talk) 00:53, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Isn't that now effectively covered under Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_publisher_of_original_thought? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:48, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps... but I think it also needs to be stated in this policy ... since it goes to the heart of why we don't want Original Research. Blueboar (talk) 02:08, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Blueboar's understanding of the original injunction against "Primary (original) research" and its subsequent (mis)interpretation as a ban on the use of primary sources is perfectly in line with what I was taught in grad. school, that primary sources are always to be preferred to secondary (we never touched tertiary.) — Robert Greer (talk) 01:55, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Different issues. It's a grad student's "job" to come up with novel syntheses of primary research, but doing so is inimical to WP's mission and purpose.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:49, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't go quite that far... Remember, this isn't Grad School. In academic writing (unlike Wikipedia) original research is actually encouraged. Schools want original thinking about, and novel interpretations of primary sources. Here on WP, we don't.

Wikipedia is a tertiary source. Our job as writers/editors is to summarize what other sources say about a topic. We should, and rely mostly on secondary sources for this... but not exclusively. It is sometimes appropriate to describe what the primary sources say - they can help add context to an article. However, we should do so with extreme caution, because it is very easy to (unintentionally) misuse primary sources in ways that constitute original research. So.... I agree with all the cautionary language about the use of primary sources. I definitely would not want to remove that. But, perhaps we do need to make it clearer that this is a caution, and not a ban. I also agree that we should have a (different) caution on the use of other Tertiary sources (as they are often overly superficial, and do not include nuances that secondary sources may contain). But again this is not a ban. What we really need to make clear is that Original research lies not in which type of sources we use... but in HOW we use them. Blueboar (talk) 02:51, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm wholeheartedly in agreement, and !vote to reinstate that statement. It's more relevant than ever now, since WP is in the top 3 search results for nearly everything, and often #1. It's the go-to source of quick, basic information for millions (billions?) of people, and we have a magnified responsibility, a decade later, to not foist off as fact anything that can't be verified or is pushing a point of view.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:46, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

OK... so where should we add it? Suggestions? Blueboar (talk) 02:51, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

In NOR's lead, as proposed below.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:58, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

For reference, here's what a primary source is, according to this policy WP:NOR.

• Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved. They offer an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on. Primary sources may or may not be independent or third-party sources. An account of a traffic accident written by a witness is a primary source of information about the accident; similarly, a scientific paper documenting a new experiment conducted by the author is a primary source on the outcome of that experiment. Historical documents such as diaries are primary sources.

It seems that the proposal would be understood just by editors who already understand this policy, so what's the point. For those that come to this policy page for help in understanding the policy, it would just make the explanation more complicated. Editors have a hard enough time understanding what a primary source is. I think we should be working towards making the policy more simple and easier to understand, than more complicated and abstruse. --Bob K31416 (talk) 03:23, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

It's routine for us to tie policies (and guidelines) to each other with cross references. So, the following would work fine, without adding any confusion, and help people find the relevant material in WP:NOT and WP:RS, which reduces rather than increases confusion: "Wikipedia is not a primary source for information." That's concise enough it can go right in the lead section of WP:NOR. I was tempted to put "for any information", but that's not quite true; WP can be a primary source for articles about WP itself, and pretty much nothing else. PS: WP:NOT#OR is a super-short summary of WP:NOR; having the point clearly stated in here isn't redundant with WP:NOT, but the other way around. And NOT is written in a summarizing, example-giving way, so that's fine.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:58, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Peculiar question about SYNTHESIS

I do not know If I'm asking this in the wrong place but I'll ask anyway. I would like neutral opinions on this matter, from the people who did not participate in the discussion where this question is mentioned.

If the following claim SYNTHESIS?

• A= "10 red apples are in a bowl, named a,b,c..etc"
• B= "we know all apples are red"
• A+B="apple named c is red"

Another example:

We know the following is correct.

• A="all members states of EU voted on the subject S"
• B="the subject S was sustained unanimously".
• C="Germany is EU member state"

Does the following statement constitutes SYNTHESIS?

• A+B+C = "Germany had voted in favor of subject S"

Can an article state the claim A+B+C based on separate claims A,B,C if we know those claims (sources) are correct. Note that there is not a single source that says anything specifically about Germany and its vote.

Furthermore, if we know A and B and we have a source that specifies the claim for apple c in the following was "apple c is red". Do the sources complement the source stating that apple c is red or are they completely irrelevant.

Furthermore, although we ( I presume, depends on the previous question) can't use the source B (together with A) to make an edit "apple c is red", because of SYNTHESIS. Can we use it to verify the other source that states: "apple c is green"? Can we, based on source B that says "all apples are red" ,which is undeniably correct, say that the source "apple c is green" (which has no footnote or any other clarification or argumentation in the new source) is not correct enough to enter the article, because it directly contradicts the stronger claim that "all apples are red". That would mean we have 2 sources and neither one can be used in the article, because they cancel each other. In the other case it would mean that source that states "apple c is green" can enter the article although the source expressing that claim has no footnotes or any other argument to sustain the claim, and it furthermore contradicts the undeniable claim "we know all apples are red". Asdisis (talk) 00:12, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I also intend to expand this analogy to the concrete matter in hand, however I think that firstly this analogy has to reach a conclusion without any outside context and any knowledge to which discussion it is connected. Thus I urge everyone who know which discussion is connected to this analogy NOT to state it here until we firstly resolve the analogy. I also urge everyone not to look at the context and focus just to the analogy. We will come to the concrete matter after we reach the conclusion regarding this analogy, so do not worry. If you intend to participate you won't miss anything, just do not look ahead for the context yet. Asdisis (talk) 08:50, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

You may have to restate your example... because what you give us isn't actually an example of SYNTHESIS. Source A states that c is red (since it says that there are 10 red apples - one of which is c)... Source B agrees that c is red (in this case because it states that all apples are red)... so A+B is actually agreement between two sources, not a synthesis. Blueboar (talk) 01:21, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

The example is as I stated it. I do not need to change it because I haven't purposed any answer, although I , for the purpose of the second question said that I take the answer to be SYNTHESIS, since otherwise the answer to that question is obvious. However you had misunderstood the source A. It does not state that c is red. It states that all apples in the bowl are red. It does not state anything specifically about c, and that is the core of my question. Source A nor any other source states anything specific about c. I know that there is only one conclusion A+B gives, the the apple c is red, however we are not discussing the general logic, but a specific Wikipedia's rule. Also I would like everyone's opinion if a RfC is needed. This question is important regarding another discussion which lacks objectivity in my opinion. I can give another analogy. I will add it to the top one. Asdisis (talk) 07:51, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Unless you are referring to a different apple named "c" Statement A does refer to apple "c" and describes it as red. "All" has no exceptions. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:57, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

On second thought I thik this is a rather important question, and I am making a RfC out of this discussion. I apologize if I'm doing the wrong thing according to wikipedia's rules, however I'm not completely familiar with wikipedia's rules. I'm making a RfC in good faith to resolve this question. Asdisis (talk) 08:50, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps a better example would be to ask what you really want to know. This is a great place to ask what you asked me on my talk page. Chillum 04:10, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

No. Please, I urge everyone not too look at the concrete subject in matter yet. I think this is a better way, because people are given an en example which does not bring any outside context. Of course I intend to bring the concrete example and we can then decide if my analogy is applicable or not to the concrete example. But for now I urge everyone not to look at your talk page and give their objective opinion regarding my question on this talk page. I would also like you restate your opinion and argument about the question on this talk page. I see that there is a disagreement even between experienced editors and I would like to resolve this question in the most objective way. That is why I had constructed an analogy and removed outside context. Also I do not know how to invite other editors, but I would like that a general consensus is reached regarding this question and more people are needed in this discussion. Asdisis (talk) 07:51, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors hardly ever read sources composed like logic exercises in a computer science book. The real authors of real sources will feel that if they wrote something that allows the trivial conclusion that the apple named "c" is red, then they have effectively stated that c is read, and there is no need to waste paper and ink explicitly giving a list "A is read, b is red, c is red, d is red, e is red, f is red, g is red, h is red, i is red, and j is red". Making obvious, trivial conclusions from material contained within a single source isn't synthesis, it's reading. Jc3s5h (talk) 10:54, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I appreciate your opinion. However the real claim is more complex for your explanation to be applicable, but the analogy stands. Stay tuned, in an appropriate time I will go from analogy to the real case, which is as it always is with real examples, more complicated. Then we firstly we will have to decide (1) if the analogy is applicable, or I had constructed a wrong analogy (2) if the real example is the case of SYNTHESIS. Thank you again, stay tuned. I won't answer to each person who states his opinion not to clog the discussion, and I'll wait until an appropriate number of experienced editors states their opinion, then I'll introduce the real example. Asdisis (talk) 13:17, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

...and while we're waiting [25]. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:39, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Regarding your second example (Germany voting for S)... As you have presented it, without being able to review the sources and the context in which they make the statements, I would have to say that the conclusion is synthetic. We need a source to put the pieces together and affirmatively state that Germany voted for S because it is a member of the EU and all EU states voted unanimously in favor of S.

However, I strongly suspect that reality would never be as abstract as the example you give. In reality, all these statements would be made in some sort of context - and context is important. For example... I would find it highly unlikely that Source B would state "S was sustained unanimously" without context that made it clear who was doing the voting (the EU members, including Germany). And if such context is present, then Source B (on its own) is probably enough... we can state "Germany voted in favor of S <cite source B>".

This is why we keep asking you to be more specific. To give any meaningful answer to a question about synthesis, we need to examine the statements in terms of reality... a real article, and real sources... we have to look at the cited sources to see what else the sources say, and the context in which they say it. Blueboar (talk) 16:37, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Imagine that we have a source stating that "the subject S was sustained unanimously by all EU member states". In fact, that will be the case in the real situation i intend to present. The real case will be presented in due time. I thought this is a better way to deal with the issue Asdisis (talk) 19:04, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Spoiler Alert!

See discussion at Talk:Nikola Tesla re Tesla's citizenship. I just now added a {{citation needed}} to the article [26].

Update: an editor responded to the {{cn}} and added a cite,[27][28] which I modified[29][30] to this:

W. Bernard Carlson (2013). Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age. Princeton University Press. p. 138. ISBN 978-0691057767. ...Tesla decided it was time for him to become an American citizen. ... As his former nationality he listed 'Austrian,'...</ref>

More update: I added a subsection Reliable sources — Tesla to the RfC at the talk page over there.

--Bob K31416 (talk) 17:04, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Let's not jump ahead. I'm sorry you had seen the real example before you stated your opinion on the question asked above. You would not have been bounded to that question of you feel my analogy is not applicable. I purposed this way of dealing with the question to make a more objective discussion. Since I put it this way, people may be tempted to jump ahead, but please bare with me. ;) Asdisis (talk) 19:04, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I apologize for the number of my comments. I'm just trying to be helpful, but I will try to reduce them to minimum so this topic does not get clogged. Asdisis (talk) 19:09, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

In my view Blueboar has a valid point. Complex socio-political issues (like EU voting) is much more context dependent than colours of apples. Your analogy between the two only works if statements A and B are universally accepted and not open to context or other interpretations in either of the cases. While I think we can safely assume this for apples, for EU voting this assumption is not trivial. Arnoutf (talk) 19:50, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

• On the original question (I've not read all the back-and-forth about how it might apply to whatever case someone's having a dispute about), I concur with Blueboar that the first example, in basic logic terms, indicates agreement between two sources, not a synthesis. We basically could not write anything but single-source articles, otherwise. See also WP:NOTSYNTH. I don't agree with him that the case being expanded to include, e.g. EU voting, introduces so much interpretation or complexity that it constitutes synth (if I'm understand him correctly). Such determinations are going to be case-by-case. It's definitely not categorically synth. The EU example is presumptively valid encyclopedia writing; it would need a showing that the source is less reliable than thought, by using some idiosyncratic redefinition of "members states of EU". This sort of issue comes up every day, and is usually resolved through discussion of the sources on the article talk page. For a real-world example of how SYNTH can arise easily in the kinds of cases Blueboar is right to point out can be problematic, see Territorial claims in the Arctic. One source indicates that five nations "signed" the UNCLOS agreement. It would have been a mistake to reword this as "ratified", an easy mistake for a non-expert to make; two other sources demonstrate that one signatory nation hasn't actually ratified it yet. We're encouraged to write WP in our own wording, not plagiarize, but this has to be done carefully or it can accidentally result in SYNTH.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:53, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

I remind you that there are two questions asked above. Maybe it is better I give an example.

We have a general source that says S is either A D (those are to words) , B D, or C D. We assume this is correct. Not we have a source that says s (specific case of S , like apple a from a bowl of all apples) is D. Can we use the first source to say that the second source is ambiguous and that we can not draw any conclusion from it. I'll again present the real case in this matter as well. Asdisis (talk) 08:17, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Again, you are not really presenting us with a synthetic situation ... we simply have two sources that say somewhat different things... and you are asking us to choose between them - or at least to determine how much weight we should give to each source. That isn't a WP:NOR question, but one of comparative reliability and Neutral point of view. And for that we definitely need to look at the real life sources. Blueboar (talk) 11:26, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

It seems to me that you may be presenting an overly simplistic example when the real situation is more complex. For those that want to cut past the hypothetical and get to the actual matter at hand you can look at: User_talk:Chillum#Tesla's citizenship discussion.

The question of somebody's citizenship in a time of chaos is a much more complex issue than the colour of apples. I think it is an excellent example of synthesis. Chillum 18:04, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Please, I know the approach may not be the best one, but you should respect it. I've added a spoiler. Asdisis (talk) 19:27, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Please do not fold, spindle, mutilate, or hat my comments again. This is not your talk page. Chillum 19:49, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I'm not allowed to do that? Well then I must say that your act has made me present the real example now, although I do not have time to do it properly now. I had other plans instead of putting this example together now, and I specifically plead not to reveal the real example yet, so people can firstly thing about the abstraction. I don't know why you did that, but it's not correct towards me who now had to stay home and deal with this matter now. Asdisis (talk) 21:00, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry if you did not like that. However this is a community discussion board and you don't get to frame the discussion or decide in what manner it goes forward. I found your abstractions to be false analogies at best and a waste of peoples time at worst. I think an informed community is more likely to come up with a good answer and that your abstractions will only result in confused hypothetical answers that will likely be misapplied. Chillum 21:08, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Ok, but I said that no one is bounded by the abstract example. Everyone else respected the process. Well, now it's over, but I just wanted to state that your act caused me a great deal of trouble. Asdisis (talk) 10:54, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

If the approach is not the best one, we should not use it. You keep trying try to make an analogy between a complex social issue - that heavily depends on specific context and point of view of the different sources - and a simple one. That does not work, and your unwillingness to accept that your analogy contains a fundamental flaw (or providing case specific evidence why it does not) makes this discussion going around in circles. Arnoutf (talk) 19:45, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Aargh. Ethnicity is involved. That is one of the most ill-defined concepts around. Ethnicity ranges from everywhere between racial ethnicity to self-perceived identification with a specific cultural group. In addition nationality is involved in a late 19th century context, a time when the current concept of nationalism was still evolving, so using the current definition for people from that time (especially those from non-nation states like Austria Hungary) is hopelessly convoluted.

In this context your examples would better be represented as

We know the following is correct.

*A="all members states of EU voted on the subject S" (but we do not agree on the definition of states, membership of EU and what exactly voting is)

*B="the subject S was sustained unanimously". (but we do not agree on the definition of unanimous, and we are pretty sure that sustained is not exactly the same as voting in support of)

*C="Germany is EU member state" (but we probably use a different definition for state and membership compared to statement A)

In this case I would say the conclusion that Germany voted in favour is definitely synthesis. Arnoutf (talk) 19:57, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

No it's not about ethnicity, but nationality. Nationality is a strictly defined concept and a set of well defined rules was used to define someone's nationality, because it was not done for specific case separately, but it was presumed. This is not ill defined as ethnicity. Anyways we are not having a discussion about it, but we are discussing wikipedia's rule, so the subject in the matter is irrelevant. Look at the real example below, you will see. The read discussion regarding this question is not this one so please let's not engage into resolving the question of another discussion, but let's determine if my question is a case of SYNTHESIS. Regarding your answer, you changed the question. In the real example the question of citizenship is strictly and well defined. Asdisis (talk) 21:09, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

People can and did change nationality. Just because you found some rule somewhere about the default nationality of certain types of people does not mean you can claim a specific person had that nationality. Strictly defined is exactly what nationality was not at the time. You are making assumptions. Chillum

Let's not go into the discussion. If you go to the discussion you can see I already found 2 sources that speak specifically of Tesla. One states that Tesla was "of Croatian origin" and the other put him in the "Croat" group. I should make one more question. If one source claims he was Austrian and other Croatian, then I think the more specific source is more valuable. Croatian is as specific as it gets, and Austrian incorporates Croatian, as all people in Austro-Hungary had a common Austrian citizenship, and then further Austrian or Hungarian national and further Croatian, Hungarian,...etc local citizenship. I will make third question, and I hope you won't regard this as a disruption because I posted so many comments in this discussion. Asdisis (talk) 21:23, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

So, someone of Croatian origin / Croat cannot have been citizen of any other nationality? I am not speaking about Tesla here, but in general. Sure one can be, let's say, Albanian origin but still have been a German citizen for his entire life. Moreover, please notice that "Austrian" is different from "Austrian citizenship". Trust me, there are people "of Croatian origin" who have Austrian citizenship even nowadays ;-) Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 15:36, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

The real example

I see some people are anxious so it's maybe time to go to the real example. We have 2 questions here, both regarding synthesis. I still urge everyone not to look at the discussion yet, but first to think about this question and give an answer.

1) If we take the following claim to be correct. "from 1861, local citizenship was constituted and it was determined by belonging[birth, marriage, residing for at least 10 years..etc] to a certain municipality [retrospectively]". In another words "all people who belong to a certain municipality have local citizenship C".

And if we know (this is not questioned) that person P was born, and lived in a certain municipality from his birth to 1861 and some time after.

Does the claim "person P has local citizenship C" constitute a came of synthesis?

This is the question 1

2) If the sources prove that (we take that to be true for this discussion) 2 forms of citizenship existed, national and local citizenship. National citizenship can be Austrian or Hungarian (with the other name of Croatian-Hungarian). Local citizenship can be Austrian,Hungarian, Croatian-Slavonian...etc..Furthermore we know that all people from Austro-Hungary were viewed by foreign counties as the same political nation with the name Austrian. We all this take to be true for this discussion.

If we have a source that claims "person p has Austrian citizenship", without any further explanation or any footnote. Exactly like this. This I haven't simplified.

Can we state in the article that person p has Austrian citizenship, although sources claim that Austrian national, Austrian local citizenship exists, and furthermore that any person from Austro-Hungary (with Austrian or Hungarian national citizenship) is regarded by foreign counties as "Austrian".

So one sources tell the general story about the question of citizenship, and one sources state a specific claim about a certain person without explaining to which form of Austrian citizenship it is talking about or if it even is talking about citizenship or it is stating the "Austrian" in the sense foreign counties see both Austrians or Hungarians. So a person with Hungarian citizen would be stated as Austrian citizen in US documents and the source would say that person p declared himself as Austrian citizen in US documents. Is it wrong to state that person p has Austrian citizenship on the grounds of ambiguity? Asdisis (talk) 20:26, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Both assumption 1 AND 2 are unlikely to be completely unchallenged, and the definitions may have evolved in the last 150 years. So we should stick with reliable secondary sources that make these combinations and not do so ourselves. Arnoutf (talk) 20:37, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

But please, let's concentrate on the question of wikipedia's policy. We take those claims to be true for this purpose. If you want you can join the discussion . It would certainly be helpful to have more objective people in this complex discussion. Asdisis (talk) 20:56, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Okay. First, what would the sentence be like that you suspect to be WP:SYN? I guess you had some sort of construction in your mind. Second, can you provide the exact quotes for each three claims? Sometimes simplified analogies are good, but not always. When it comes to the complexity of real world, you might quickly run into "omitted variable bias", if you may. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 20:44, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

If "person P has local citizenship C" a SYNTHESIS from the claim "from 1861, local citizenship was constituted and it was determined by belonging[birth, marriage, residing for at least 10 years..etc] to a certain municipality". This is the main question. Note that we are talking about Wikipedia's policy, and we are not engaging into determining whether the initial claim is correct. The reason is that some people on the talk page claim that this example constitutes SYNTHESIS. Their argumentation is, as I have understood is, "if Tesla is not mentioned specifically, it is a case of SYNTHESIS", regardless of the claim. Asdisis (talk) 20:56, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is SYN. If the sources do not specificly state "X is a citizen of Y", we cannot take content from multiple sources to make the claim. Its is clear SYN - particularly under a situation where citizenship rules are changing. It is the clear example of taking content from multiple sources to advance a claim that is not specifically made by any of the sources. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:01, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer, please don't forget the other question, although I did not construct it so the question is if it constitutes an example of SYNTHESIS. Unfortunately I was hurried so I did what I could. The other question is regarding the sources that speak of the general question of citizenship and their role in the verification of the specific claim. Asdisis (talk) 21:12, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

3) I will add a third question. How many specific sources are needed to prove the general case. The general case defined 3 kinds of citizenship. I already asked what we can conclude if one source says Austrian. This question is the same but it deals with the most specific citizenship, local citizenship. If I have a source that says Tesla was of "Croatian origin" is this source in clash with the source that states Tesla had "Austrian" citizenship taking into consideration the sources that explain in general the question of citizenship.

Imagine if we had several (only fer 2,3 sources) source that state "Austrian" (which is in my case ambiguous) and some sources that state "Croatian" (now only one source states "of Croatian origin"). What to state in the article. Nothing, Austrian or Croatian?

Note that sources are sparse and I haven't yet studied Croatian sources that may deal with the question more extensively than foreign sources that only mention "Austrian" or "Croatian" in one sentence without further explanations or any footnote. Asdisis (talk) 21:30, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

• I have to apologize once again. I was hurried into constructing the real example yesterday so I forgot to present the most important example that the abstract examples (apples, Germany) were derived from.

(4)If we have a source that says "All people living in Austrian Empire up to 1867 had Austrian citizenship". We take that claim to be true. If we know Tesla lived his whole life up to 1867 in Austrian Empire, does the claim "Nikola Tesla had Austrian citizenship from his birth to 1867" constitute a case of SYNTHESIS? Asdisis (talk) 12:49, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is SYNTHESIS. I would only object to it if I wasn't reasonably sure that the synthesis was true. WP:IAR. I would let consensus decide whether or not to put it into the article. --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:40, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

(5)The other example is: if we have a source that says "All people living in the lands of Hungarian crown of the Austrian Empire in 1867 gained Hungarian(Croatian-Hungarian) citizenship". We take that claim to be true. If we know Tesla lived his whole life in the lands of Hungarian crown up to 1867 and several years after, does the claim "Nikola Tesla had Hungarian(Croatian-Hungarian) citizenship after 1867" constitute a case of SYNTHESIS? Asdisis (talk) 13:07, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is SYNTHESIS. I would only object to it if I wasn't reasonably sure that the synthesis was true. WP:IAR. I would let consensus decide whether or not to put it into the article. (same answer as above) --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:40, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

• Notice that there are 5 questions here. I apologize for that, but I was hurried into constructing the case earlier that I had planned, because one editor had revealed the topic although I plead to deal with the abstract example first. It would be of great help to resolve this 5 questions. Note that we are not having a discussion about Tesla's citizenship. We are having a discussion about Wikipedia's rules. Some people already went in the wrong way stating that "People can and did change nationality. Just because you found some rule somewhere about the default nationality of certain types of people does not mean you can claim a specific person had that nationality. Strictly defined is exactly what nationality was not at the time. You are making assumptions.", or "Aargh. Ethnicity is involved. That is one of the most ill-defined concepts around. Ethnicity ranges from everywhere between racial ethnicity to self-perceived identification with a specific cultural group." or "Both assumption 1 AND 2 are unlikely to be completely unchallenged" This and comments like this are regarding the discussion about Tesla's citizenship, and we are not having that discussion here. Thus is why we take certain claims that speak of the general case of citizenship to be true, so we can determine if the claim about a specific case constitutes SYNTHESIS. Note that the user TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom is the only one that had the right approach. His answer that "If the sources do not specificly state "X is a citizen of Y", we cannot take content from multiple sources to make the claim. Its is clear SYN" does not go into the real discussion about Tesla's citizenship but deals with SYNTHESIS. Unfortunately, since a certain user has hurried the discussion we haven't heard this user's opinion on the abstract examples thus I would like to ask him to answer those questions as well. From this explanation I would conclude that, in the abstract example with apples, his opinion is that that case constitutes SYNTHESIS as well. I think it is obvious why I started with abstract examples, because people already went the wrong way, to the discussion about Tesla's citizenship which is not this discussion. Asdisis (talk) 13:07, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

I responded to (4) and (5) above, based on the premises you gave for those hypothetical cases. I think I chose those two items because they seemed to be the ones that were simplest. Looking at the others too, I'll try to make a statement regarding this type of situation in general.

Regarding adding material to a Wikipedia article, it should adhere to Wikipedia policy WP:NOR. In rare cases, material that does not can be added anyway according to WP:IAR, but only if it has consensus. On the other hand, regarding keeping out of an article questionable material that has a reliable source, that is possible per Wikipedia policy section Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion.

In the particular case you are concerned with, having to do with adding that Tesla has some citizenship prior to 1891 other than Austrian, you don't seem to have a reliable source that says that specifically about Tesla, and there doesn't seem to be a consensus that it should be included anyways according to WP:IAR. So I don't think you can put it in the article. Regarding Tesla's Austrian citizenship, that is supported by a reliable source that specifically applies to Tesla, and there seems to be a consensus that this should be in the article. I think this issue of Tesla's citizenship prior to 1891 is too complex and controversial for Wikipedia editors to try to determine themselves without reliable sources about Tesla, and we should go with the available reliable sources that are specifically about Tesla. In other words, for this case I think we should follow WP:NOR, rather than WP:IAR. --Bob K31416 (talk) 18:20, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

With due all respect, I think the apple example was rather a poor one. First of all, we would have to ask, "is the substance of apples permanent, or can it be substantiated?" For example, citizenship can be changed from one to another, but the substance of apple can be not. And I guess that's what you failed to take in account in your analogy. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 15:40, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinion. However you had dealt with the other discussion. Here we only need to reach a conclusion regarding the 5 questions and Wikipedia's policy. One question asks if the sources that speak of general case can help us with interpreting the sources that speak of Tesla. If one source states that Tesla "states Austrian citizenship" and the general sources state that "he would be obligated to state Austrian citizenship even if he had Hungarian citizenship" and that the context of the word "Austrian" in general is not regarding citizenship but "common affiliation that would appear to foreign states". Also I asked if the following constitutes a case of "guessing". One source says "Tesla had Austrian citizenship", other sources say "there existed common affiliation[(not citizenship)] to the empire named Austrian the would be used in foreign affairs, Austrian and Hungarian national citizenship, and Austrian, Hungarian, Croatian-Slavonian...local citizenship". So, is it to ambiguous to state "Austrian citizenship" in the article. Furthermore the source does not say "had Austrian" but "stated Austrian" which is a significant difference if we take into consideration that other sources say Austrian was states in international affairs in the context of common affiliation to the empire, and not in the context of citizenship. I will advocate against such interpretations that go against what the other sources that speak of citizenship in general say. And lastly, we had again gone into the wrong discussion. Also I'm afraid I will be accused of disruption and banned because I posted too many comments in this discussion. I apologize for that, but I'm trying to be helpful. Asdisis (talk) 19:44, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

After all the discussion of these various issues, here and elsewhere, how would you assess the consensus of Wikipedia editors regarding what you are advocating? --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:28, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that consensus in such discussions with high nationalistic tensions has to be determined among objective arguments and sources. As I found out it is mostly determined by voting and thus we have problems. Asdisis (talk) 12:46, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

The consensus system is what is used to determine what goes into Wikipedia articles. This doesn't mean that the consensus is necessarily right for a particular issue. If the consensus is against an edit, and there seems to be little or no hope of changing that decision with more discussion, I think it's best to leave the discussion and move on. --Bob K31416 (talk) 19:23, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

• COMMENT - Why are we still arguing about Tesla's nationality? This is a debate that has been going on for almost 10 years.

Here is my solution to he whole debate... Omit it. It does not matter what Tesla's ethno-nationality was... or whether saying he was X or Y is original research. Unless his ethno-nationality was a defining characteristic for Tesla himself (and I would argue that it wasn't) then there is no need to mention it in the first place. So... I would suggest that we simply omit discussing his ethno-nationality... completely. If we don't state his ethno-nationality then there is nothing to argue about, It woun't matter whether claiming him as an X or Y is original research, because we won't include any claim. I think it is enough to simply state that he was born in X town ... moved to Y city in Z year ... etc? Those are uncontested facts that all sides can agree on... There is no need to put contentious entho-national labels on those basic facts. Blueboar (talk) 13:57, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

We are not. This is only the real example in this discussion about Wikipedia's rules. This is exactly why I started with an abstract example. I would appreciate if everyone could give their opinion of all 5 questions. Asdisis (talk) 16:47, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

abstract examples are meaningless... context always matters. Blueboar (talk) 17:48, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

That is why I always intended to present the real example. I thought we can start with abstract so not to get involved into the wrong discussion. I never wanted to show the real discussion. The real example would then be just like another abstract example but this time with context, however people spoiled that intent and introduced prejudice. That much is obvious from comments like "Aargh. Ethnicity is involved.". Let's concentrate on the 5 questions that are to be resolved by this discussion. Asdisis (talk) 17:56, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Abstract examples only work if the translation of a word to an abstract term is uncontested. My "aargh ethnicity" comment was to underline that the term ethnicity is among the words where the abstract underlying idea is about most contested of all words I know. Hence abstraction of that specific term out of context is impossible. Basically this follows all the previous. Without the context we do not know whether the abstraction can be upheld. Now we know the context, we can say the abstraction most likely cannot be upheld Arnoutf (talk) 18:55, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Concur. Using an abstract example when you're really talking about an active debate can only be interpreted as disruptive, as intending a "Ah-ha! Gotcha!" moment. That's not helpful anywhere and especially not here. Ravensfire (talk) 19:47, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Ditto. I also concur with Blueboar that the obvious solution is to eliminate the conflict by not trying to shoehorn Tesla into some kind of ethno-nationalistic category.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:47, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree only in the way that the questions that are ambiguous and not found in sources are to be removed from the article. For instance it is stated that Tesla is Serbian-American scientist and a bunch of sources state him as Croatian, or Yugoslav scientist. The Serbian-American also neglects that Tesla by nationality was Croatian-Hungarian. The discussion of high nationalistic tensions is hardly to be determined by consensus. Asdisis (talk) 12:46, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

• FYI... Asdisis got himself blocked for POV pushing at the Tesla article. I think we can end the discussion now. Blueboar (talk) 23:14, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Important question which has to be resolved

I made a separate section because this question is of at most importance to prevent similar discussion to the one about Tesla's citizenship.

• The last question. I'm sorry but this is the last question about SYNTHESIS. It is rather important. I thank you all for your participation and I'm glad I had the fortune to participate in such objective discussion. We had reached some conclusions that will resolve another hard discussion.

(6) If source A says "Hungary, moreover, promised to help Croatia to obtain both Dalmatia and Military Frontier Province, still under Austrian control. The latter territory, after many delays, was incorporated in Croatia in 1881". Note the word "control", which is ambiguous by itself, because Military frontier could be in legislative sense territory of the Kingdom of Croatia, but under Austrian (military) control. This word brings context upon which all who participated had insisted. If source B says "Nikola Tesla was born in Military frontier". Is the conclusion "Nikola Tesla was not born in Croatia" a case of SYNTHESIS. I must note this is a rather important question because the answer to it can prevent another exhausting discussion like the one of Tesla's citizenship. Asdisis (talk) 22:50, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

I would suggest avoiding even the potential for OR by simply saying: "Tesla was born in what is today Smiljan, Croatia" (bolding added here to highlight my point). That turns the statement of his birthplace into a non-contentious fact of modern geography... without even hinting at the potentially synthetic issue of what his birthplace means in terms of his nationality or citizenship. Blueboar (talk) 14:01, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

But let's not get into a different discussion. For now the conclusion about the above question would resolve the problem of walls of texts and it would direct the discussion to come to presenting sources about Tesla. If majority of sources tell Tesla was born in Croatia, and if Tesla himself stated that, I do not see any problem stating Croatia in the article. I have no contempt towards Croatia, but others do. The formulation "what is today Croatia" is coined by them so they can negate Tesla had any connections to Croatia. If you think I'm wrong, just dare to mention Croatia in the discussion, you will see. However we again digress... Asdisis (talk) 14:32, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

SYNTH is not a rigid rule

Calm down everyone.

Pretty much by definition, situations which might be revert-able due to "synthesis" fall into 3 categories:

• The obvious cases, where nobody except maybe the editor being reverted would argue otherwise
• The "obviously pedantic" cases where it may technically be synthesis but keeping the edit (or finding a different reason to remove or edit it out) is clearly the better option (see WP:Ignore all rules if you are confused on this point)
• The unclear cases, which, by definition, need to be discussed on a case-by-case basis.

davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:24, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Seeking out answers by contacting primary sources

Hi there, I think I'd like to see some clarification in the policy about whether or not users can take to Twitter or other social media streams and contact primary sources to get answers to questions for which there might be no reliable sources. For example, content was removed in this edit that used this Formspring query as a reference. This strikes me as original research because presumably someone has gone out and chased down a lead and manufactured an interview, albeit a brief one. Similarly in this article I find references like "I didn't record Sin this time, but the other guy yes. I think.", "If it's the old one, that's me as Sin. Just not the new one.", "Sorry, I thought I answered yes to that. Yes, I played Bedman. But not Sin.", etc. Some of these queries came directly from a Wikipedia editor. I suppose that some of this might be covered at WP:SELFPUB, but since this is the article on original research, it seems reasonable to include something here that clarifies whether this is an exception or not. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 21:37, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

I think its laudable if editors try to expand the verifiable knowledge available to the project. They should probably make a edit request on the talk page rather than personally adding any social media content they themselves prompted. Rhoark (talk) 00:55, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

I have always understood that an OR inquiry (such as you talk about) can be used in a talk page discussion to gain consensus to omit (ie remove) inaccurate information from an article... but should not be used to add information to an article or "correct the record". Blueboar (talk) 01:11, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

In a cited reliable secondary source

There have been a flurry of edits to a sentence in this policy that I now think have changed the meaning in a way which I do not think has consensus:

The edit:

1. Revision as of 19:14, 31 May 2015 SMcCandlish
2. Revision as of 19:16, 31 May 2015 SMcCandlish
3. Revision as of 19:20, 31 May 2015 SMcCandlish
4. Revision as of 20:31, 31 May 2015 Blueboar
5. Revision as of 14:12, 1 June 2015 Margin1522
6. Revision as of 14:14, 1 June 2015 Margin1522
7. Revision as of 14:19, 1 June 2015 Margin1522
8. Revision as of 07:55, 3 June 2015 SMcCandlish

have changed:

• "Articles may make an analytic or evaluative claim only if that has been published by a reliable secondary source."

to:

• "Articles may include an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if the claim has been published in a cited reliable secondary source."

I am going to revert to the sentence as it was after the second edit listed above "Revision as of 19:16, 31 May 2015" by SMcCandlish. Personally I think the changes up to number two comes down to angels dancing on pin heads, so I have no objections to that change. But I do have an objection to what was the end result of the further changes.

The reason for this is that I suspect that many, as I do, now will understand it to mean that not only must one be able to prove that the "analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim" have appeared in a reliable secondary source that secondary source has been cited in another source. If that is not what is meant, and I suspect that it is not, then more clarity is needed.

Also with the revision as of 19:20, 31 May 2015 SMcCandlish wrote in the history "Normalizing these two near-identical statements of the policy to require actual citation to the source, per WP:V/WP:RS (see talk). There is no reason to reiterate here that a secondary source is "published"; that's part of its definition."

[I presume "see talk" is referring to #Closing lame loopholes].

I think that SMcCandlish is forgetting about primary sources when reviewing (and altering) this sentence. My reading of the first one is that "analytic or evaluative" or if one wants "analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim" is that these may be made in a primary source, but that primary source must have been published in a reliable secondary source. For example Wellington's claim that the Battle of Waterloo was "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life" is an evaluative statement, and it has been published in numerous secondary sources. Had it not, then it could not be published here in Wikipedia for the first time. However I do not take it to mean only those parts published in a secondary source of a primary source can be used, because that opens a NPOV issue. For example there is a real problem in the raid on Dresden with authors/historians selectively quoting parts of a briefing by Bomber Command to make a point about whether the bombing was a first step in the Cold War. To get around the POV it is necessary if the briefing is to be quoted, to quote more of the primary source than the partisans of the argument usually publish (to support their academic POV).

-- PBS (talk) 13:13, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

re: "...but that primary source must have been published in a reliable secondary source." ... I disagree... that would mean we could never cite a published autobiography. An autobiography is a primary source... but it is not OR to descriptively mention what it says. To give a hypothetical... let us suppose that General X commanded the winning forces in the Battle of Cumquat. Later, he publishes an autobiography in which he says: "I think the key to winning the Battle of Cumquat was the use of cell phones to coordinate the artillery"... this is an analytical,evaluative claim made by a primary source... but it is a claim that can be mentioned in the article on the Battle of Cumquat (and cited to the autobiography)... we simply have to do so with proper attribution so the reader knows that we are relaying the opinion of General X, and not necessarily stating it as accepted fact. Blueboar (talk) 11:44, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

A fair point about the publishing and perhaps further discussion is in order. This policy unlike some of the universities mentioned in footnote 3 does not list autobiographies as primary sources. This was discussed several times using Field Marshals Slim's book "Defeat Into Victory", and hence autobiographies are not mentioned in primary sources and it explains the sentence "A book by a military historian about the Second World War might be a secondary source about the war, but where it includes details of the author's own war experiences, it would be a primary source about those experiences." So I would argue that autobiographies are both primary and secondary sources, and it depends on what is being extracted from them. Also one has cases such as Wellington's despatches, and the general opinion seems to be such publications are secondary sources (as unlike an archive, there is editorial control of what goes into them, and they were published for a wider ordinance than an archive), but the individual dispatches ought to be treated as primary sources. I would suggest that the same is true for scientific papers published in Nature. The initial scientific paper on a new discovery may be a primary source, but it is a primary source published in a reliable secondary source (Nature). -- PBS (talk) 13:53, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

You hit the nail on the head when you say "it depends on what is being extracted from them"... Original research is all about what we (Wikipedia editors) extract from a source... and less about the primary/secondary/tertiary nature of the source itself. Use a published primary source appropriately and there will be no Original Research involved... use the same primary source inappropriately and there probably will be. Of course the same can be said of secondary and tertiary sources. It's simply easier to misuse primary sources (either intentionally or unintentionally) than it is to misuse secondary or tertiary sources... hence our caution (which is not a "ban") about primary sources.

It is not OR to descriptively report on the contents of a published primary source (and that includes reporting on including any analysis or interpretations that may be contained within the primary source)... as long as we do not interpret or analyze them ourselves. To put it another way... If a published compilation of dispatches contains an analysis or an evaluation of events, we can mention the fact that the dispatch contains such (it is a verifiable fact that it does), and we can describe it (blunt description is not OR). What we can not do is insert our own analysis, interpretation or conclusions based on the dispatches. We can not go beyond blunt description of what is directly contained in the dispatch. That would be OR. Blueboar (talk) 15:14, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

To give an example about how much use matters, here are two different ways to include Wellington's statement:

• Y Shortly after the battle, Wellington described it as "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life" and believed that the British might have lost if he had not been in charge (source: the original primary source (which appears to be the 1903 Creevey Papers).
• N The battle of Waterloo could have ended with either side winning. The British victory depended upon Wellington's personal presence (source: original primary source).

As Blueboar keeps saying, the issue is whether you're using the source appropriately. It is almost never appropriate to use a primary source to write in Wikipedia's voice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:41, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Well we all seem to be in agreement about sources. Lets move on to the sentence that has been subject to recent alterations, and see (1)if there is a consensus about what it is trying to say, (2) if it currently says it (given that it is read within the context of the whole section), and (3) if it needs to be changed what is the most appropriate wording to meet the consensus about what it is trying to say. -- PBS (talk) 08:24, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

I would say both versions under discussion are flawed. The flaw is in the word "make". Articles don't make claims ... they include claims. What makes a claim OR (or not) is whether we took it from a published source or came up with it ourselves. If the claim has never been published in a source... if it originates with Wikipedia... then it is OR and should not include it in one of our articles. If the claim is taken from a source... if it originates outside of wikipedia... it is not OR to include it in one of our articles. the Primary vs. Secondary nature of the source is actually irrelevant... what matters is whether the claim itself is (directly) stated in the source. Blueboar (talk) 11:14, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

I would correct Blueboar's statement of 11:14, 13 July 2015 (UTC). It is original research if the claim was not taken from a reliable published source AND it would be non-trivial to find the claim in a reliable published source. This formulation allows for our policy of not requiring a citation for Paris being the capital of France.

I view the case of an editor trying to include a claim from an unreliable published source as being original research on the part of the unreliable publisher; Wikikpedia editors aren't the only ones whose OR we reject; we also reject OR from unreliable publications that reaches us through Wikipedia editors. Jc3s5h (talk) 11:42, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Oh, there are lots of reasons why we might not include something stated in a source... the author of the source may not be qualified to make the claim (ie not reliable)... mentioning the claim may give UNDUE WEIGHT to a minority viewpoint.... it may be too trivial to mention... etc. etc. WP:NOR is not the be-all-and-end-all of inclusion. My point is simply that it is not ORIGINAL RESEARCH for Wikipedia to repeat a claim that a published source external to Wikipedia has made.

This is an important... our sources are allowed to conduct original research. In fact, that is what we rely on them to do for us. What WP:NOR bans is conducting original research ourselves. WP:NOR is NOT about the original research conducted by our sources... it's about the original research conducted by our editors (whether intentionally or unintentionally). Blueboar (talk) 12:22, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

As for the issue of not requiring a citation for a statement like "Paris is the capital of France"... that has nothing to do with Original Research... the reason we don't require a citation for such statements isn't that it would be "non-trivial to find the claim in a reliable published source"... the reason is that there are so MANY reliable published sources that actually do say it that we consider it unnecessary to require a citation to any of them. It's easily verifiable without a citation. Blueboar (talk) 19:34, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

• User:WhatamIdoing says: It is almost never appropriate to use a primary source to write in Wikipedia's voice. I'm a bit disappointed to learn that I've been doing so many inappropriate things during my time on Wikipedia... from the lithium abundance on HIP 56948, through the timelines on List of European dinosaurs, to the service record of Lisa Jade Head, I've repeated countless claims from primary sources in Wikipedia's voice. I'm rather afraid that I intend to carry on being inappropriate in this way.—S Marshall T/C 21:42, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
  • The bit on the star uses WP:INTEXT attribution, so it's fine (i.e., it asserts that it's the product of a single study, rather than asserting it as an unassailable fact). The dinosaur timeline is completely unsourced. I hope that you do not intend to carry on adding large quantities of unsourced information.  ;-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:36, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
    • I'm duly chastened.  ;-)—S Marshall T/C 11:47, 14 July 2015 (UTC)