Wikipedia talk:No original research (draft rewrite 5th December 2004 to 5th February 2005)/Archive 1

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Maureen, Moved the draft to the project page. So discussion of it can take place here. :ChrisG 12:11, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

See also:

• Wikipedia talk:No original research
• Wikipedia talk:No original research (draft rewrite)

On secondary sources

I want to propose that wikipedia is not a "secondary" source either. I think the definition of primary sources and secondary sources must be cleared up.

A primary source is the crudest product of research (whether an archeological dig, a trip to an archive, or an experiment): an historical artefact (the Bayeaux Tapestry; Josephus's Antiguities, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, transcripts of the Nixon White House tapes) or the first record of experimental data (a data-base with seplies to questionnaires; readings from a mass spectrometer, amino acid analyzer, or high pressure liquid cromatograph).

A secondary source is the presented or published analysis of primary sources: a paper presented at a conference; an article in a peer-reviewed journal; a book published by an academic press. These sources do not just present data, but present original scholarly analysis or interpretation of data.

Wikipedia should not try to be a secondary source, as I have defined it. It is a tertiary source only, in which we provide accounts of secondary sources including debates among authors of secondary sources, or describe secondary sources that are themselves analyzing other secondary sources (for example, an article on the history or science).

I think this scheme works for other things. A movie is a primary source, a critical review is a secondary source; wikipedia is not a place for actual critical reviews of movies, but can report on published reviews.

People might quibble with the semantics -- I am not married to the terms "primary," "secondary," and "tertiary" source, or even the word source. But I do think we are dealing with three different forms of knowledge, and Wikipedia should limit itself to the third kind. That the policy currently allows for the second kind I think leads to confusion. Slrubenstein

I think I see what you mean, but on the other hand, I think this poses serious problems. First case that comes to mind, Ken Jennings, which was being updated daily as he won, based on the primary source of Jeopardy. Under this proposed idea, would we have had to wait for someone to report on the story and use their report? What about the daily Tour de France updates we do over the summer? I usually did those based on watching the broadcast on OLN. But then, I was also using the commentary on OLN to guide my sense of what was important, so... Snowspinner 18:49, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

Before this gets any further, i'd like to quibble over terminology. Common usage in the context of discussing scientific references is that a primary source is the original publication of original research (typically a journal article) and secondary sources are synopses of multiple primary sources (typically a review article or a textbook). This site, the Berkeley library, [1] says basically the same thing is true in the field of history. By these definitions wikipedia is a secondary source. I think your definition of primary source as a lab book or pile of questionnaires is not generally recognized. For example, if you look at an article I am in the middle of writing history of intersex surgery, I am trying to heavily reference it because it is a controversial topic. It is not original research, but it would certainly qualify as a secondary source article, because much of it is built on the primary sources rather on reviews and textbooks. Are you suggesting it should not be here or that all the referenced journal articles of original research should be called secondary sources? That wouldn't be standard academic usage. alteripse 19:00, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Re: Snowspinner's comment -- I am not sure how to respond. As you say, what you put into Wikipedia is already "mediated" by a news outlet (which itself is getting raw data from somewhere else) -- this is my main point. But perhpas we have to make a distinction between "news" or "current events" articles and others. I certainly am referring primarily to academic/scholarly topics. I know it would be nice to have one policy that fits all, but given your comment, that may not be possible. Slrubenstein

Re: Alterprise's comment -- as I said, I am sure that the distinction I am making is important, but I am not married to the terminology. So if you want to introduce other terms, that is fine with me. Obviously in the proposal I made, I would consider the material you are working from "secondary sources" and your article in Wikipedia would certainly be legitimate. You claim that this is not current academic usage. Well, it is and it isn't. All articles in peer-reviewed history journals are secondary sources; the primary sources are the documents (serving as data) they draw on. I was just making an analogy to research in the natural sciences -- you can call published articles on original research "primary" sources if you want to (and I am not arguing against a convention) but the fact remains those "primary" sources are themselves based on earlier (think about what the word primary means) sources. You say that the lab book or pile of questionnaires is generally not recognized, and there is one reason for that: when it comes to experiments that are easily reproducable, no one really cares about the original lab data because people will simply try to reproduce the experiment several times and if it works, the claims of the researcher are established. But this is changing for a few reasons. First of all, some research requires very expensive equipment and is not easily reproducible. Second, there are cases where the research is called into question (e.g. the famous David Baltimore case) where people had to go back to the original note-books. Also, in the social sciences this distinction is very common. There are "data-bases" that constitute primary sources of information generally culled from questionaires and stored in spread-sheets, which different researchs may draw on to analyze in different ways to produce their articles. As is the case with history articles, many articles based on original research (which in this case involves applying different statistical operations to the database) in criminology, sociology, and political science are "secondary sources." Now, if you are saying that there are also sciences where these terms are not used, fine by me. All I ask is that you recognize the conceptual distinction. Call them what you will -- x, y, and z. The current policy allows wikipedia articles to be y or z, and I am saying the articles should only be z. (again, I am excluding news/current events articles). Alterpise, if you are only quibbling over terminology I ask you to help me come up with more acceptable terms. Slrubenstein

Incidentally, our very own article on tertiary sources (itself unsourced, tsk tsk :-) ) mentions that encyclopedias are often a combination of secondary and tertiary. We do want to prefer "tertiary source" normally, and relax it somewhat for recent pop culture and the like ("the bridge I'm seeing through my window right now is definitely gray"). Stan 20:20, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

My quibble was only terminology. I acknowledge your schema makes perfect sense-- I just didn't think it was academic common usage-- the major publishing distinction is "original research" or "secondary material" when it comes to things like tenure, etc. Maybe it's just a matter of context. I didn't check the terms in wikipedia and I should have. I did check the first couple of google hits I got on googling "primary source research" to confirm someone else used the terms that way, and I wasn't imagining it. I quoted the first one above. I guess I'd call "original research records" what you are calling "primary source." I'll go with the group on this one, though. What does primary and secondary mean to rest of you? alteripse 23:08, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm not yet sure what I think overall about this. I think it would help me to give specific examples of what has occurred on Wikipedia that you're trying to eliminate. Such a policy would need to clarify whether it only applies to academic-type topics, or how it would be applied to nonacademic topics.

It might have applied at Wikipedia:Divulging personal details. In summary, David Remahl found out the true identity of an online personality and a court case that person was involved in. At least within Wikipedia, "original research" seems to mean "scientific" or psuedo-scientific research. But the example at David Remahl is closer to journalism.

I think Slrubenstein’s basic point is that anything on Wikipedia should already be published elsewhere. Is that right?

I agree with Slrubenstein that the terminology is not the point, and also would use the terms essentially as Slrubenstein does, although perhaps more broadly. To me, a "primary source" is essentially the original, the point at which a person can't go any further back along that specific line, and it could vary in different contexts. Maurreen 09:38, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't think using the terms primary, secondary and tertiary sources is helpful to this debate; we are just discussing what the terms mean. I think Slrubenstein needs to rephrase his proposal. I think he is saying that everything on Wikipedia ought to be from a legitimate publisher of books, journals, newspapers. This would exclude vanity press (unless the book becomes a best seller).

I would agree that whenever opinions or arguments are given in Wikipedia that they should be attributed to an authority or group. So I would support any suggestion to stengthen to the policy with regard to that.

However, where facts are concerned Wikipedia is often a primary source. When I write a synopsis to a book, I write it from memory; I don't consult an article somewhere and copy it. In fact I couldn't or it would be plagiarism. But that is fine because I am reporting or summarising the facts (or at least as well as I know them). The normal Wiki process handles this well, because my facts are then subject to unmerciless editing. Reporting current affairs, reporting sport events, etc. all require that approach; and I think that is fine. It is not original research, it is more equivalent to newspaper reporting, and that is the standard we should use. This is where the semi-policy of verifiability comes in, and why so many people are keen on WikiNews.

But when we deal with controversial topics, the nature of 'fact' can often becomes controversial. It is in that situation that it becomes necessary to properly reference and difficult fact and create a proper bibliography, i.e. it stops being optional and becomes essential. In that situation, newspaper reporter standards are no longer suitable; and academic standards become appropriate.

I also feel that academic standards should by definition be applied to all articles concerning academic disciplines. Controversial subjects may not be necessarily academic subjects, Scientology, 'Childlove' movement, etc. etc.  :ChrisG 11:28, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In response to ChrisG on academic disciplines I wonder if we are rapidly approaching the stage where we need some kind of over-arching plan for the scope of topics, and flagging up where there are gaps needing filling. Maybe identifying long-term writers who might be asked to do them. There should also be much more consistency in the way articles are presented. (Perhaps there is and I have so far missed it).

My experience as a contributor to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography may explain what I am getting at. The writing of articles was overseen by an office at Oxford, supported by a team of external specialist editors, who first devised a list of names for inclusion. Invitations for people to contribute were circulated by means of specialist journals. On the application form one was invited to nominate names one knew about and was willing to write up. The master list was amended to incorporate these additions. Once writing began, it had to be to a predetermined formula as to layout. The first para was in the form: Joe Bloggs, [dates] [occupation] son of [names] etc. Then follows the body of the article. It is always concluded with [references] [images], [wealth at death] etc. The completed articles were then edited at Oxford for style and consistency, sometimes adding in bits of info which had been found elsewhere. From my experience I had no problems with re-writes of my work, or POVish disputes with the editors.

The content of Wikipedia is entirely writer-generated (as is indeed the Web as a whole). This means that whole subject areas can either be left out, or be treated in a limited way. This lessens greatly Wikipedia' usefulness. I feel we ought to be trying to deal with this as a matter if some urgency.

I am concerned that when we get to the stage of a printed Wikipedia, the various conventions of presentation of articles by contributors will result in a very messy page for the reader. This does not matter so much in the on-line version because you only see one article at a time. Clearly a wholesale editing for consistency of presentation might be needed to make the finished book credible.

It would also be useful to be able to add notes to sources in the text of an article. I use the wording "See XYZ below" but it would be nice to be able to do it as a hyperlink. Do we have a page on the mechanics of composing an academic-standard article for Wikipedia, with notes on what is expected to be in it, and defining "no original research" ? Apwoolrich 16:07, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

We do have standards for some article types via the wikiprojects. But the range of these standards, the quality of those standards and the degree to which articles are written in those format depends on the success of the wikiproject in attracting interested and intelligent contributors. See Wikipedia:Wikiproject_Countries for a successful project.

What we don't have from perusing the Wikiproject category is formats or wikiprojects for theories, concepts, journals, experiments and that is something that will have to developed at some point. :ChrisG 17:15, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Tangent on standards

Today I created User:Maurreen/Basic topics to list a small selection of core topics. Wikipedia talk:Pushing to 1.0and other pages in Category:Editorial validation might be appropriate for Apwoolrich 's concerns. Maurreen 00:40, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Refutations

I've added another criterion to the definition of original research: it purports to present a refutation of some other idea, often one presented previously in the same article. The underlying idea that is being refuted may very well be nonsense, but that does not justify the use of even more nonsense to prove it wrong. Often those with a scientific hostility to an idea have never taken the time to study it adequately. There is a big difference between the perfectly acceptable claim that an idea is not adequately proven, and claiming its disproof. Disproving these ideas may require research in excess of the time available for doing it. Eclecticology 21:14, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

No original theories

Contemplating the previous discussion and the mailing list one[2], it occurs to me that the policy has the wrong title, and is creating confusion. It should be more tightly worded and be: No original theories.:ChrisG 12:58, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That title is more appropriate to what is on the page. Maurreen 13:16, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Theory" actually means many very different things across disciplines -- I have seen academics with different training try to have a conversation using the word and ending with disaster. I was hoping that rather than ChrisG ask me to reformulate my proposal, he and others would help me -- do it collaboratively. Maurreen understands exactly my point. There are two issues here: terminology, plus the fact that Wikipedia has different kinds of articles. When someone summarizes a book or article, are they even claiming to do research? I think the first thing to do is to define the policy more narrowly, and then to see what would be involved in broadening it, or in developing a second policy for sifferent kinds of articles. But let me give an immediate example. I am engaged in a series of disputes concerning the cultural background of Jesus. The article, everyone seems to agree, is meant to provide information about the culture/time/place when Jesus is presumed to have lived. The NT mentions Saducees and Pharisees, as do widely available works by Josephus, who wrote around the same time the earliest sources of the NT were probably written. So the article is going to have a section on "Saducees" and "Pharisees." The NT and Josephus are clearly primary sources. Should a Wikipedia editor just cobble together an account of Pharisees and Saducees based on their reading of these sources?

I have no problem with an editor writing, "According to Matthew, the Pharisees ..." or "According to Josephus (Antiquities) the Pharisees were ..." The problem is, no historian today thinks either of these sources can be taken literally. Most editors invilved in the project believe strongly that the NT cannot be taken literally, although some of them think Josephus can be. In any event, some interpretation is called for -- what biases may be acting on these sources; what might Josephus's account of the Pharisees actually reveal about Josephus; and so on. Perhaps from these two sources we can synthesize a "compromise" account of what the Pharisees were like. I do have a strong problem with Wikipedians making any of these interpretive claims, or trying to come up with a synthetic account.

I believe that making such interpretive claims, or synthesizing from different sources, is the job of a professional historian, Biblie scholar, or Classicist. Many such scholars have published articles an books in which they critically analyze the NT and Josephus, and in which they draw, critically, on these and other sources to make claims about the Pharisees. What do we call these books or articles? Secondary sources? Something else? As I said, I do not want to quibble over words and I am happy with whatever consensus we reach (and Chris G is welcome to make suggestions). My point is simply that it is not the place of a Wikipedian to write such an article in Wikipedia; the research a Wikipedian should do should involve looking for such previously published books and articles. And I have no objection at all to an editor writing, "According to Jacob Neusner, the Pharisees ..." or "According to Paula Fredriksen, Matthew's account of the Pharisees is biased ...." or "E.P. Sanders has summarized current research and has argued that the Pharisees ..." Now, a Wikipedia article that includes such statements is what I mean by tertiary research. But as I said, I do not want to quibble over terminology and if there is some other standard, or if Chris G. and others can come up with one, I am fine with that.

To sum up: I think if we want to maintain high standards concerning any subject that is a matter of academic research, we should exclude unattributed (original) interpretive and synthetic statements. Slrubenstein

I was thinking along the same lines, but phrased as "no original concepts". I don't think the page needs to be retitled, unless maybe to a mouthful like Wikipedia:No original research, theories, or concepts. Stan 22:15, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, I empathize with your point, although I have some general uneasiness about the principle being applied blanketly.

I think your paragraph "To sum up" is a good foundation.

Stan's phrasing as "No original concepts" also has merit. Maurreen 00:34, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. Obviously, I am taking a long time to express myself because I am also trying to sort out what I think. I have a deneral unease about blanket rules too. And in fact I think all policies on wikipedia demand some play of interpretation and negotiation, even NPOV. Yet, I think we would all agree to a committment to NPOV even if sometimes we disagree over what it is or how it is achieved. I want the same committment to this standard, even if there is some play about how to achieve it. But let me ask you -- can you think of examples (involving topics of scholarly research, not news items) where applying my rule literally and directly would do harm or limit the success of the endeavor? Slrubenstein

I can't now. Part of what I was trying to say was that at least initially, I agree with your foundation and the general distinction you are making between academic or scholarly subjects and all other topics.

Concerning the principles at least, I think I generally agree with you, and I think that most "discriminating" (?) Wikipedians would generally agree with you. Maurreen 01:08, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Drafting

Fair enough. The question is, where to go from here? For starts, I have a real problem with the third sentence of the article:

Wikipedia is a secondary source (one that analyzes, assimilates, evaluates, interprets, and/or synthesizes primary sources) or tertiary source (one that generalizes existing research or secondary sources of a specific subject under consideration).

One possibility is simply to write,

Wikipedia is a tertiary source (one that generalizes and explains existing research on a specific subject, and is based largely on secondary sources, such as published books and articles, that analyze, interpret, synthesize, and/or evaluate primary sources).

Does anyone have any objections to this? If not, can we call for a poll? Slrubenstein

I'd prefer that your draft sentence be qualified somehow (such as with "Wikipedia is best as", "Wikipedia should be", or "Wikipedia is generally", etc.).

Maybe this sentence of yours, or something similar, should be used: "Concerning any subject that is a matter of academic research, we should exclude unattributed (original) interpretive and synthetic statements."

Also, now that we've started, I'd prefer we review the whole page before taking a poll on one sentence. That way will take longer perhaps but have a more-polished result. Maurreen 01:43, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Your suggestions are good, and I don't mind waiting for more suggestions/discussion (as long as this one item doesn't get lost -- I think it is my major issue with the policy in its current form) Slrubenstein

I'm creating a page for a draft. Maurreen 01:56, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The draft is here.:ChrisG

I prefer your first sentence where both secondary and tertiary are mentioned. It is possible to write a Wikipedia article on history or biography based heavily on archival sources, and this option should not be written out. It is also possible for a Wikipedia article to be unique, in that no other web pages even mention the topic. If the writer has specific knowledge he/she should be encouraged to write it up. The way that MediaWiki operates makes it possible to compose an article and publish it so bypassing the regular journal or book route. The problems of getting stuff published conventionally, especially if one is not part of academe (as I am not), makes the Wiki way a very attractive proposition. A journal to which I have contributed is issued in a print run of under 500, at a price of £90 UKP, so few libraries or individuals buy it. This effectively 'disappears' the work put into it. If the journal was published on-line as a matter of course, maybe in PDF format it would reach a much wider audience and cost much less to produce. Idea for the Foundation sometime, Wikijournals?

I noted one medical User who has a series of Workshops on his talk page where very detailed and highly academic stuff is posted. This makes me wonder if a kind of two-tier system might be considered. We could have the regular Wikipedia page which has links to pages within Wikipedia with a more detailed treatment. Perhaps texts of relevant documents where no other web link exists.(With copyright clearance, of course). This might only apply to certain academic articles and not the more regular topics. The links should be exclusive to that main topic page. Apwoolrich 12:25, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I disagree with the proposed change. Wikipedia is a secondary source and is even a primary source with regard with current events.

I agree with Maureen we should redraft the policy rather than vote on individual items. We can only change the policy with full consensus. Lets see what we can do by rewriting the draft, and see what we can achieve consensus about.

In that spirit I've added a section about citing sources to the draft; because I feel it ought be clearly stated in the policy, rather than be located in the style guide. :ChrisG 13:44, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Having seen it written down, I really don't think we want to "bless" the idea of WP being a secondary source for anything; that will open the door to all manner of amateur interpretation. For instance, translations of ancient writers are readily available online, but many of their factual claims have long been disproved by modern scholarship. People need to be writing WP articles on ancient topics based on modern books and papers.

There is a category of factual reporting that doesn't readily fall into the secondary/tertiary division, for instance if I have a photo of a bridge that's pretty obviously painted gray, I should be able to say "painted gray" without waiting for a book to say that, even though I would need a secondary source to be able to say why it was painted gray (the primary sources might be official disinformation). Stan 14:32, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Stan makes good points, similar to Fred's points below -- definitely needs thinking through. Slrubenstein

I strongly disagree with ChrisG. Wikipedia should never be a primary source; I think he means it is a secondary source when it comes to current events and I never objected to that; it is clearly not the point I am making and perhaps ChrisG is raising a red-herring. But since he brings up current events: Wikipedia is not a blog and wikipedians are not reporters. If we want to be a secondary source on current events -- drawing on primary sources like UP or AP or Reuters wires, I have no objections. But my main point concerns not repeat not news and current events but rather articles on scholarly topics. ChrisG states that Wikipedia is a secondary source; this is a factual claim and I agree with him -- as does our current policy. But I am proposing a policy change and arguing it should not be a secondary source. I have given my reasons. Slrubenstein

When I say that Wikipedia is a primary source I am stating a fact not arguing its relevant merits. By virtue of its timestamping of articles Wikiipedia is an artifact of the times. From our article on primary source:

"A primary source is any piece of information that is used for constructing history as an artifact of its times. These often included works created by someone who witnessed first hand or were part of the historical events that are being described, but can also include physical objects like coins, journal entries, letters, or newspaper articles. They can be, however, almost any form of information: advertisements from the 1950s can be primary sources in a work on perceptions of modern technology, for example."

Obviously this is a red herring within our debate; because we our policy about writing articles is that they should aim to be secondary sources, not primary; and no-one is suggesting changing it.

However, Wikipedia is certainly an secondary source. Wikipedia is filled with articles on topics that are not subjects of academic research.

Are you not reading what I wrote, trying to be obstructionist, or trying to pick a fight? I have consistently, repeatedly, said I am talking about a policy for articles on scholarly topics. Do you get it? By saying this, I mean that I am not talking about articles on non-scholarly topics. So what is your point? Slrubenstein

On those subjects there are no peer reviewed journals or legitimately published books. These articles are therefore based on newspaper articles, diaries, local government reports etc. So how can those articles not be a secondary source?

A change of policy which states that Wikipedia is a tertiary source only would mean then we would have to chuck out an enormous number of articles. We would also have to massively rewrite nearly all the rest. This would fundamentally changing the nature of Wikipedia. May I remind you that a large proportion of even the featured articles don't have any references.

As a specific example, it would also mean that in order to write an article I wouldn't be able to write anything about a recent event like the US Presidential election until a published book or peer reviewed article came out. A newspaper report is not a secondary source don't forget. :ChrisG 21:52, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Which part of the sentence -- to which you are ostensibly responding -- do you not understand: "But my main point concerns not repeat not news and current events but rather articles on scholarly topics." Slrubenstein

Apwoolrich at least explains why s/he wants to allow articles to be secondary sources, but I strongly disagree with him/her. S/he writes: "The way that MediaWiki operates makes it possible to compose an article and publish it so bypassing the regular journal or book route." Now, I do not want to argue about Wikimedia and bypassing peer-reviewed journals and books. But the current policy explicitly argues against this use of Wikipedia, and explains why, and I agree 100%: Wikipedia is not a venue for people who cannot get their ideas (interpretations, analyses, theories) published elsewhere. Articles should report on accepted knowledge or major debates, and this means drawing on secondary sources. Slrubenstein

I looked at the draft and think that the third paragraph should be replaced with:

Wikipedia is a tertiary source (one that generalizes and explains existing research on a specific subject, and is based largely on secondary sources, such as published books and articles, that analyze, interpret, synthesize, and/or evaluate primary sources).

And that Stan and Fred's concerns should be addressed later in the article. Slrubenstein

With the addition of four words I would be happy: "Where sufficient secondary sources exist, Wikipedia aims to be a tertiary source (one that generalizes and explains existing research on a specific subject, and is based largely on secondary sources, such as published books and articles, that analyze, interpret, synthesize, and/or evaluate primary sources)."

And go on to say something like :"On topics which have not currently attracted sufficient academic research primary sources - diaries, newspapers, government documentation etc. - may be used." :ChrisG 22:01, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I take issue with the style, but basically think your suggestions are good. Would you be satisfied with,

Concerning topics of scholarly concern, Wikipedia is a tertiary source (one that generalizes and explains existing research on a specific subject, and is based largely on secondary sources, such as published books and articles, that analyze, interpret, synthesize, and/or evaluate primary sources). Slrubenstein

Fine.

Re: disagreement above. It is not that I am unaware that you discussed limiting your proposal to subjects of scholarly concern; it was the fact that you did not change your proposal one iota. Apologies if I did not make that clear. The limitation of the media is that one has to be dreadfully precise in order not to cause confusion; but maybe that is why Wikipedia has proved so successful. :ChrisG 22:18, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I guess we just have different views over how wikipedia works. Just as no one owns an article, I don't really think I "own" my proposal -- I put it on the talk page precisely for people to discuss and even change it. I thought if you saw a problem with the specific wording, you would just have proposed different wording. Eventually, you did, then I suggested other wording -- I think we are making progress and this is what I think collaboration is all about, Slrubenstein

Looks fine to me too. Apwoolrich 22:33, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Should this discussion move to Wikipedia talk:No original research (draft rewrite)? Maurreen 05:40, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It should stay for a few days to point people in the direction of the rewrite; otherwise they might miss the discussion; and not contribute to the rewrite. Then move it leaving a message in the text that it was moved to the rewrite. Further discussion of the rewrite should now take place on the talk page though I think; unless someone has a critical issue. :ChrisG 07:57, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)