Wikipedia talk:No original research: Difference between revisions

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And God...

..came down from the heavens and spoke unto the wikipedians. "Thou shalt not do original research. Thou shalt be a sheep, follow the herd Do not think for thy self. Plagerise work; Do not thy own. Do not believe in ideas, unless someone done so before"

And Jesus said unto the lord

"But father, what if we find something that proves to be absolutley true and will improve the quality of an article, but no one has said so before?"

God replied as thus: "Thy cannot write thus work, unless it has already been done by someone else. It is a vicious cycle, nothing can be written unless it is already wrote. That is thy lords law."

And thus, God acended unto the heavens. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.39.71.180 (talk) 01:13:22, August 19, 2007 (UTC)

Primary sources

"Original research that creates primary sources is not allowed. However, research that consists of collecting and organizing material from existing primary or secondary sources within the provisions of this policy is, of course, encouraged: this is "source-based research," and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia.

Although most articles should rely predominantly on secondary sources, there are rare occasions when they may rely on primary sources (for example, legal cases). An article or section of an article that relies on a primary source should (1) only make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and (2) make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims. Contributors drawing on primary sources should be careful to comply with both conditions."

• Shouldn't primary sources be discouraged as strongly as possible? When using only primary sources, it is very difficult (if not nearly impossible) to build an article without including original research by drawing conclusions from the information. Secondary sources allow the sourcing of conclusions about primary sources without engaging in original research.
• Isn't "[o]riginal research that creates primary sources" nonsense? Original research can only prouce a secondary source. Writing an allegedly inspired religious text would be creating a primary source, but would hardly be original research. Drawing upon such a text for reference material would be a conflict of interest and the result would probably be original research.
• Should we provide an encouragement to use primary sources with secondary sources?
• Legal cases? Seriously? Legal cases should be among the least desirable situations to use primary sources. Legal scholars very often debate for decades what a case is about, in what fashion and what exact conclusions were drawn. If secondary sources find it so easy to debate such "simple" facts extensively, how can those primary sources possibly be a good example for the no original research policy?
• The line between descriptive and analytic/interpretive claims is very thin, highly subjective and easily abused. As an example, Jesus says it is better to cut off a hand than to sin. This would be easily presented as Christian scripture encouraging severe self-mutilation if only the primary source (the Bible) was used. However, that is not an accurate presentation and not supported by reliable secondary sources. While many are prone to respond "that's silly", imagine it were an obscure religious group with whose beliefs you were not at all familiar. Now imagine it is a small obscure group that is often called a cult. The abuse potential is obvious.
• Also, notability and neutral point of view would seem at least to preclude a heavy use of, or dependence on, primary sources. The policies form a coherent unit, mutually supporting each other, not providing contrary encouragement or loopholes.

Just some thoughts. Your thoughts? Vassyana 23:21, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

"Original research that creates primary sources is not allowed. Research that consists of collecting and organizing material from existing primary or secondary sources within the provisions of this policy this and other content policies is, of course, encouraged: this is "source-based research," and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia.

Although most articles should rely predominantly on secondary sources, there are rare occasions when they may rely on primary sources (for example, legal cases). An article or section of an article that relies on a primary source should (1) only make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and (2) make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims. Contributors drawing on primary sources should be careful to comply with both conditions."

There. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:07, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I strongly support these edits. In particular, I agree that the sentence "Original research that creates primary sources is not allowed." is junk - how can someone "create primary sources" by editing Wikipedia? Enchanter 00:56, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

If you witnessed something and added what you saw to Wikipedia, you'd be creating a primary source. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 19:16, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the edits in the guideline. And I understand the preference for reliable, secondary sources, since these may be the result of more fact-checking than the primary source could or did. However, when secondary sources are not (freely) available, I have no problem with using a primary source provided the use thereof is clearly indicated in the article. — Xiutwel (talk) 08:08, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Due to the supporting comments and lack of objection, I have changed the page to reflect Jossi's proposal. Vassyana 13:10, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't understand the rationale for devaluing primary sources and privileging tertiary ones. It results in nightmarish edit wars, where a few people with dictionaries sometimes go around inserting misleading definitions, reclassifying ideologies, and rewriting history to fit. (For example, Pierre Proudhon and Benjamin Tucker identified themselves as socialists; Marx refers to Proudhon as a socialist, etc., but some dictionary definitions of Socialism have excluded them.) Devaluing primary sources means that one editor with a dictionary can trash a political article and no amount of facts can get in the way. Jacob Haller 21:19, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

A related problem is that the secondary sources may simply contradict the primary ones. Jacob Haller 01:17, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Generally, politics is an exceedingly well-covered area, in terms of references. Beyond that, what you're worried about ("dictionaries") would probably be original research! Presenting an argument about whether or not X person fits the dictionary definition of Y label is certainly original research, unless that claim can be cited to a reliable secondary source. Even then, information should be presented in proportion to its appearance in reliable sources. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and extreme minority views should probably be excluded. So, it seems that your concern is already covered. :o) Regarding secondary sources contradicting primary sources, stick to the secondary sources generally. In such cases, there is usually a significant discussion regarding the contradiction and why it exists, which usually provides a solid analysis of the material. If it's an unusual or extreme claim, it may require additional references or removal of that claim. Just some thoughts. Cheers! Vassyana 12:42, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a poly-sci library. I have to make do, and the primary sources are much more easily available than most secondary sources. As far as politics goes, I am mostly involved in working on anarchism, socialism and their related pages. For anarchism, primary sources are readily available, but except for An Anarchist FAQ, decent secondary sources require serious cash. For socialism too, primary sources are readily available, but secondary sources are largely divided into those covering specific movements: some mostly cover Marxism, some mostly cover social-democracy, some also cover anarchism, etc. and many of these are partisan sources, dismissing the "wrong" movements as "ancient or medieval" (for movements which developed in the mid-19th century). In both cases, some scholarly works use special definitions remote from the movements, e.g. political scientists who use "anarchism" to mean "polycentric law" or economists who use "socialism" to mean "central planning."

And there are editors who insist on using dictionaries and rejecting primary sources, or who regard the use of one word to qualify another word as OR/IS unless I can find the same two-word combination. Jacob Haller 17:14, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Public and university libraries offer a low to no cost solution. Additionally, there are many sites (such as Questia) that allow online research for relatively inexpensive rates. Anarchy, socialism and other such widely covered subjects hardly require any serious investment in cash to research. The sources are plentiful, available and easily had at no to minimal expense. Out-of-date sources and original research based on primary sources just aren't up to par. Most of us don't have personal libraries, but we "make do" and manage to find modern reliable sources just the same. Vassyana 10:30, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

The public libraries where I like have nothing in these topics. The university libraries are 90 minutes away (mostly waiting between buses) and $2.60 for the round trip, as well as closed for the summer. I can't afford to waste that much time or pay that much money for secondary sources. Jacob Haller 17:22, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure the public libraries have something, even something reliable, on the topic. You're telling me they don't even have general history books that discuss anarchism or socialism? You're saying they do not have historical or biographical books that discuss Marx or Proudhon? I'm sorry but that's more than a little hard to swallow. Your fare is cheaper than mine and about the same time for the trip, so I've little sympathy on that count. There is a minimum expense and effort involved in doing research. Vassyana 23:14, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

In the natural sciences, the problem is the other way around. Chains of evidence are created through generation of data and the attempt to re-create said data. When erroneous claims stick, it is very often due to not reading the primary source. See for example Simkin & Roychowdhury, Complex Systrms 14: 269 for a discussion of the scope of the problem. I think the devaluation of primary sources is a bit of a bias. Consider for example Perrin's_Beaked_Whale#_note-1. To argue for or against the older (the specimen description, mistaken for another species) or the younger source (which is the original description of the species) being correct would be OR; as both vertebrates and invertebrates are known food in this genus it simply cannot be told what is correct. I am not sure which one is a misprint; the primary source is rather unavailable. I will try to check whether there has been an erratum but the species description not mentioning such suggests that the primary one indeed read "invertebrate". Any tertiary source relying on the original description would be expected to repeat what is apparently an error. In my experience, especially in the more specialist fields of the natural sciences, the preference of sources should be primary (if available) - secondary - tertiary. Especially pop-sci tertiary sources are usually full of errors; OR if you will on the reviewers' behalf. Wikipedia provides a novel means to prevent this (as no error must be stand uncorrected for more than a few seconds after its discovery), and this opportunity should be duly honored. Dysmorodrepanis 06:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Meaning of Primary, Secondary & Tertiary Sources

"A newspaper article is a primary source if it reports events, but a secondary source if it analyses and comments on those events." Primary, Secondary & Tertiary Sources Anyone who wants to know the meaning of "Primary, Secondary & Tertiary Sources" should click that link and read. It is easiest to view sources as themselves primary or secondary but in fact at wikipedia it is important to realize that if we say "This source [so and so] said 'whatever'.[ref]" then we are using that source as a primary source for what it is saying. If a newspaper says the policeman said "Bob told me he killed Jay"; then we can use that report as a primary, secondary, or tertiary source depending on how we word it. If we say "Bob killed Jay"[ref] then we are using that newspaper report as a tertiary source. If we say "Newspaper [such and such] says the policeman said "Bob told me he killed Jay." then we are using that newspaper as a primary source. Which is better? Using it as a primary source. But some people here don't get that and insist that using primary sources is not as good as using secondary sources, when the key for wikipedia is not the source but how we use the source. WAS 4.250 14:09, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I really disagree with your presentation of PSTS. The very quote you use seems to contradict the comments the follow. An article is a secondary source "if it analyses and comments on those events". In other words, it's based on the content, not the usage of the reference. The letters of Origen are all primary sources in religious studies, whereas a textbook covering his letters would be a secondary or tertiary source. In almost all instances, with some consideration for field, a work can be clearly called a primary or secondary/tertiary source. Vassyana 18:34, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I think WAS 4.250 is basically correct in that if you quote the source, you are using it as a primary source for what it said, but if you state what it says as fact, then you are using it as a secondary source. If the fact is not really disputable, then using it as a secondary source is appropriate. But if the fact is in dispute, then the secondary source use may not be valid, and making an attributed quote is the better course. Dhaluza 02:02, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Burden of showing consensus

I've tried to make an edit removing a controversial statement in this policy pending further discussion and the arrival at a consensus. However, Vassyana has reverted this, reinserting the controversial policy statement. The statement at issue, which was inserted into the policy in late 2006 without much comment or notice, has to do with a general preference toward secondary sources and a strong discouragement of the use of primary sources.

In Vassyana's comments in his/her second attempt to reinsert this controversial policy, he/she said that "changing policy requires showing a change of consensus". Something for which there was no consensus to begin with cannot remain in the policy simply because there is no consensus to remove it. If such a practice were followed, any editor who could sneak a controversial statement into a policy could be assured it would forever remain official Wikipedia policy so long as there is some minority faction that agrees with her. Wikipedia policies reflect the consensus of the Wikipedia community. They cannot contain statements favored by only a faction of Wikipedia editors. Though Wikipedia is not a democracy, most often, if numerous editors disagree with a controversial statement in the policy, it should be removed. Therefore, I am removing it once again. COGDEN 04:15, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Since the current version has been in place for almost a year, it should remain until consensus is reached on any changes to this version. Please stop the edit warring, and find a consensus. – Dreadstar † 04:19, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Dreadstar, you have it backwards here. We don't need to find consensus to remove a non-consensus statement from the policy. The fact that consensus doesn't exist means that it shouldn't be in the article. Moreover, I wouldn't say the policy has been "in place", because there has never been a consensus, and the policy is not practiced. If there is any doubt that there is no consensus, consider these facts:

1. Since I first noticed the stealth policy change a few weeks ago and brought up the issue, several editors have expressed the opinion that primary sources should not be generally discouraged. That shows there is no consensus.
2. If you take a look at the Wikipedia, and particularly the featured articles, there is a widespread practice of using primary sources. Take a look, for example, at today's featured article Backmasking. I stopped counting the usage of primary sources. Just as a random example, the article quotes a primary source in its very last sentence, an article in a psychology journal, which states the results of primary research. And it's entirely appropriate, too. It's a commendable article. But in flagrant violation of this controversial policy. If this were a true policy, our best articles would be following it.

There already is a consensus for the policy without the offending policy statement regarding primary sources. If we want to find other consensus that treats sources non-neutrally, that takes time. In the meantime, we need to maintain the status quo. COGDEN 04:15, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Do I? My apologies if that's the case - but I thought content that had been in place for over eight months would require a consensus, considering the very late dispute over its inclusion. Are we sure there wasn't a consensus at the time the controversial edit was made? Was it truly a 'stealth edit'?

The continued edit-warring must stop, so thanks for not reverting my reversion...;) <before I finished this post, I was disappointed to see an Administrator engaging in edit warring to keep his version in place.> I was hunting for the diff that actually adds the disputed statement to the policy, and potentially the discussion of that edit.

I found this addition: 09:46, 23 October 2006, but the wording was slightly different than now, "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources wherever possible." The discussion at the time mentions a consensus on that version. I was planning on looking for the diff that changed it to the disputed former version. But I guess that's a waste of time. Perhaps we should conduct a straw poll to see where editors stand on this controversy now. This would be preferable to the continued edit-warring and eventual protection of the policy page. – Dreadstar † 04:59, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

It's ridiculous to assert a lack of consensus for a policy statement that stood for almost a year. "Silence equals consent" is the ultimate measure of consensus. That means since it stood for a year after the initial controversy, consent has been clearly established. Consensus can change, as it did over time leading to the current position on primary sources. It can also change in the other direction, but it has to shown that consensus has changed again. That also means that you cannot revert to a year old version and claim that is current consensus. There was not "stealth change" recently or last year. The changes last year were extensively discussed. Recent fine-tuning was also discussed with only one objection after the fact. These changes weren't done by "stealth" as you'd claim. They were discussed and debated on a very highly watched page, not in some dark corner. You may not like the changes and you're welcome to say so, and even to solicit general opinion from places like the policy village pump, but you just can't walk in and turn back the clock because you disagree. Vassyana 05:14, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Vassyana for proving that I wasn't crazy...;) The evidence you've provided proves this was no 'stealth edit' and consensus had been reached on the current version. I agree with that consensus and oppose reverting back to the version from more than a year ago. This version is preferable to me. Just to be clear, I agree that "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources.". – Dreadstar † 05:21, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources." If necessary, I will explain why. TableManners 05:36, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I too think that the primacy of "secondary sources" is a critical component of this policy. And if discussion is reopened I would like to revive my proposal to add "religious scriptures" to the list of examples of primary sources. Abecedare 06:16, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the primacy of "secondary sources" is a critical issue, and think that more strong emphasis should be put on the importance of using secondary sources published by recognized academics when such sources are available. I strongly second the proposal to add "religious scriptures" to the list of examples of primary sources and strong language should be added along the lines of "religious scriptures may be quoted to establish what they say, but cannot be used to establish facts. Buddhipriya 06:31, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you have examples of where this is done (using religious scriptures to establish facts)? Also, what is the rationale behind this? The implications that religious scriptures are primary sources is interesting. 06:34, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Rationale: Religious scriptures are often (always?) written in esoteric language whose interpretation is the subject of innumerable PhD theses and unending scholarly/lay debate. As such their analysis by anonymous wikipedians is inappropriate (of course quoting documents to show what they say is fine, as long as accompanied by critical commentary by secondary sources)

Examples My God, ar you kidding! :-) There are perhaps dozens of such attempts everyday on the few Hinduism related pages on my watchlist. Example: 1 Abecedare 06:44, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I think I have it. I thought such edits were being allowed to stand, and you wanted a policy change. It sounds like you are just looking for a quick wikilink to avoid unnecessary debates. Let me know if I got this wrong. Also, I am actually working through an issue that I feel needs clarification. See below, and comment if you think you have a valid analysis. TableManners 06:47, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is right; IMO adding "religious scriptures" would be just a useful (Godsent ?) clarification of existing policy and will not involve a policy change/expansion.

Aside: I am certain that their are scores of Hinduism related pages alone that cite scriptures to establish facts; such additions are often let to stand because of editorial neglect/laziness (mea culpa) or in consideration of religious sensibilities; but that is not something that can be handled by promulgating policies. Abecedare 06:57, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Adding my vote for the retaining the current version's emphasis on the primacy of secondary sources. TimidGuy 11:06, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Quality vs type

Unindent - I see part of the problem is that the emphasis should first be on quality of source, then the viewpoint. As it stands, it feels more like my secondary source, warts and all, can trump your primary source. Secondary sources may not contradict the primary source, but they may be a superficial interpretation, which in turn can be misread. It is then difficult to use the primary source to correct the misinterpretations in the face of this policy (especially as this may require some obvious synthesis to align the original wording to the secondary interpretation). So I want wording that puts the primacy of quality sources first. Spenny 14:41, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I view those as two separate issues. Quality of a source is different than the type of source (primary, secondary or tertiary). I don't think you can put one in front of the other, they need to be looked at in parallel, and not in isolation from one another. – Dreadstar † 19:24, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Where would you put a BBC solid news item vs. the report it was based upon? For example, say we have a Government White Paper (a primary source) which is summarised and commented on by the BBC news item (secondary source). Having read both, we find that there is an element of over-simplification which distorts what is actually said. Clearly the primary source is of the highest quality, it is what is being discussed, and the facts of its statement must outrank the summarisation of the reporter, even if this is done by the simple expedient of the direct quote for the reader to interpret by themselves. Obvious as this may be, it appears that is not accepted as reasonable by some, and is undermined by this statement of policy. You may see this as a discussion on real research vs. articles in New Scientist where I would be far more accepting of your position, but often this debate is about a much lower test of qualities. I agree with that the concepts need to be considered in parallel, but that is not what policy appears to say, it appears to say it is right to disregard primary sources, regardless of quality. Spenny 22:10, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

In the example you provide, you should not use a primary source in that fashion, even in the version "lenient" in relation to primary sources. It is fundamentally a violation of this policy, since you would be employing an "unpublished analysis ... of published material that appears to advance a position". We cannot put forth our own interpretation or analysis of primary sources without violating the most basic principle this policy is based upon. Particularly in regards to government matters, what you find to be an oversimplification, another may find to be a perfectly fine overview. Secondary sources are advantageous because they generally include analysis and commentary, avoiding the pitfalls of trying to employ primary sources without giving an analysis (explicit or implied) and advancing a position, which is a very difficult task to be generous. The policy reflects those issues. Vassyana 05:34, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

That misrepresents my point. My point was that I could quote a primary source without an analysis to show that a secondary source was flawed, if needs be leaving it to the reader to make that analysis. The problem with the primacy of secondary sources approach is that it leaves the door open to quoting news items, which may be giving a controversial aspect undue prominence. In the context of verifiability vs. truth, if I can verify that a secondary source is misleading, or unreliable, then I can have both. We are not talking about hard stuff here, we are talking about statements of fact. Yes, on a Government paper, we can see that what is said is not always what is meant, but we should not assume that a third party interpretation outside the notable journals is necessarily any more accurate than the original words.

I have a particular example in mind (not that it is in Wikipedia as far as I am aware). During the floods in the UK last month, someone leaked an about to be published white paper on changes to planning policy. One short paragraph discussed the fact that it was inappropriate to stop building on flood plains as in fact a lot of areas that have been built on for centuries fell into this definition, including the centre of London, where it is considered that the Thames Barrier is a suitable solution to the problem. Someone tried to make a story that the Government was reckless as they were making policy to ignore the flooding risk (which also ignored the fact that the flooding affected areas that were not even considered flood plains). Some of the news media ran with that slant, making the story by selective quoting and taking the comments out of context. We could write an article based on the newspaper reporting, and find a number of articles taking that line, thus asserting the correctness of publishing the distortion as verifiable. We can correct this by simply quoting the original short paragraph in context which requires no analysis. Spenny 11:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it misrepresents the point at all. If the obvious point of the edit is to put forth the claim that the newspaper was wrong, at the very least that is highly questionable. There's far more harm potential in that kind of example (particularly of cherrypicking quotes and POV pushing, two very common inappropriate uses for primary sources), than for gain. notability and NPOV require multiple third party sources. In general, if there are enough third party reliable sources to establish notability, present a balanced view and write a complete encyclopedic article, primary sources should not be necessary except in rare cases, as reflected by the current policy formulation. Vassyana 18:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Whilst I understand this viewpoint as a statement of principles, it is a great way to give credibility to urban myths. Someone who is knowledgeable in their subject area will understand the misrepresentation of the media and can readily correct it without unreasonable synthesis. I still think you misrepresent what I am saying to justify your position: "quoting the original short paragraph in context" is quite different from "particularly of cherrypicking quotes and POV pushing" and whilst I understand what you are afraid of, it should not be used to justify the inclusion of the misrepresentations of the media. You seem to have been lucky and not had that sort of editing used against you. Unfortunately, the media has a tendency to use press releases, the same news agencies, pundit of the day and so on, so giving the impression of wide consensus, whereas it may well be just the blind reproduction of one particular press officer's summary. Secondary source does not mean disengage critical faculties.

The other effect I have been subjected to is the one line summary in a general news article used to assert a viewpoint, the headline quote used where we cannot see behind this source to understand the context to validate this secondary source itself. Often, that one line quote will be out of context. Much as you fear primary sources cherry picking and POV pushing, this happens just as much in secondary sources of the media, where so often these are a collection of cherry-picked items of interest. It is leaving Wikipedia open to just the same sort of spin-doctoring that the press rails against in the UK, when they were party to the culture that begot it. If you have ever been party to an incident where the media is involved, you will know that even the most innocuous of happenings can get incredibly distorted, even to the point where they will contradict the pictures being shown.

Policy that fits well with scientific credibility does not transfer well onto topics of general interest where even the so-called reliable sources need to be tested for veracity. Spenny 22:51, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

The statement "I could quote a primary source without an analysis to show that a secondary source was flawed" is the very definition of Original Research. Dreadstar † 23:49, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

What on earth do you mean? In any case, checking the secondary sources against the primary sources improves the articles. At times secondary sources misquote primary sources, contradict the primary sources, etc. If the secondary source says "the author said A" and the author says "not A," and does not say "A," then the secondary source is ... wrong. Jacob Haller 00:17, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I explained it in more detail in this posting. Dreadstar † 00:24, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Ultimately, what is research? In Wikipedia, there appears to be a distinction between research: as in inventing things, histories etc. and publishing that work; and research: looking things up. Looking things up is not banned - a news article mentions a statement, it appears fishy, we go to the primary text and see it is wrong. We do not research, we simply observe that the article in question is of questionable validity. If the citation is not of sufficient quality, then the statement it supports needs to be challenged. There is nothing inappropriate in that. Spenny 14:35, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I've expressed my position above (1) quality is important (2) most claims can use either primary or secondary sources (3) some types of claims require certain types of sources (we could describe these in more detail). Jacob Haller 05:06, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely agree. Let's say you have Anna Frank diary or De Bellum Gallicum. So we should trow them in WC because are 'primary sources'? Then let's say that we have Mein Kampf or a diary written by a mad reclused in a neuropsichiatric hospital that thinks to be Napoleon. Are these latter sources, still primary, as the same level of 'reliability' of the firts two? What about 'The second world war' written by Churchill, that awarded even, if i remember well, with a Nobel?? And what about the immense lies that we can read in 'secondary sources' in wich, expecially if politic-ecomic interests are involved, Wiki should pose exclusive faith?

The problem is clear; but it don't lies on 'primary or secondary sources' but in the manners of guys like Vassyana, that are acting with only one fixes idea: i am right, you not. This is problematic for me; the reverting to the changes made, (not without reasons) to this (quite absurd itself) policy. That's a problem.--Stefanomencarelli 14:15, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

The Gallic War is a masterpiece of propaganda, so probably a poor choice even if it is the main historical reference for the events. It is up to scholars to determine what is propaganda, what is likely true and what is likely false. Thus, we should be citing reliable secondary sources regarding the reliability of such sources, at the very least. The Diary of Anne Frank is a first person/eyewitness account, which as a whole are notoriously unreliable. For both of those examples there are a plethora of reliable secondary and tertiary sources that are easily available, including in-depth analysis of the sources themselves, so more likely we should avoid the primary sources all together except as referenced in reliable third party sources. Also, please refrain from personal attacks. There's no reason this conversation cannot be polite. Vassyana 18:17, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

"... which as a whole are notoriously unreliable." You got a source for that? Among other things it is humorous to see such flagrant use of personal opinion and OR (and worse) in defense of policies supposedly designed to prevent the use of personal opinion and OR. Some first-person accounts are unreliable in some ways, some aren't. If you're including material in an encyclopedia (or in anything that attempts to be accurate and fair) you have to use judgment. --Minasbeede 15:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Most of these appear to be straw man arguments, the policy does not prohibit the use of Primary sources, it clearly establishes that great care must be taken when using them becuase they can be easily misused: "Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them". A good example of misuse is the above statement about using a primary source to show that a secondary source is wrong - that's an unpublished analysis. If a primary source is misrepresented by a secondary source, then - if it's important - another secondary source should have reported the discrepancy. It's not our job to provide such an analysis. Dreadstar † 23:56, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

BBC Example

There is a current example of the problem which came up on the Administrator Incidents page discussed [here]. Someone spotted that a BBC employee apparently seemed to be editing the pages related to criticism. There appears to be a sensible response [here (there are a couple more corrections after)]. However, note that the argument is that they have checked the (primary) source which justifies the edit taking out the press bias of presumably deliberately misquoting the report. There are a few things here (does the remaining text in the article which notes that that the report was misrepresented in the press constitute OR - yes it appears to). It is also interesting as it brings in the question of reliable sources. We know that the Evening Standard does have vocal political campaigning, therefore for most purposes it is not a reliable source. On the other hand, we get into a problem as the article is discussing criticisms of the BBC and it is clear that these criticisms are being made. Wikipedia is being used to publish a political agenda, and potentially some interpretations of policy will encourage that, rather than resist it.

Discuss! 10:41, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a secondary source on many articles; change the policy, delete the articles, or ignore?

I see a contradiction and I need to seek objective clarification. Specifically, many articles exist on wikipedia that are based on reliable primary sources. Many of these are at first blush benign, such as New Hampshire communities by household income. In this case, the only source is a reliable primary source: an official New Hampshire state government website that allows the extraction of data from a database.

Apparently this database is based on U.S. census data.

Effectively, the New Hampshire database is a restatement of U.S. census data. It contains a variety of fields.

The problem with the article New Hampshire communities by household income is that the original contributor decided which fields to extract, and what article to create. Using the same database, another contributor might create:

• New Hampshire communities ranked by number of households with children under the age of 5 or
• New York communities that have volunteer fire departments or
• New Hampshire communities supplied by Granite State Electric?

While ranking New Hampshire communities by household income seems logical and benign, such an article turns wikipedia into a secondary source, and not the tertiary wikipedia is supposed to be.

In deciding which of such articles to write, the original contributor is making an evaluation of the various fields, and selecting one.

Additionally, such lists are not encyclopedic, and are often substitutes for categories. E.g., why have an article titled "" when there is a category Category:Academics of the University of Cambridge?

Ramifications: Of course, many such articles exist. Deleting such articles will likely leave a sour taste in many wikipedians’ mouths.

To address this, I see two options:

1. Change the policy to explicitly allow, subject to consensus on an article by article basis, the ability to create such articles?
2. Start deleting the myriad of articles that turn Wikipedia into a secondary source.
3. Ignore the problem (which doesn't address it).

Looking forward to other's thoughts. (If changing this policy is out of the question, could you kindly direct where I should take this issue?) TableManners 06:02, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

See also section for above.

• New Hampshire Database
• New Hampshire Database sources

Closing and signing. TableManners 06:02, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I think you are seeing a problem where none exists. Editorial judgement is a necessary part of creating this encyclopedia. We are always choosing to use this source and not that one; choosing to include this claim and not that one; choosing to juxtapose these claims but not those. WAS 4.250 19:29, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree, agree, agree.See posts above of Minesbeene, just as example.--Stefanomencarelli 14:16, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not strictly a tertiary source. We're a mixed secondary/tertiary source based on both primary and secondary sources. There is always a certain bias in how articles are presented, including the choice of topics, and you have the right to question whether an article such as this one should exist via the talk page and/or appropriate deletion channels. Dcoetzee 23:43, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position

Stevertigo's recent addition is a bit too abstract (sorry!) for me to follow. Are there some examples of articles that were abstracted upward as he describes? Tom Harrison ^Talk 19:33, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps Evolution (disambiguation) and/or Evolution (term)? WAS 4.250 20:12, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

That addition was unnecessary and I am glad it was removed. This is a policy page, not a dissertation. Language has to be kept simple and to the point. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:56, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree 100% with jossi on this. WAS 4.250 19:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Jelly bean, interpretation of SYNT, and request for opinions.

Hi. I've made some edits to the Jelly bean article, about the candy. In this article we have a table of colors flavors, which is meant for the basic store-brand jellybeans which usually have only 8 or 9 flavors. I wanted to clean up one column where we list "black" as "anise/licorice".

The background is that almost all candies popularly spoken of as "licorice" are actually flavored with either anise oil or a synthetic equivalent. At least in the U.S., only certain gourmet brands are actually made with licorice root or extracts thereof, and they generally advertise this on their packaging. So black jellybeans, which are popularly referred to as "licorice" flavored, are often actually "anise" flavored.

My change was instead of having the unwieldly "anise/licorice" in the table, was to put "licorice" with a footnote that says "Many "licorice" candies are actually flavored with anise oil", with a quote, citation, and a link to a journal article explaining the subject. I felt that better explains the issue to the reader, and clears up a popular misconception.

Anyway, another editor keeps reverting it claiming "OR". I tried to meet him halfway by discussing what he meant by OR ( and also hoping to convince him that the fact itself was true before trotting out the rulebook ), but that didn't work out, and he moved the discussion off his talk page mid-conversation.

This is only a guess, but the point of contention seems to center around an implied inference. For example, if I made an inference to join "Licorice candies are really anise" with "Jellybeans are a candy" to get "Licorice jellybeans are really anise", that would be an example of SYNT.

However, that's not what I did, and I'd like to counter with the following points:

• I only said "Many "licorice" candies are actually flavored with anise oil", backed up by a very reliable source.
• This footnote was in a section ( a table cell ) of the article about "licorice" flavoring. It's not a statement about jellybeans requiring a source on jellybeans, it's a statement about licorice flavoring.
• There is no "OR by juxtaposition" rule, despite what some editors seem to feel.
• "Jellybean" is a generic description and not a trademark. That means there are many different manufacturers and many different recipes, and it is OK to speak of them and how they are flavored, in generalities.
• Even if an inference were being made, it would not be a material inference because there is nothing about the size or shape of jellybeans that they would be flavored differently than any other candy.
• It's unreasonable to expect that there would be an article explaining how a particular _shape_ of candy is flavored. Squidfryerchef 23:27, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I feel pretty silly about this, but here's what I see in this Jelly Bean situation:

Policy: WP:NOR#Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, which states:

Editors often make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to advance position C. However, this would be an example of a new synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, and as such it would constitute original research.[2] "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published this argument in relation to the topic of the article."

Source A: Liquorice candies are flavored with Anise. (Source does not mention Jelly Beans)

Source B: Black Jelly Beans are liquorice flavored. (Source does not mention Anise)

Synthesis: Black Jelly Beans are flavored with Anise. (Original research/analysis/synthesis)

This is original research, because it expresses the editor's opinion that, given the fact that because "liquorice flavored candies" are flavored with anise, then 'liquorice flavored Jelly Beans" (which are candies) are flavored with anise.

The excuse that it's "just a link in the article, which doesn't draw a conclusion" is flawed and incorrect, because its mere presence in the article draws a conclusion, even if not explicitly stated.

Isn't there a single reliable source that actually says that some Jelly Beans are flavored with Anise? It seems simple - but I looked and it isn't at all simple to find a source that says so. I wonder why? Anyway, here are two moderately acceptable sources: [1] [2]. I think those might be usable, but not the one that's unrelated to the subject of the article...which is Jelly Beans, not "candies". Dreadstar † 23:37, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Well that's actually my point. I don't think "source being related to the subject of the article" is to be taken so literally. I think the source only needs to be related to what is being footnoted. The other issue is that a jellybean is only a particular shape of hard candy, and wouldnt be flavored any differently than any other hard candy. If it were a certain _brand_ of jellybean than I would feel very differently and insist on a statement that that brand has a particular flavoring. ( CC from my talk page ) Squidfryerchef 23:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

You know, researching this really makes me wonder if Jelly Beans are flavored with anise at all...some of the sales sites say it, but why are there no reliable sources for such a thing? Mebbe it's not even true anymore..and they're all synthetically flavored. Maybe someone can find better sources for it. Dreadstar † 23:54, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Well my take is that jellybeans are just a differently-shaped sweet, and would use the same flavorings as lollipops, etc, even sodas. If someone did the same thing about a brand-name confection, or even something like a liqueur that might not be a brand name, but had a generally accepted way of making it, then I'd be making the same edits and OR claims. Anyway it's more complicated than that, you'll probably find "licorice" candies made from anise, star anise, artificial flavorings, and true licorice. But the point is that in the U.S. "licorice" is so often used to refer to things flavored with anise that there is a lot of confusion, and the article ought to say something about that. P.S. that Canada.com article might not be usable for the "anise" issue but it does resolve a lot of the unsourced data in the article. Squidfryerchef 00:14, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I fully understand your point, I just happen to disagree. It's entirely possible that all "candy-related" articles can have a source unrelated to that specific candy that just generalizes what all candies are flavored with. But I just don't think that's right. You cannot prove that Jelly Beans are flavored with anise, and these sales sites are not reliable sources. I dunno. It's just candy, but what applies to one Wikipeda article should apply to all. Dreadstar † 01:02, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

There actually is a page on the Wikipedia called Liquorice candy, which would be a fine place to put my citation to that chemistry journal, and I could change the list of flavors to link there instead of to the Licorice plant. But as far as policy goes I still say that there is no implied inference with the kind of explanatory note I was trying to add to Jelly bean. That doesn't mean all such footnotes are automatically pure gold; but having them does not create an inference by proximity. Squidfryerchef 03:17, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Excellent! Liquorice candy looks like the perfect place for your citation! Dreadstar † 06:54, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Straw poll: Should No original research take a stand against primary sources and tertiary sources?

Let's see where we are here with a straw poll. The issue, summarized as neutrally as possible, is as follows:

From 2003 to late 2006, Wikipedia:No original research indicated that editors could use primary sources, secondary sources, and tertiary sources, so long as there was no original research. Around November [late summer] 2006, a statement was added to the policy indicating in bold that Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources, and that use of primary sources should be "rare". [There was some opposition to the change at the time, but for whatever reason, the change remained]. No explicit statement was added against tertiary sources, but their disfavoring is implied by the above bolded statement.

Please indicate your opinions regarding the following questions:

Should Wikipedia:No original research oppose the general use of primary sources?

• Disagree. Primary source citations are the bread and butter of Wikipedia, and a prominent aspect of almost all featured articles. Any time there is a non-hearsay quotation, the citation is a primary source. Almost any citation to journal articles is a primary source citation. Citations from works of fiction, TV shows, movies, song lyrics, poetry, are all primary sources. If we discouraged citation of primary sources, very few Wikipedia articles about current events could be written. Moreover, the reasons given against citation of primary sources almost always have nothing to do with original research, and everything to do with NPOV. The rules for citing primary sources without original research should be the same as for secondary and tertiary sources. COGDEN 01:14, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources<adding>primary sources should not be used for OR, synthesis via juxtaposition, etc.</adding> TableManners 01:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• Strongly Disagree. Forbidding primary sources would make fact-checking impossible. I have been working on improving the coverage of 4th-century Christian history. Forbidding the use of older ecclesiastical histories (which reflect different sides of the controversies) would lock in the POV of later works like the Catholic Encyclopedia (which represent Nicaean trinitarianism) or that of modern revisionist works. Jacob Haller 02:21, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• Disagree. We just need to be more clear when and why primary sources should be used. The use of primary sources alone almost guarantee WP:OR (and, not coincidentally, WP:NPOV) problems. However, primary sources are often a necessity as COGDEN and Jacob Haller point out above. Primary sources do not suffice, and may not be necessary, but there is certainly no reason to exclude them. --Ronz 02:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm confused. Where in the policy does it state that primary sources are "forbidden" or "excluded" ? as per my reading WP:OR only says that such sources should be used "only with care". Abecedare 02:41, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• Strongest Possible Disagree You need some secondary sources to establish notability, but ideally you have a mix of primary and secondary sources. Squidfryerchef 03:05, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• No, as long as the editors don't analyze the primary sources. Rocket Socket 03:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• Disagree Primary sources are invaluable for verification purposes. Secondary and tertiary help establish notability. MrMurph101 17:19, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• Strongly Disagree If I want to use an occasional direct quotation, or excerpt from an interview with a luminary to illustrate a point, why not? This is getting ridiculous.--Filll 22:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• Strongly Disagree Secondary sources used for analysis, but primary sources are preferred for data, and tertiary sources are also useful. It is not the type of source that leads to problems, it's the usage. WP should not assume that editors or readers are too stupid to use references properly, and make stupid rules based on this assumption. Dhaluza 01:30, 15 August 2007

(UTC)

• Strongly Disagree For current events the policy of relying on the secondary source material of entertainment networks masquarading as scholarly news outlets is asinine. Censoring available primary source material is endorsing a NPOV, Non-Informed-Point-Of-View that is. Primary source information of wikipedians for current event articles, as long as they log in and sign the post, should definitely be allowed. For instance I attended the Iowa Straw Poll last weekend and I can't post 95% of the information I have because it wasn't given out by some talking head in the spin room. I would propose that within 1 year of a current event wikipedians be allowed to add a primary source section to the bottom of the article, provided they sign their post and it maintains neutrality.GrEp 04:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Should Wikipedia:No original research oppose the general use of tertiary sources?

• Disagree. Citations from tertiary sources such as treatises and textbooks are usually even less likely to be original research than secondary sources, particularly when it is a widely-used textbook or treatise cited by everyone in the field. COGDEN 01:14, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources <adding>Tertiary are not as good as secondary sources. Primary sources are best for research, secondary are best for an encyclopedia, tertiary sources for a junior high school paper. Exceptions exist. </adding>TableManners 01:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• Somewhat Agree. Tertiary sources, particularly dictionaries and sometimes also encyclopediae, reduce complex ideas and histories to simple definitions and summaries. People often draw syllogisms from these definitions, which is IS, and they are often wrong. Favorites involve "the definition of socialism," "the definition of capitalism," and "the definition of libertarianism" ... Jacob Haller 02:21, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
  • A tertiary source can't be "wrong." There is no wrong or right on Wikipedia. There is only what is sourced and what is not sourced. If you think a source is wrong, you just have to keep that opinion to yourself. Wikipedia editors aren't supposed to make judgement calls like that. Rocket Socket 03:19, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• Disagree. I think the exclusion of tertiary sources is just a misinterpretation of the emphasis on secondary sources. We need secondary sources (or better, meaning tertiary). It's not a coincidence that this overlaps with WP:NPOV in the need for "the best and most reputable authoritative sources available." --Ronz 02:25, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• Somewhat Disagree. There are many places, especially at the beginning of articles where there's a few general statements about the subject, or the definition or etymology of the subject title, and these opening statements can be backed up by citing to tertiary sources. Squidfryerchef 03:05, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• No. As long as the tertiary source is from a reputable publisher there's no problem. Rocket Socket 03:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• Strongly Disagree Tertiary and quaternary sources etc. should be fine. How do you even draw the line between secondary and tertiary sources, in any case? This is all pretty vague, and more nonsense from bureaucrats and others who want a weapon to use against editors who are trying to write good articles.--Filll 22:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

• Primary sources are fine as long as they're only used to provide direct quotes or paraphrase sentences but not much more than that. Therefore articles should rely most on secondary and tertiary sources. The problem is when Wikipedia editors do their own analysis of primary sources. That's original research and not allowed. Rocket Socket 01:31, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• Primary sources such as technical research papers, religious scriptures, raw data etc require a high level of understanding of the field and context to be interpreted appropriately, and this is not something should be done by lay, anonymous wikipedia editors. So articles should rely on secondary (and perhaps tertiary) sources, with primary sources treated with care. Aside: I consider review articles in academic publications that provide an overview of a topic and current consensus (rather than report the author's own research findings) to be secondary sources - do others agree with this interpretation ? Abecedare 01:42, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
  • The definitions used here for these terms are at odds with the way they are defined in the scientific community. An published article offering analysis of the authors own research would be considered a secondary source along with "review" articles. A primary source would be an interview with a scientist simply describing his work.--BirgitteSB 12:52, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• I think we need to discuss appropriate uses and potential misuses of each type of source, or, as I'd suggested above, appropriate sources for each type of claim. Jacob Haller 02:21, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

P.S. In my experience, secondary and tertiary sources often present worse POV problems than the primary sources. Jacob Haller 02:28, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

It is not a problem if a source presents a POV. The problem is when an editor states his POV without a source for it. The policy against POV is for editors not sources. All sources are going to have a POV. Rocket Socket 03:16, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

There is no requirement that sources be neutral, only reliable. It is up to Wikipedia editors to produce a neutral article by balancing the information from sources from each viewpoint. We must use POV sources to do so. POV sources are a requirement.--BirgitteSB 12:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• Consensus is not a vote. I agree with the first two commenting editors above. Vassyana 02:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comments. Review articles, as mentioned by Abecedare, are secondary sources. I would support including more encouraging language towards tertiary sources, but would still encourage caution due to potential oversimplification by the source. We can always provide clarification regarding those sources. I'm unconcerned with current events being lacking in Wikipedia. Wikinews is over that way if someone is interested in covering current events. Wikiversity, Wikiquote and Wikibooks are in those directions, if someone wants to work extensively with primary sources.
  • On the subject of early Christian history, there are a plethora of secondary & tertiary sources, and it's not our place to analyze and determine if modern sources are "revisionist". We should represent the views of modern scholarship and publications according to their prominence, not our own opinions. If someone wants to dispute the findings of modern scholarship, they are welcome to find a reputable publisher. Vassyana 02:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment about poll. This poll is inaccurate, to say the least, in its summary of the policy shift. There was an extensive discussion about the changes, which were implemented at the end of summer last year, not in mid-to-late fall as presented. (You can review the discussion here.) The problems with abuse of primary sources were recurring issues, and sporadically discussed on the policy talkpage over time. Primary sources are very difficult to use without engaging in original research, implicitly or explicitly, except when presenting them as used by reliable third party publishers. Vassyana 02:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

  I have to agree with Vassyana. Also, the phrasing of the questions are biased. BTW, I do not disagree with the use of 1 and 3 sources, but 2 sources are emphasized and more important. TableManners 03:07, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

  I have to agree. The questions are bit contrived and misleading. The policy does not forbid or exclude primary and tertiary sources. It doesn't even provide any injunction against using tertiary sources. On primary sources, it just says they should be used rarely and with great care to avoid original research. And of course, if people come across one of those rare situations (or just an exception to the rule), they're free to apply a little common sense. For example, it's common to plainly report census numbers for statistics on U.S. cities. It's just a plain reporting of facts and is purely "raw data", not presenting one interpretation, POV or another. Common sense tells us that's a fairly good primary source because it's use is very neutral and published by a source with a reputation for accuracy and fact-checking. (At least as far as the census number go, *chuckle*). Some primary sources are far more subjective, like personal memoirs and ancient historical accounts, and therefore need to be vetted and interpreted by modern third party reliable references. Vassyana 05:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

  If I may split hairs here, US Census Reports are not primary sources: they are syntheses of the Census returns -- those forms US citizens fill out every 10 years -- which makes it a secondary source. -- llywrch 18:22, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, they are primary sources. It's a reporting of raw data, collected and collated but still a primary source. Reporting the raw results of lab data, with little more than collection and collation is similarly a primary source. It may be original research, but it's not a secondary source. A report analyzing that data and drawing conclusions could very well be a secondary source however. Vassyana 22:44, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment, I agree with Vassyana and TableManners, the poll is biased and does not accurately describe the items under dispute. If a Wikipedia:straw poll is to be taken, then it needs to be worded in a way that accurately and neutrally describes the dispute. The current wording of the poll fails to do this. From what I understand, the basic dispute is whether or not to change or remove the wording of certain elements in the current policy, specifically:
  • "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources."
  • "Although most articles should rely predominantly on secondary sources, there are rare occasions when they may rely on primary sources."

It is my view that these two elements need to remain in the policy, and no changes be made to the current policy regarding the use of primary/seconday/tertiary sources. I vote to keep the current wording. Dreadstar † 05:35, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment,I too feel the poll isn't well stated. "Should Wikipedia:No original research oppose the general use of primary sources?" There's no sense in which primary sources are opposed. It's simply that secondary sources are preferred, because experts have have corroborated and interpreted primary sources. I've seen serious instances of abuse of primary sources. One problem is that the nature of primary sources and their utility varies widely from field to field. I believe the general principle should be to prefer secondary sources, and thereby avoid original research by nonexperts, while relying on common sense in those instances when use of a primary source is appropriate. TimidGuy 10:59, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The key word here is general. The current version of the policy "allows" them in rare cases, but prohibits their general use. Keep in mind that this is a Wikipedia policy, not just a guideline. COGDEN 17:18, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The comments made by other clearly indicate the poll is giving exactly the impression TimidGuy stated. Vassyana 22:44, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• I also find this badly worded. I have not been able to keep up with all the discussion lately, but I do not think the statement being polled describes any version of this policy I have ever read. I find a poll on such a statement irrelevant. It is also inaccurate to pretend these terms are so solid. A "secondary source" can almost always be used a primary source some way or another. Also a single "source", however you define it, may have different uses as all three sort of sources. A modern introduction by a scholar, that could be used as a tertiary source. The main text as a secondary source for it's analysis, or primary source for the claims of the author. Appendices may also have copies of letters or other material that could be used as a primary source. These terms are all very ambiguous and a single book, or journal, or sometimes even a single article cannot be purely labeled with one of these terms. It all depends on how you use the source. It depends on what you are referencing, whether you are using a primary, secondary, or tertiary source. To all who are concerned about wikilawyers, if someone tells your source is no good because it is "primary". Then ask them "How exactly am I using original research in the article?" If they cannot tell you, then explain that the point of WP:NOR is to prevent original research not prevent primary sources.--BirgitteSB 12:48, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• The problem with primary sources is the mile long plot summaries that users provide about movies/tv episodes, and especially soap opera characters' pages. Corpx 17:29, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• That is not a problem with primary sources in general. That is a style issue with articles about subjects with plots. How long of plot summaries or whether they should exist at all in articles like Romeo and Juliet, The Apartment, or Frank Cooper Jr. is not relevant to a discussion on the usage of primary sources throughout all of Wikipedia. Please avoid strawman arguments.--BirgitteSB 17:49, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• I'd tend to agree with you. The reason primary sources were discouraged is because of their widespread abuse. It is very difficult to use primary sources without engaging in original research. You're quite right that asking people exactly how they are being used incorrectly is the correct response. I do however somewhat disagree that the definitions are so flexible. Perhaps they are in a strict semantic sense, but really that's a semantics game. Most fields have fairly clear delineations between primary and secondary/tertiary sources. It's usually the distinction between secondary and tertiary that is unclear. Vassyana 22:44, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that many fields have solid definitions for these these terms. Unfortunately these definitions are contradictory with one another and Wikipedia encompasses all these fields.--BirgitteSB 13:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• I believe Birgitte has the right idea: the problem is not with the material, but with how it is used. The only cases where primary sources should be excluded is if they are of a type that is not verifiable -- for example, unpublished family letters or personal interviews. If I use a source which no one else has reasonable access to -- for example records from a government or corporate archive, which often can only be used after a formal grant of access -- then no one else can verify that I quoted it correctly, let alone provided the material in harmony with NPOV. -- llywrch 18:22, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• These questions are always subjective and the application of rules has to be flexible enough to not squelch good writing and discourage contributions of editors to WP. The idea that any one kind of source should be used to the exclusion of others is ludicrous. If I have an article about nursery rhymes, I cannot quote the public domain words of the nursery rhymes obtained from some public domain primary source? The music? I cannot quote from another encyclopedia that is summarizing the work of 5 scholars on nursery rhymes? Please people try to use your heads! This ridiculous nitpicking and rule-making will end up doing more harm than good to Wikipedia.--Filll 22:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

That is not at all what the policy says. This poll is extremely misleading and biased. Vassyana 22:44, 14 August 2007 (UTC) .

I agree, that is why I said the poll questions are irrelevant. The policy doesn't oppose any of these types of sources.--BirgitteSB 13:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. We have to be careful that rules designed to limit cranks (Look, the Bible says Jesus rode a motorcycle right here!), should not infringe on the contributions of rational people. The fact is, there are many topics that by their nature require heavy use of primary sources—either because the text is the topic or just because the topic is obscure. Of course primary sources should be used with care, so that we don't originate new theories, but they do have an important place here.--Pharos 22:38, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Just nothing that this position is well-within the current reading of the policy. It even acknowledges that there are cases where sections, and even articles, may need to be based on primary sources. It just encourages us to keep it to a minimum and do so with care. Vassyana 22:49, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
  • If the subject is so obscure that an article has to rely on primary sources then why is the article important enough to be in Wikipedia? If a subject is notable then it would naturally have enough secondary and tertiary sources that you wouldn't have to rely on primary sources. Rocket Socket 22:52, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

That's a very OR statement. See how useful OR actually is, see how it is nearly unavoidable? --Minasbeede 23:01, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment If we eliminate primary sources, we would not be able to quantify things--we would not be able to say how high a building is, or how long a bridge is, or how many people live in a city, unless someone else repeated it. And even if they did, we should always use the original primary source for data, because it is more reliable. Secondary sources are necessary for analysis, but raw data can also be presented, and left for the reader to analyze (often this is the best way to deal with competing POV issues). The problem is when a WP editor puts his/her analysis in an article--arbitrarily excluding sources won't help that. Stupid rules don't stop stupid people.

Also, a proposal along these lines would be unworkable. There is no clear distinction between what is a primary, secondary, and tertiary source. Scientists and historians use the terms differently, and there are other different perspectives as well. Even if an unambiguous definition were possible, references would not always fit neatly into these cubbyholes. For example, a scientific paper could include new experimental data, data analysis, and previous work in the field. So this one reference would be a primary, secondary and tertiary source all rolled into one. An encyclopedia may generally be regarded as a tertiary source, but it may have signed articles that are really secondary sources, and undigested raw data, which is still primary source.

There was an effort at WP:N recently to require only secondary sources for Notability that lead to an edit war with a lengthy edit protection, and a subsequent straw poll that showed no consensus for this version. The compromise wording that resulted strongly favors secondary sources, but without making them absolutely necessary. There was also an extended discussion of using primary source census data for creating articles on geographic locations a while back. The resulting consensus resulted in producing tens of thousands of articles on U.S. towns and cities based solely on the U.S. Census Bureau primary source data. This created a framework for expansion that was far better than having editors working at random. Dhaluza 01:30, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

This view and the consensus described at WP:N seems consistent with the current reading of this policy, which "strongly favors secondary sources". The current version also permits the use of primary sources on those occasions when they are necessary, provided they are used with care (particularly in avoiding original research). Vassyana 01:49, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Discussion about sources

This is not a vote, but rather an invitation to discussion. I have endeavored to word the questions neutrally and generically, to invite broad comments about this aspect of policy. I believe these question cut to the core of what is being discussed and debated above, without leading a reader to draw conclusions about how the policy currently reads. Vassyana 23:05, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• What distinctions, beyond the requirements of reliable sourcing, should be made between types of sources (primary vs. secondary, modern vs. historical, et al), if any?

Since we all can't agree on this issue, probably the best way forward is just to make no distinction between different types of sources. Ultimately, they all follow the same standard anyway, which is (1) that the accuracy of the citation can be verified by a person without specialized skill, and (2) that there are no novel synthetic or interpretive claims, either express or implied. This applies for primary, secondary, and tertiary sources.COGDEN 21:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• If there is a consensus about distinctions between sources, which sorts should be encouraged or discouraged, if any?

All source citations should be encouraged. A good article uses both primary and secondary sources (and tertiary sources, if we are lucky enough to have good ones). The best policy is often to use primary sources to provide the unvarnished facts, i.e.:

• "The Second Amendment refers to a "right to bear arms" {see Second Amendment},

then back it up with secondary sources that add the spin, i.e.:

• "Some commentators believe this right provides an unrestricted personal right to own weapons {See We-heart-NRA (2005), manifesto.}"

and tertiary sources, i.e.:

• "According to the widely-cited Westmaster Law Treatise, 'the right to bear arms has traditionally extended only to the right of states to organized well-regulated militias' {see Westmaster 6:42}"

COGDEN 21:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• What kinds of sources are more prone to original research abuse, if any?

Primary sources, but secondary and tertiary sources are more prone to NPOV abuse. The safest method, and least likely to lead to original research, is to use a combination of primary and secondary sources: primary souces for the what, and secondary sources for the how and why. COGDEN 21:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• If there is consensus that certain types of materials are more prone to abuse, what kind of cautions should be given (or restrictions suggested), if any?

The standards of original research should be the same for any type of source. But we should caution readers that to "go beyond" what is said in a primary source, they need a secondary or tertiary source, and to "go beyond" a secondary source they need either another secondary source or a tertiary source. Allowance should be made, of course, for stating the obvious and the non-controversial in relation to the source material.COGDEN 21:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Prioritizing secondary sources

Cogden, I reverted your removal of the sentence prioritizing secondary sources. This is a practice that has strong support. Can you say what your objection to it is? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 21:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Rather than removing it again, could you say here what you feel the problem is? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 21:55, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

On sources, and the classification thereof

From all these discussions, I can't help feeling that there's some confusion, or a lack of clarity, as to what type of source (primary/secondary/tertiary) a given source is. As I understand the definitions, a primary source is a photograph, video, eyewitness statement (in the context of, say history), or a TV show itself, a script, a novel, etc. A secondary source is anything that isn't primary. A tertiary source is a special case of secondary sources which do not use any primary sources themselves.

Thus, if someone edited wikipedia with information they had gained first-hand, that would be unsourced, and the article would itself be a primary source. If they directly quote an eyewitness or a text, then that's sourced from a primary source, and the article is a secondary source. If the only directly used sources are secondary (including tertiary sources), then the article is a tertiary source (often seen as the ideal for wikipedia).

The principle here is original research - the composition of a primary source, or the synthesis of primary sources into a secondary (non-tertiary) source are research. If this is done for the article, then that is original research. Thus, if a person watches a TV show, reads a book, watches a film, or any similar activity and then writes a plot summary, that's original research. If they find one or more plot summaries elsewhere and reference them, then it's not original research, it's synthesis or composition of secondary sources.

Journal articles aren't a primary source, generally speaking - raw experimental data is a primary source. Primary sources are typically (but not always) devoid of interpretation. Interpretation is added through research in the synthesis of the secondary source. WP:NOR is saying that we don't do interpretation, we do synthesis compilation.

Does that make sense to people? SamBC(talk) 23:07, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I think you might be on to something here. These terms are used in several different ways, and though I don't think your definitions are actually the most common scholarly ones, they may be the most useful ones for our purposes. We have to remember that the primary source-secondary source-tertiary source system was developed for the field of historiography, which is related to but distinct from the science of encyclopedia-writing. So, we might want to go with a definition more like this and less like this. I think we need to give these terms application-specific definitions for how they are employed in defining Wikipedia's sourcing policy.--Pharos 01:08, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds pretty sensible to me. Slrubenstein | Talk 01:09, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Aye! ≈ jossi ≈ (talk)

Sounds about right to me. Vassyana 01:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Yup! except for the very last sentence in the first comment, we don't synthesize sources to come up with original research. Other than that, it looks very reasonable. Dreadstar † 02:02, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The ambiguous interpretations of synthesis are also an issue, of course - synthesis can validly be used just to mean compilation with 'binding' text, while we prohibit synthesis used to generate new conclusions. If it helps, you can think of the problematic use of "synthesis" in my original comment as being replaced by "compilation". Here, I've done it now... SamBC(talk) 02:12, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Now it's perfect..;) That's pretty much what I thought you meant, but I just wanted to clarify the use of the word 'synthesis'. Thanks! Dreadstar † 02:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I also think that the phrasing about being "created at or near the time under study" causes confusion. Just because Tacitus lived in ancient rome, that doesn't make his works primary sources. They're only primary sources if he was writing about things he directly experienced or documenting literally the reports of others. I've known history students at pretty much every level get confused by definitions using phrases like that. I agree that wikipedia should have its own (tighter) definitions of the terms, so as to define them unambiguously for use within policy, guidelines and discussions. Uses in articles should, of course, be based on the (looser) general definitions already in the encyclopedia. I think my explanations just now are also useful because there's no effective explanation I can see in WP:NOR that explains why we don't use primary sources, and why using them is original research. SamBC(talk) 02:09, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Tacitus is most certainly a primary source in historical studies. That phrasing is correct. He is only secondary sources in a strict sense of the definition, outside the context of pragmatic application or the context of the source itself. In practice, such historical writings are treated as primary sources. Vassyana 02:57, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Either we're at cross-purposes, or my historian friends disagree. It probably depends on the focus of the study in question, on the context. For example, studying the society and era of Tacitus in general, he'd be a primary source. For more specific matters that were already historical at the time (I'm given to understand that he wrote histories), then he'd be secondary. Of course, I might be getting Tacitus confused with other classical or ancient historians, in which case consider my point without the specific example. SamBC(talk) 03:06, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Tacitus wrote about events before his time and during his time (though pragmatically stopping in the reign of the previous emperor). Ammianus Marcellinus did the same (mixing older material with eyewitness material). There are pragmatic reasons to group the ancient sources together and modern interpretations together. Howeber, the same ancient/modern split doesn't work with archaeological data, where the original context is the only pure primary source, and even the isolated artifacts, their catalogue records, published or unpublished descriptions, etc. are selections and interpretations thereof. Jacob Haller 03:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

That's contrary to common practice, as well as basic university teaching in the subject. For example in this syllabus, the historical texts (including Tacitus writing about what was history at his time) are primary sources.[3] Students of history are commonly required to divide their bibliography in primary and secondary source sections. Tacitus would be firmly in the former. Here's a few more examples.[4] [5] [6] [7] Vassyana 04:02, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

This misunderstanding is why I have a problem with us defining these terms in the most useful way for Wikipedia. Because the more common uses of these terms use them otherwise. It leads to confusion when Tactitus's works are widely known as "primary sources" but are not to be considered such by our definition. The issue is that if Tacitus writing about what was history at his time is to be a "primary source" than no "secondary source" can exist about September 11, 2001 attacks or Global warming. I have always thought we should get to the bottom of what make "primary sources" problematic and describe that in the policy. Get rid of the terminology which lead to misunderstanding and simply explain what the real problem is with using diarys and raw data as sources. I know that is not a popular opinion, but there is no way to make "primary source" not mean all the definitions that it commonly means so we can single out a few types of sources that are pitfalls in original research.--BirgitteSB 14:15, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

In particular I like the definition of primary sources in the UNR, that includes this often forgotten attribute: created or otherwise produced during the time under study. For example, a newspaper article for the Attack on Pearl Harbor, is certainly a primary source. In WP, some editors believe that newspaper articles about a current or recent event are secondary sources, when actually they are not. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, some are, most aren't. You do get news reports that are reviews and synthesis of other reports. It depends what you're taking it as a source of. For example, a report written by someone who wasn't there, that clearly bases all of its information and conclusions on sources who were there (and identifies the information as such) are secondary. For example, a lot of news coverage of the current foot and mouth disease "crisis" in the UK take the form of reviews and analysis of what has happened "so far". However, a news report saying "and nows there's another case, argh!" is primary. SamBC(talk) 02:20, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, a fine distinction that many people do not get. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:23, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, if we are going to put together domain-specific definitions for wikipedia, then that clarification (written a bit better) should probably be part of it. It's looking like ending up as a "wikipedian's easy guide to classification of sources". Or maybe idiot's guide ;) SamBC(talk) 02:25, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I just added another use of compilation to my original point, as an "or" with one instance of synthesis. Just for clarity. It's bolded so it can be seen easily even if you've already read it. SamBC(talk) 02:25, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Further to all this, I've just started a new "proposal" at Wikipedia:Classification of sources. I don't know for sure that it'll be useful, it's certainly not in the right tone yet, and if it is useful I don't know if it should stay a separate page. However, that's useful for working on it. If you think we should have a clear internal definition or illustration, please join me and help to build it up and put it in the right tone. It's mostly copy-paste from my initial comment above. SamBC(talk) 02:44, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Does this not risk creating undue weight for the concept? I think we fell down that whole discussing synthesis - getting so involved in the concept that you forget that all it is saying is "No OR" in a particularly obscure section. Spenny 14:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

On the appropriate uses of primary sources

It occurs to me that there's a pretty good, relatively objective criterion that we could use to cover when primary sources are appropriate, and it ought to cover pretty much every case:

Primary source are acceptable when they require and receive no interpretation in the article, but are merely a source of an objective fact.

Thoughts? SamBC(talk) 02:16, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Mmmmm, no... Primary sources are easily abused, by selective quoting, quoting out of context and other fallacies. That is why their use is deprecated, and secondary sources always preferred. Also, if a primary source has not been used in any secondary source, then its use in a WP article will violate WP:NOR. And if the primary source is cited in a secondary source, then use the secondary source. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

So we can't use, say, census data to describe populations of countries/cities, or similar primary sources for heights of buildings, or official match stats to provide sports information (if you think that records of individual sporting events should be in wikipedia, anyway)? SamBC(talk) 02:27, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Census data, in particular its reliability and accuracy, is definitely an exception, not the rule. Additionally, it's general reliability and useful as a plain source of data is well-accepted and well-covered in reliable sources. We're quite permitted to apply common sense to determine if something is a notable exception to the rule. Heights of buildings and sports statistics are also both easily acquired from secondary and tertiary sources, when notable. Vassyana 02:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Any source is readily abused by selective quoting, quoting out of context and other fallacies. Any source is no better than the interpretation given by the editor. A secondary source has the joy of this potentially being applied twice, once by the original author, and again by the WikiEditor - this is certainly true of journalistic sources. Spenny 02:28, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Secondary (and tertiary) sources provide context, analysis and interpretation. Primary source abuse potential is much more significant. See below for an example. Vassyana 02:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Whilst secondary sources can provide those things, to be able to validate them, it potentially requires some form of analysis: does this context show a bias of the contributor, is it a complete representation, is it accurate? We are dependent on the editor accurately representing information - distortions are inevitable in the required paraphrasing to wikify the information. This is true regardless of the source. I don't disagree with arguments such as the biblical distortion example below. I do disagree that assuming secondary sources are somehow more immune from the same issues and we have the extra issue of finding out whether the source is working to the same agenda as the editor. Spenny 09:08, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

(ec)I have to agree with Jossi. Such a plain statement is bursting with abuse potential. After all, it's not disputable that (according to the Bible Matthew 5:28–5:30) Jesus said:

"If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell."

While most contributors to the English Wikipedia are familiar enough with Christianity to spot abuse, realize there are similar examples from religions and so-called "cults" you are probably not familiar with. Even without making explicit OR statements, material such as this can be juxtaposed and used to present a very negative (and inaccurate) POV. Selective quoting, especially quoting from religious texts and leaders, is a serious concern. Even worse, it could be cited for the plain claim: "Jesus said it was better to gouge out an eye or cut off a hand, than to sin." That's a "plain reporting" of what that primary source says. It's not explicit OR, but certainly in many cases it would be effectively the same. It's fairly self-apparent how such paraphrases could be badly abused. This kind of problem is part of why primary sources are discouraged in favour of secondary sources. Vassyana 02:46, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

But that "plain reporting" is plainly not "objective fact", at least to any sensible editor. Plus, the bible is a bit of a straw man in such discussions - it can be used to counter most things in terms of quoting and sourcing, and probably to support quite a few of them as well. It's something of a boundary case. However, my suggestion could be amended by a guiding example, such as "such as official figures". It's probably worth also saying that the source must be clear in the statement. SamBC(talk) 02:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

It's only obvious to "any sensible editor" because they are familiar with the religion and text, as I mentioned immediately in my comment above. Vassyana 04:04, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Accepted, the first part of my answer was hasty. What about the suggestions of qualifying the statement with guiding examples and requiring clarity of source? SamBC(talk) 04:06, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I've been chewing on that. I'm a fan of {{sofixit}}. This is my suggested revision:

"Primary sources may be used in articles in the context they are employed in secondary and tertiary reliable sources. Primary sources that are considered accurate by reliable sources may be used for citation of "pure fact", including such raw data as U.S. census statistics."

I think it would cover the most appropriate uses of primary sources, provide some reasonable level of protection against abuse and include your sentiments, unless I've misunderstood them. Vassyana 04:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

It seems a little awkward to say "in the context they are employed in..." as that requires them to have been used in those sources. Apart from that it's great, but I'm not sure how to overcome that aspect. SamBC(talk) 04:31, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I came come up with many of examples not related to the Bible, Sam. As Vassyana said above, height of buildings of such other examples, are the exception and not the rule. For example, To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. Guess who said that. And guess what is missing... ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:07, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) A couple words and an order swap might do the trick!

"Primary sources that are considered accurate by reliable sources may be used for citation of "pure fact", including such raw data as census statistics. Primary sources may also be used in articles in context as they appear in secondary and tertiary reliable sources."

Thoughts? Vassyana 05:17, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• Quotes: I read this as "if a secondary source used the same quote" which seems too restrictive to me. I would rather include a general warning about selective quotation, require solid citation, and encourage fv tags and/or outright removal of manipulative quotations.
• Pure facts: I agree but think there may be some exceptional cases (look at J20 or J27).
• Author's views: I would add another category; people can cite primary sources as sources for their authors' views.

Regardless of the type of source, context is as important as content. Jacob Haller 06:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The proposed wording says nothing about quotes and really it should not be a primary concern. Quotes should be used sparingly and only when they add something to the article without effectively creating original research by leading the reader. Preferably, quotes should be employed as they are used in reliable sources. We're allowed to use common sense to determine exceptional cases. Your concern about "sourcing" an author's views are covered by statement permitting primary sources to be used in the same context as they appear in secondary and tertiary reliable sources. So, if an author cites a primary source, or a reliable source indicates it was a source for their views, we can include that appropriately. If such information is not contained in reliable sources, advancing the unpublished, or unreliably published, claim that X primary source was the source of Y views by Z author would be original research. Vassyana 13:42, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Another approach would be to say that the primary source should not be used (to advance a position) but can be used as justification to remove citations of dubious nature (and therefore potentially unverified statements). In other words, we cannot base articles on them as that leads inevitably to analysis, however, we should be able to use them in discussion with considerable weight to back up assertions of NPOV etc. I feel there is a WikiLawyering approach that is used where if you present a primary source even in discussion, that does not count. You must have had the "this is an inviolable secondary source" "but it contradicts the primary sources it is based on" "Tough - your source is a primary source so it does not count. Verifiability over truth." "???" discussion? Yes, that countering is subject to the same distortions but let's AGF. Spenny 09:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

You are suggesting that primary sources be restricted to talk pages, and such a restriction is not likely to gain anything close to consensus. Your assertion that using primary sources "leads inevitably to analysis" is way off base. If it leads to analysis by the reader, that's a good thing. The problem is if it leads the editor to put their analysis in the article text. But this is not inevitable, it's just one of many ways editors may go astray. We can't make simplistic prescriptive guidelines to address every one of them, because if we did the net effect would destroy Wikipedia. Dhaluza 09:41, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm trying to square a circle, and paraphrasing arguments put to me, and I quite agree, the issue is not the source, but the use of the source. Primary sources are deprecated, I am told they cannot safely be used and that using a primary source to disprove a quote or other analysis is de facto OR. Yet that leads to a policy that supports nonsense, which does not seem sensible nor in the spirit of policy which is to keep out nonsense and factional views (I think). Policy works against editorial judgement - verifiability not truth - yet I can verify fact by reference to a primary source of the highest repute. I don't think my brain is yet mangled enough for WikiPolicy. Spenny 12:43, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

You've been told about right, except that primary sources are not completely excluded. We are simply encouraged to use them with care and rarely. You heard right that using a primary source to try and disprove a secondary source is indeed original research, in the most basic sense. If you believe a fact is significantly wrong and the topic is notable, there should be enough third party sources to verify or disprove the claim. It's certainly good scholarship to perform original research, and I will not disagree with that. However, it is not good encyclopedia building. Wikipedia exists to summarize extant scholarship. The basic policies of Wikipedia are built on that assumption. Those interested in original research and disproving extant sources, should find a reputable publisher for their views and/or check out Wikiversity and Wikibooks. Vassyana 13:42, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I am not convinced by the "You should be able to find a source" view. The reason is that if you go down the source based research route, you can end up putting together snippets. This seems even to be encouraged by citation, as writing well thought out sections is prone to being challenged as synthesis by the cite-happy. These individual snippets can be well-sourced in their snippetness, but are not necessarily the whole picture. We clearly discuss citing at sentence level. Good sourcing and writing is about the whole source and the whole context. Controversial statements are best sourced on the basis of complete discussions not quoting convenient Googled sentences. We can see that the whole is wrong, we can find sources that discuss the entirety from different aspects, but we cannot necessarily unpick a statement from a misleading source. When someone is seeking to "advance a position" the snippet approach is one technique used: the whole is advancing the position, yet is unassailably composed of cited elements and is not OR. (I think this also depends on subject areas and the likely nature of sources: history and science, things are more straightforward than popular culture or current affairs). Spenny 14:28, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

If there aren't enough sources available to make a complete encyclopedic article, the article should like head over this way and its notability is questionable. If there are no reliable sources for a claim, it cannot be verified and likely violates WP:NPOV, which demands that the articles reflect the current state of existing scholarship. On top of all that, if there's no source for a claim/POV/theory (particularly if the material in the article is arranged to build towards it, or support it), there's an assumption of potential original research. You're quite right about the snippets and Google-searching, but that's not a condemnation of source-based research. It's a condemnation of poor research. There's little replacement for getting to the library, paying for Factiva (or another service), or otherwise acquiring access to a wide range of published materials. You're also quite right that context is important, and it should be reflected in the article, which is why using reliable sources from third party publishers with a reputation for accuracy and fact-checking is so important. Just some thoughts. Vassyana 04:27, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree with your comments. The reality of Wikipedia is that there is a difference between the aim of producing the ultimate reliable encyclopedia with a robust view on notability, and the de facto public view of it as the place for a comment on everything (within reason). I'm actually comfortable with the second place, but then we have to accept that the rules for the idealised end product don't quite fit, and there we are more reliant on good editing practice of a large number of editors. I subscribe to the view that it would be sensible to distinguish Wikipedia article quality, and therefore rules, though that would just end up being a bureaucratic nightmare to police, so I don't push it. Spenny 08:42, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Um, why US Census data? Can't we assume that any census is pretty reliable (unless there's direct evidence to the contrary); I'd've thought most census around the world were pretty reliable. SamBC(talk) 13:31, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Sure, it was just an example from the top of my head. I've altered it to be more appropriately non-centric. Vassyana 13:44, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I have given this issue a lot of thought for some time and I will direct to something I wrote previously about it. Pulling out my thoughts on question of when these sources are appropriate: sources which should only be be used with extreme care, making sure they are only cited to document that such a source makes such a claim (direct quotes of the source, careful paraphrase of what the author of the source claims, facts and figures in infoboxes).--BirgitteSB 14:28, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

That's a good comment, and I was impressed by it the first time around. There are a lot of parallels with the problematic synthesis section too, which seems to be "over-ruling" on the basic don't make it up principle. Policy is trying to find a set of rules which essentially are about not adding your own twopenneth. I'm not sure the rule exists in any more satisfactory form than that. Spenny 14:48, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

BirgitteSB, I pretty strongly agree with the linked post. I'm particularly impressed by the solution of "first" and "second" class sources, avoiding the field-varied meaning of "primary" and "secondary" sources. I think it well-includes the principles expressed and implied in WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:RS. I do wonder if editors will generally take some exception towards having notable historical texts lumped in with "unreliable" sources. However, I agree there is little effective distinction in appropriateness as reliable references. Certainly, historical texts are "useful", but their reliability is questionable and best left judged by historians and other experts. You've given me some serious food for thought. Thanks! Vassyana 07:30, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Census data

The problem I have with census data is that it can be cherry picked in ways that might even appear to be benign. TableManners 03:22, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are referring to. Census data is useful in WP for saying how many people live in an area, and it is the most reliable source for this data. In the U.S. the census bureau is also a geographic resource (TIGER data) which is also useful. So if you are suggesting that census data should be depreciated because of the potential for misuse, I would disagree because any data can be misused. Dhaluza 09:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Assumption of bad faith in original research

This line referring to OR contains an unnecessary assumption of bad faith:

"...'original research' has no reliable source, and is therefore believed to be the original thought of the Wikipedian who added it."

I changed "therefore believed to be" to "could be" because we don't have to assume it's OR, the simple fact that it could be OR is enough. But the change was reverted. WP:AGF should be followed, not excepted in this case. Dhaluza 09:33, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I recommend getting consensus prior to making this change, as was noted earlier. Dreadstar † 09:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

And that is what I am doing here-seeking consensus for changing the bad faith assumption you challenged in your revert. The text clean-up that is not intended to change the meaning was restored. Dhaluza 09:49, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

As SlimVirgin noted, your edit inadvertently changed the meaning. Dreadstar † 20:33, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I would say that NOR is such a fundamental feature of wikipedia that we have to be very cautious about it, and that means assuming that something is OR unless there's evidence against it, which is part of the point of V and RS. An unfortunte corrolary of your argument would be that any challenge of uncited material questioning it as OR would be seen as a breach of AGF. SamBC(talk) 10:56, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Not at all. We don't have to assume it is OR, we can say things that could be OR violate the policy without the unnecessary assumption of bad faith. I don't think the corollary necessarily follows from this, but I would not object to specifically addressing it, i.e. by saying that challenging potential OR is not in bad faith. Dhaluza 11:01, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

But I'm not sure that the original wording assumed bad faith, just failed to assume good faith. It describes assumptions made about things that appear to be original research. The response made by editors should then assume good faith where possible, by saying that something "appears to be" original research. SamBC(talk) 11:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Assuming something is OR has nothing to do with assuming good/bad faith. Assuming good faith means you must assume other editors are doing what they believe will improve Wikipedia. It does not mean you must assume they are correct or that they are following policy.

Assuming good faith: You find a statement that appears to be OR. You contact the editor after removing or tagging it and explain this policy to him assuming that when he added the statement he did not properly understand this policy and mistakenly crossed the line. Or if you know the editor and that he understands the policy, you assume he can locate proper source to back it up and the statement is only in violation of this policy because he has not yet added the reference. In that case, you request a source from him stating that as the referencing currently stands the statement appears to be OR. Assuming bad faith: You find a statement that appears to be OR. You remove or tag the statement assuming the editor is using original research to push his POV. In discussion with the editor your comments make it clear you think the editor not only knew he was violating original research, but also that he was purposely working against the neutrality of the article.

Assumptions of faith have only to do with motivations, not whether actions are correct or not. It completely appropriate to confront someone while assuming they are wrong or have violated policy, as long as you attribute their motivations to misunderstanding rather than malice. I don't think we should make any changes to policy based on WP:AGF--BirgitteSB 14:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem seems to be the underlying assumption that having a POV is identical to editing in bad faith. That amounts to saying that a person who seeks truth may have (probably does have) a flawed POV (the person should be more open and tolerant WRT untruths.) That's nonsense, and the difficulties with formulating a NOR policy appear to be as faltering as they are because it is nonsense. It is abundantly clear that those with an (untrue, incorrect, self-serving, whatever) POV can misuse anything to further that flawed POV. That such editors do such things and misuse concepts, methods, etc. does not expose as corrupt those concepts, methods, etc., it only establishes that those things can be used corruptly - just as simple citation or quotation can be similarly misused. If that happens in Wikipedia the apparent proper thing to be done is to undo what is incorrect. Forbidding entire classes of material because the material might be an abuse is a bad approach. The discussion seems to well-illustrate that it's a bad approach to forbid what is called OR, with OR being construed very widely. I assert you cannot create an encyclopedia based entirely on quoting other sources, unless very often those other sources are other encyclopedias. So-called OR can be a powerful tool used to expose untruth. If the so-called OR is on shaky logical grounds or is too much of a reach then removing it from Wikipedia would seem to be exactly the correct action. That's not the same as removing all OR, which is the current policy. --Minasbeede 19:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree completely, you are reading my example backwards. The underlying assumption was that editing in bad faith is when you assume the another editor is purposefully working against the neutrality of an article. That is when you are approaching that editor with bad faith. The two examples I gave are about good/bad faith, refer to faith in challenging the OR statement. The second person character is assuming good faith in the first example and bad faith in the second. I was not referring to the motivations of third person character, which are generally impossible to determine (which is why we must assume good faith).--BirgitteSB 19:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Isn't what I say consistent with that, with "you assume" meaning "you assume that the other editor, who has (and shows) a POV, is editing in bad faith"? I do see that in your interpretation of your words it is the person described by "you assume" who is editing in bad faith. I agree with what you say - any part of what I said that seems contradictory can be lined out: what you say is good. (Thank you for your comments.) --Minasbeede 14:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

You said: The problem seems to be the underlying assumption that having a POV is identical to editing in bad faith. I would disagree with that and instead say: The problem seems to be the underlying assumption that working against the Wikipedia's goal of neutrality is identical to editing in bad faith. Having a POV, which I take to mean a bias or a pre-existing opinion on an issue, is natural and unavoidable. But we need to assume our fellow editors are working towards the same goals of creating a neutral encyclopedia. It is when we begin to believe that our fellows editors are trying to undermine the creation of neutral encyclopedia, we are assuming bad faith.--BirgitteSB 15:00, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I did say that. I don't think it violates NPOV to assert that 2 + 2 = 4 when some other editor claims that 2 + 2 = 5. If that other editor removes my edit that says 2 + 2 = 4 it's hard to assume that editor is acting in good faith, no matter how sincere his belief in that incorrect sum. But, good faith or not, I think 2 + 2 = 4 should remain. This example is quite simple. What happens in practice is that someone makes a truthful and valid conclusion that is not in any way a reach beyond logic or the facts but because it is a conclusion and not a quote someone else who asserts an untruth removes the edit, preserving the untruth. The real problem, though, is the irrational prohibition on synthesis and "original research." I know the reaction used to make hydrogen on the trailers in Iraq releases a lot of heat because I've ended up with boiling lye when performing the same reaction. I can certainly find a source that gives the ΔH for the reaction but the fact that enough heat is released to boil the solution communicates better than a dry number that would have to be explained. There's no fraud of any sort involved in citing my own results and directly reporting personally observed phenomena communicates well. But that's forbidden. The trailers were used to make hydrogen, the reaction used to generate hydrogen releases heat, always has, always will. It's absolutely neutral to assert that the cooling unit on the trailers is an essential component of a hydrogen generation system even though that contradicts the completely unfounded original story (in the CIA/DIA white paper) that the cooling unit was added to the design after it was discovered that the heat of summer interfered with biological WMD culture. (That latter claim would never pass muster in Wikipedia: it's blatantly unreferenced, always will be.) NPOV can disprove non-neutral POV, and such disproof would seem to be a necessary feature of Wikipedia. Instead it's shunned. That shunning favors the propagation of untruth. --Minasbeede 18:04, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Dhaluza, it has nothing to do with bad faith. We assume something is original research when it appears that no source exists for it, not simply when no source is supplied; that is, when the material isn't attributable. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 20:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with SlimVirgin; I don't read the current version as an assumption of bad faith, rather an observation on OR. Dreadstar † 20:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps this is already understood, but just to try and clarify a bit; the phrase "The only way to show that your work is not original research is to produce a reliable published source that advances the same claims or makes the same argument as you.", is referring to the content that 'you' (the editor) added without a proper citation or reference. The content added is an argument in the sense that it is "an abstract or summary" or "the subject matter" being presented in relation to the subject of the article. "Argument" doesn't mean that you are trying to present a POV, but presenting an unsourced 'argument' as defined above, into the article. Dreadstar † 20:49, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Anything not attributable (not only arguments) is deemed original research. That is, material need not actually be attributed to a source, but it must be attributable, meaning there must be a source out there somewhere for it. If none can be found, we assume it's a Wikipedian's own opinion. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 21:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying, I guess 'claims' covers any non-argument content; and 'claims' doesn't mean your claims, but the claim being made by the content added. Did I get it all covered? Dreadstar † 21:27, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think so. :-) SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 21:48, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

So, with that in mind, the phrase that started this section "material for which no reliable source can be found and which is therefore believed to be the original thought of the Wikipedian who added it. " is clearly not an assumption of bad faith; it is a statement that the material in question is believed to be OR because it is unsourced content - and not a bad faith attempt to add biased, pov or otherwise false information to Wikipedia. It's a reflection on the content rather than the Wikipedian who added it, OR or not. Dreadstar † 05:16, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Quite right. Someone could put in an "obvious" conclusion in good faith, and perhaps not even consciously or intentionally. Vassyana 05:24, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I still think the discussion has missed the point. Going back to the original quote:

"...'original research' has no reliable source, and is therefore believed to be the original thought of the Wikipedian who added it."

"believed to be" is an unnecessary assumption. We don't have to assume something is bad, just because we can't prove it's good. We can simply say we don't accept anything unless we know it's good. That is the unnecessary assumption of bad faith I was referring to. We should not assume something that is not attributed is OR, because simply adding a citation would prove the assumption wrong. We simply need to say we don't accept the material that might be challenged without the citation. Dhaluza 09:54, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that there is a false equality made between "know it's good" and "from some source." Requiring everything to be sourced in no way makes everything good, it just makes it attributable to someone else. Making it attributable to someone else doesn't remove the need to examine it for reasonableness or correctness, but the apparent underlying assumption made while discussing the NOR policy is that does. It may be that material from other sources is, on the whole, more reliable than material that arises from the use of simple logic or synthesis but both kinds of material can be correct and appropriate for Wikipedia and both kinds can be incorrect and inappropriate. (Material that arises from simple logic or synthesis should be as good as the sources used for the logic or synthesis so it's not at all certain that sourced material is of better quality. Simple logic is valid.) Part of the irksome nature of this discussion is the blithe assumption, for as long as it is needed, that sourced material is always good. Making this assumption allows the automatic discrediting of everything that is lumped under "OR" but in a discussion the automatic should be avoided since relying on "the automatic" is begging the question (which is irksome.) --Minasbeede 22:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

No, the assumption is that sourced material is source, or that it's not OR. One of the core principles of wikipedia is that it does not include original research. It could be seen as axiomatic. SamBC(talk) 03:35, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

"Know it's good" is a quote from Dhaluza's comment to which I was responding. You say the policy could be seen as "axiomatic." A possibly more correct term is "dogmatic." That it is a core principle doesn't make it sensible, well-reasoned, useful, correct, or possessing of any other virtue. Those qualities have to arise from the nature of the policy itself, and in the case of NOR the virtues aren't there. Being "core" does not anoint with virtue. NOR is anti-thought, anti-logic. It is true false material can be dressed to appear to be logical or thoughtful. That is not valid justification for throwing out thought and logic, is it? The goal and desire, it would seem, would to be to keep the valid and truthful and to remove the invalid and untruthful. Cited material can also be false material and need to be removed. It's invalid to make the special assumption (when the flaws in NOR are being discussed) that if something can be cited it's true and has merit above that of all "OR." Isn't that begging the question (perhaps "begging the question" approaches being synonymous with "axiomatic," at least in this discussion)? --Minasbeede 09:48, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Scope of OR

Yes, yes. So make some examples. If i say 'today it's hot' what sources do i must give to you? The C° meaured by my termometer? But it's OR, right? And maybe someone don 't find 35° 'hot' enough to be called so.

Behind my house there is an old church i don't know how wide it is and then i decide to measure it. Oh, my God, there is still an OR, and perhaps also bad faith, to add insult to injury.

We cannot copy other sources, because it' Copyviol, we cannot even resume them because it's OR (no syntesis, right?). Do you have the clue? Where is the good sense? Tell me how one can be authorized by your policies to do something that is not simply copy texts older than 90 years. Feeling as potential criminals every time that we post something that is not a he said so. That's the meaning of OR, IMHO.

I assert you cannot create an encyclopedia based entirely on quoting other sources, unless very often those other sources are other encyclopedias. Agree.--Stefanomencarelli 15:58, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Village pump

In case anyone's interested, there's a Village pump discussion on the pri/sec/tert sources issue. Dreadstar † 21:23, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Protection of wrong version

{{editprotected}} The edit war was successful at removing a long standing sentence:

“ Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources. ”

Can we put this back in and then reprotect? TableManners 03:13, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Declined. It's still there. Check again. --- RockMFR 03:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

It's still in there: Wikipedia:No original research/Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, second paragraph, last bolded sentence. Dreadstar † 03:28, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I must have searched the wrong version. TableManners 03:43, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your definition of "long standing" is, so I went back to this version in effect exactly one year ago. Diffs show the issue was in contention then, but at much different point. For example at that time it read "Original research that creates primary sources is not allowed. However, research that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources is, of course, strongly encouraged. All articles on Wikipedia should be based on information collected from published primary and secondary sources. This is not "original research"; it is "source-based research", and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dhaluza (talk • contribs) 10:06, August 20, 2007 (UTC).

The issue is not whether the edit is longstanding. The issue is whether the disputed language documents current Wikipedia practices and reflects the current consensus of the broader Wikipedia community. See Help:Modifying and creating policy. Here, it does not. Many times, a policy seems to have consensus within a small group of editors, but when exposed to the broader community, the policy lacks consensus. In this particular case, there is clearly no consensus, given (1) that several editors have expressed contrary opinion, and (2) that in practice, good Wikipedia articles, including almost all FAs, use a variety of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. COGDEN 17:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

It seems like the issue would be easier to reach consensus on if there was some way of clearly describing when it's possible to collate material from primary sources without it becoming synthesis. SamBC(talk) 17:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the issue is everyone agrees with current practice while at the same time believe thier preferred version best describes it. No one seems to think that articles should be written differently than current practice. The opinion opposing your own is not (2) that in practice, good Wikipedia articles, including almost all FAs, should not use a variety of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, but rather (2) that in practice, good Wikipedia articles, including almost all FAs, rely on reliable, published secondary sources. Personally I think that you must believe "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources" means something differently than I do.--BirgitteSB 18:12, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

That, in conjunction with the statement, "Although most articles should rely predominantly on secondary sources, there are rare occasions when they may rely on primary sources." Although the first statement only implies that primary sources are disfavored as a rule, the second one makes it explicit. The fact is, in current Wikipedia practice, primary sources are not rare. COGDEN 18:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Why can't we just use the same standard for all sources. Citations to secondary and tertiary sources, too, must (1) only make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and (2) make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims." COGDEN 18:29, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree about that this policy advocates rare usage of primary sources. I think it is saying it is rare for an article to rely on primary sources, not to use a primary source at all. I think we do use the same standard for all sources. The standard of no original research. The reason primary sources are mentioned is alert editors to the increased danger with original research in using them.--BirgitteSB 19:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, if it's confusing or ambiguous, there is no sense discussing what we think it says, we should be talking about how to make it clearer and unambiguous. Frankly, I think the language from one year ago quoted above was much clearer, and I agree with COGDEN that the same standard should apply to all sources. Dhaluza 09:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Houston, we have a trouble

No original research can be added to a wiki. So the only choices is to grab a researched document and copy inside the wiki but it's illegal (copyright) or you just can publish material that was created by someelse and changed it bypassing the copyright protection (cheating) or using published material that the original author allow to publish in the web.

Even more, there are a lot of "not so important material", that never was researched by a authority or a compentent entity, this kind of material cannot be showed in Wikipedia or even worst can be used by wikipedia only by a biased point of view, for example if we talk about Microsoft, there are little room for any outside to Microsoft to talk about it but Microsoft have almost all the rights and authority to talk about himself.

Anyways empiric talking, the "no original research" rule in wikipedia is not widely applied, common sense overule any no practical law. No original research is used currently to bash someelse, asking for any tiny details about a specific text, it's not anymore (and never was) a way to keep clean wikipedia. --Magallanes 18:58, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

A few comments:

There is a very big middle ground between purely original research ( as in doing your own experiments ) and copying other people's works into the Wikipedia ( which is usually copyright infringement ). What we do allow are brief quotes and paraphrases, which are used in citations and links back to the original sources.

However, yes I do think some interpretations of NOR make it difficult to write about popular culture, highly technical topics, subcultures, underground topics, and topics of local interest. There are certain issues that tend to get ignored by the academic world and by the mainstream media, and I support giving editors some leeway in the use of "primary sources" as long as they don't introduce any new facts of their own. Squidfryerchef 23:05, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. I happen across the problem very often. In the things I do (bird phylogenetics mainly) we have a frequent problem that geoscience data (geography, paleontology) is often ignored by molecular studies, because due to the little personal and research overlap between the fields and because of the fundamental incompatibility of GIS and phylogenetics software. Molecular phylogeneticists and paleontological phylogeneticists are more often than not blissfully unawares of each others' research. Molecular clock models are often being used uncalibrated or weakly calibrated, leading to secondary sources that shine on the outside but are rotten at the core. This leads to results in which molecular phylogenies are published which are flat-out contradicted by the material evidence (the fossil record), but that this discrepancy is often not discussed in follow-up publications.

For example, we have recently had 2 publications about parrots, a molecular phylogeny that proposed they evolved in the Turonian (I think) and a review of the fossil evidence that argues that with almost 100% certainty (the absence-of-evidence problem, hence not full certainty) they did not. Neither papers' authors were aware of each others' research (which was conducted at the same time) and therefore do not discuss it; even their references have but little overlap.

A Wikipedia article would have to address this discrepancy, but this cannot be done in a way that would not be considered OR by at least some interpretations - there is at present no secondary source that explicity states that the "molecular" hypothesis is probably wrong. What we are left with are 2 highly valuable sources that utterly contradict each other in a specific point, and one sticks to "good practice" and the other (in this respect, its other findings seem to be good) doesn't. It is obvious which scenario is more likely to be correct, but it is hard to put this on WP in a way that may not be considered OR by at least some interpretations.

As interdisciplinary research cooperation is more of a desire than a reality, these things happen not too rarely. The careful WP editor, bent on sourcing properly, will often find discrepancies between secondary sources that have never before been addressed, because the sheer scope that is technically possible on WP is barely reached by even the most comprehensive reviews. The question how to deal with contradicting secondary sources in the absence of a citeable discussion of this discrepancy (in which case the discrepancy is usually resolved anyway) - especially when one of the conflicting claims is much more likely to be correct than the other - needs to be addressed, as the scope of the problem will grow along with WP. For the time being, WP's own definition of Original research as "...not exclusively based on a summary, review or synthesis of earlier publications..." [emphasis added] might serve as a stopgap. Dysmorodrepanis 07:49, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It really is as simple as presenting both of the contradicting views without trying to reconcile them. It may be best to mention that in A field they say X and in B field they say Y, in the example you mention. Or you could say fnordtologists* such as (author cited) posit X and gimbletologists* such as (author cited) state Y. It's not very hard at all to avoid OR in this instance. Wikipedia rules do address that some care might need to be taken to avoid undue weight. If one of those sources does not stick to good practice, then peer review or an article countering the "poor" practice should exist. I realize this is not universally true, but determining who uses "good practice" or "reliable science" is a subjective judgment and best left to the professionals. If a wiki editor is a professional, then they should seek a reputable publisher to submit their contrary findings or critique. Vassyana 08:07, 19 August 2007 (UTC) * Nonce.

Well said Vassyana, and I couldn't agree more. Where we don't have widely accepted truth, we simply present the facts, and let the reader decide. I agree that this is not OR, but many editors take an extreme view and argue that since we don't have an authoritative secondary source to resolve the issue, putting primary sources in juxtaposition is OR, and so we must delete the article, which is of course nonsense, but there's plenty of that to go around here on WP. Dhaluza 10:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

---

While you continue to discuss without problems about the santity of NOR and its stricth interepretations, in Wiki there are stuff like this: Domination of the skies, superior seamanship, and prudent, timely maneuvers helped to nullify the overwhelming odds. In the highest tradition of naval service, the finest qualities of the American sailor became commonplace during the heroic fight. Devotion to duty, daring courage, uncommon bravery, and an indomitable spirit were part and parcel of this victory.

So don't cause me LOL in so indecent manner. This piece is what could be called shameless agiography and pubblicity for US Navy, and there are thousands of this stuff. While i try to reduce every optimistic overclaiming made by italian aviators with the cross controls with several sources (it's unuseful to post that x has downed 12 enemy aircraft when are available sources that considering both sides, dismissed all this claimings without any problem), there are thousands of pages like this, written directly by J. Wayne. Obviousely you are not worried about, your goal is forbid brain activity. I am, instead. Babbling about NOR when gratuitus agiographies are so well spread is a thing that shows how these discussions and policies don't guarantee nothing. Sorry,but it so.--Stefanomencarelli 13:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

This whole issue over the "articles should rely on secondary sources" does raise a good point though...

I just noticed that the article has been protected due to edit warring, so I thought I'd take a look as to why. I think there's some merit to the "compromised" rewording of the sections in question.

For most articles common sense reasonably dictates that secondary sources are going to be the ideal sources to base an article off of. That gets thrown out the window, however, when we start talking about works of fiction. In that case you are usually writing an article about the primary source itself, in which case the bulk of your information will come from the primary source. A good chunk of it should also come from secondary sources, true, (otherwise it probably fails WP:N) but in that case I would not say that the article relies on secondary sources so much as it uses secondary sources.

Now obviously this situation only applies to a certain subset of articles, far from a majority, but also far from being "rare" as the current revision of the policy states. (Anybody care to try and count the number of articles on films, just for a warmup?) The basic idea behind the sentences in question is sound, but it needs to be slightly reworded to reflect the fact that some articles by nature rely on primary sources, not secondary sources. -- Y|yukichigai (_ramble argue ^check) 12:20, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Yukichigai, most articles about films rely on reviews, not on primary-source material. Similarly, most articles about novels rely on sources who've written about the novel. It is, indeed, unusual to find a legitimate article that relies entirely on primary sources. If you can find one, please let us know. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 12:23, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Umm, we may have gotten some wires of communication crossed. I'm not suggesting any articles ONLY need primary sources (it's pretty hard to satisfy WP:N with just primary sources), I'm merely pointing out that the primary basis for information contained within articles about works of fiction is primary sources. Works of fiction rely on primary sources more than they do secondary sources. -- Y|yukichigai (_ramble argue ^check) 21:57, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

What about an article about a railroad, where there isn't going to be a lot of controversy or incorrect information, and, some might argue, it's inherently notable. Most of the information from the article, about where the stations are and what kinds of trains they have, would come from the railroad's web site, a primary source. There might be a few citations to newspapers that ran opinion pieces about the railroad, but this is one kind of article where the primary source has the best information. Squidfryerchef 14:25, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

P.S. We need to clarify whether we're talking about articles with only primary sources versus articles that cite mostly primary sources. I agree that except in articles where inherent notability implies, we need at minimum one secondary source to establish notability. Squidfryerchef 14:31, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that I don't disagree with. Virtally all articles (all that I can think off off the top of my head) need secondary sources at the very least for WP:N purposes. The point I'm trying to make is that the wording seems to indicate that all articles, no matter what, should be based on secondary sources over primary sources. For works of fiction this is quite the opposite; information about the work of fiction is far less reliable when based off of secondary sources. -- Y|yukichigai (_ramble argue ^check) 21:57, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

While that's true for basic factual information, it's imperative (as long as there's a policy of "no original research") that no interpretation be put on the text/film/whatever that aren't from a secondary source. Well, I suppose an author or similar making a statement about how things are supposed to be interpreted is technically a primary source, but that would be an exception in this case (provided it's stated as being the author's own interpretation). SamBC(talk) 22:22, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

That's sort of tangential though; a separate section addresses that problem completely. Like you said, information about the interpretation of the work of fiction can come from the primary source still. It's not really relevant to my point, regardless. -- Y|yukichigai (_ramble argue ^check) 22:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The point is that people shouldn't be writing a Film Studies/Literature/Theatre Studies/whatever essay. They should not say, "character Y is cruel, as shown in chapter umpteen when they fnordle character X's brip" (excuse nonsense words) or similar. Plot summaries are inherently original research unless they're based on other published plot summaries. There's a line to tread between OR and copyvio, but it's not so thin a line. SamBC(talk) 00:47, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. It's quite easy to write a plot summary which simply lists the events of the film without any sort of interpretation or other type of OR. It may not be the most inspiring and articulate plot summary, but numerous plot summaries rely on no sources outside of the primary source for the information they contain. -- Y|yukichigai (_ramble argue ^check) 04:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, I have found myself messing with some cryptozoology articles recently, and here we have a case where it is the secondary sources that most often violate WP:V. As CZ is basically dealing with animals too cryptic, or apocryphal or probably fictional for classical zoology to bother with, secondary sources are prone to outlandish claims and go at great lengths to POV-push their pet interpretation. The only really reliable sources are indeed the original observations, and these are often misrepresented, misquoted etc in the secondary literature. This is the case why most cryptozoology websites are, from the point of a professional zoologist, so abysmal: because they rely on the twisted version of a primary source, twisted even further to serve some particular end (such as that there are surviving pterosaurs). Dysmorodrepanis 08:04, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

There are plenty of sources that "debunk" cryptozoology, so this is not as difficult of a situation as you would make it appear. If you have trouble finding such sources, you could for example contact the Center for Inquiry, who would be quite happy to point you towards opposing sources. Be aware that secular humanist debunking material is no less biased. However, that's not really a problem, since we don't try to avoid the bias of the available sources here, but rather represent all notable POVs appropriately. Vassyana 15:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Again, at WP:N an attempt to make secondary sources an absolute requirement lead to a similar edit war and edit-protection, which was finally worked out by making it strongly favored, but not absolutely necessary. This dispute has many of the same underpinnings. One notable example of using primary sources was the thousands of articles created for geographic places in the U,S. based on U.S. Census Bureau data. I have also noted below that most articles on aircraft and airports rely heavily on primary source data because it is the most reliable source in these areas. Dhaluza 09:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

At WP:N, the consensus was not that secondary sources should be the favored sources. The consensus was that notability is best evidenced by the presence of secondary sources, which is entirely true and in line with current Wikipedia practice and the consensus of the community. If somebody has written about something, it's notable. However, for purposes of WP:NOR, once the notability criterion is passed, the best Wikipedia articles use a combination of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. Current practice is to use all three, and this policy statement must reflect current practice, not lead it. COGDEN 17:33, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I should have said that in the current compromise language of WP:N, secondary sources are strongly favored for judging notability. And you are correct that many editors objected to the attempt to modify WP:N to make secondary sourcing a prescriptive requirement there, because it did not reflect community consensus or practice. I suspect the same thing is happening here. Dhaluza 09:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Time chain

The NOR policy should reflect the dynamics of the subject matter at hand. An article about a breeding edge issue such will require different sources than an article about the French Revolution.Arebenti 13:19, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

No original research is a core policy. It doesn't matter what the subject is, wikipedia only includes information and analysis that are directly based on reliable third-party (generally secondary) sources, in order to ensure that there is no original research or invalid synthesis. SamBC(talk) 13:29, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Much content in many articles on TV shows are based on primary source material. Much content in many "wrestling" articles is based on first person claims (as is natural, cause lots is made up fiction). Much song information is from those with a direct financial interest. Many articles on small companies rely on those companies web sites. Should we run wild deleting all this? No. It should be sourced better, but we need to get there in increments. Absolutist terminology is generally not helpful for this. WAS 4.250 16:44, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

That's a point, I should have said that it's wikipedia policy to only include information blah blah blah... the point is, we should resist the addition of such material beyond a reasonable start, and we should resist attempts to change policy to say that all that stuff is okay. It's currently tolerated because such policies describe a goal, and that is still the goal AIUI. Some of those articles probably should be deleted, and some kept. If anyone wants to start going through it all and tagging stuff, then that's cool. For me, the effort isn't worth the return. SamBC(talk) 17:15, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

To further the point by WAS 4.250, aircraft articles are based on primary source manufacturer data, which is the most reliable source. Secondary source "tests" are not reliable because of the cost of doing a proper flight test, and the engineering data needed. For airports, we also rely on primary source data from the aviation authorities. Secondary source data for basic airport characteristics usually just copies the primary source data. So primary sourcing is critical to our coverage of aviation as well. Dhaluza 09:29, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Unless Jimbo speaks, Wikipedia policies are not prescriptive. They only reflect current consensus practice, or at least a consensus aspiration. For a good explanation of this fact, see Help:Modifying and creating policy, as well as Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. A "policy" that's just a goal by some editors is not a policy, but a proposal. If we can convince the Wikipedia community to make that "goal" a predominant practice or aspiration, then it can become a policy. COGDEN 17:38, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Is listing a subset from a published government document original research?

Hi All, Requesting feedback on this: The National Institutes of Health posts a yearly Excel spreadsheet of medical grant awards. About 56,000 entries, $20 billion. Does this fall under WP:NOR: "Figure 2 lists entries from the NIH's 2006 Grant Database containing the words Giardia." On the one hand, it involves some kind of research activity by the author. On the other hand anyone can verify the statement by downloading the Excel file and repeating the search. Thx, Gastro guy 22:49, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

In general, any process, with the possible exception of complex mathematical calculations, that can be perfectly reproduced is not original research . The only potential issue is with the interpretation of data ... one must be careful to state only that which is unquestionably supported by the data. For instance, interpreting "country with the highest GDP per capita" as "wealthiest country" is original research. — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 22:58, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Gastro guy 06:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Your NIH example is not original research. However, cherry picking information might produce NPOV issues, which is a different beast entirely. —Kanodin 07:26, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

What about information where sources cannot be found at all?

I am interested in putting up entries in WP on the Cairo metro system. No revolutionary theories, just the names of the stations, their general location in Cairo, prominent landmarks nearby, etc. This kind of content is common for other cities such as London, Paris, Moscow, etc. Most metro station pages I have read cite no sources anyway. Since no sources are cited, what is this referred to, if not original research? 41.196.184.19 10:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

For starters, there should be an official map from the operator which you can cite. You can translate what the cartographer depicted into plain English without crossing into OR, as long as you don't interpret it or draw any non-obvious conclusions. So you could capture the names of the stations, and their order on each line. This would probably only be enough info for a summary article, and if you tried to create stubs for each station, some editors would object to using a single primary source and probably nominate for deletion. So start off with the content merged into one article, and split off sub-articles as you find more sources. Dhaluza 11:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

For most major cities, there should be abundantly available travel guides that describe major points about the city, including the public transportation system. There are plenty of sources available for articles like this, especially for "world centers" like Cairo and London. Just be cautious using such sources, since Wikipedia is not a travel guide. Vassyana 15:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, another question posed

I just spent somewhere around an hour reading all of the above (and several other pages), and I'm more confused now than I was before I started reading everything. So, without any further ado, here's a particular case in point, hopefully which this group can help solve.

I've been primarily interested in several articles where I was personally invloved in the subject matter, Axe Murder Incident and Joint Security Area (JSA), though I've also made numerous edits to a slew of other articles as well. So, I am an eyewitness to many of the events/articles that I have working on. This makes me a primary source, correct? As a primary source on these articles, "part" of what I edit may fall under original research, which I understand. I try to comply with this rule as much as possible by finding other references that I can cite which support my edits.

However there are several things which I either have problems with, or completely disagree with. First, let me start with a quote from this article that I vehemently disagree with, followed by (what I consider) a very good example. The quote is "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." So, in essence any lies (falsehoods) which have been published or otherwise made publicly available are perfectly legitimate Wikipedia inclusions since they can be verified from the published source, but somebody who was an eyewitness who hasn't published a "document" of some sort can't rebut the falsehood, therefore perpetuating the falsehood into eternity. Now for the example.

Regarding the Axe Murder Incident, the US Army released a statement the following day that one of the reasons for a slow reponse was that the Quick Reaction Force (QRF) was over a mile away from the DMZ at the time of the incident. This is blatantly false to anybody that has ever been there simply due to the fact that at NO TIME is the QRF ever 1 mile away from the DMZ. The farthest the QRF ever gets from the DMZ is approximately 100 meters, which is where the Advance Camp is located, anf this is usually just for a very short period of time. On this particular day and time however, the QRF was actually sitting at the entrance to the JSA which is right smack dab in the middle of the DMZ. Here is part of an email I received from the guy who was actually working the checkpoint at the entrance to the JSA that day.

"Thirdly, to answer the question about who recovered the USA soldiers bodies? It was 3rd Platoon. The information below, "In actuallity, the QRF was sitting in their trucks at CP#2, at the entrance to the JSA, at the beginning of the fight with the 3rd Plt. Ldr awaiting authorization from Capt. Bonifas (who was already dead) for authorization to go in, right smack dab in the middle of the DMZ," is a very accurate statement. Moreover, it took the actual JSA CDR, on this day, to order the 3rd Platoon Leader to go in to recover the bodies.

Lastly, Mike, as you may recall, the above quoted statement truly supports what I have been telling you, M.S. (from the History Channel) and others all along. And, that is, that I was assigned to UNC CP#2 at the time of the August 18, 1976, Axe-Murder Incident. When I initially saw the QRF platoon approaching my guardpost, I was somewhat happy that help was coming. Contrary to what was stated by the 3rd Platoon Leader during the December 28, 2004, airing of the documentary, it was he in the lead vehicle (and not an E-7 Platoon SGT) that I vigorously tried to wave into the JSA -- but my request fell on death ears. Instead, the foregoing platoon leader, subsequently, got out of his vehicle, went into my checkpoint, and then called the JSA CDR, whom, upon his arrival to UNC Check Point #2, ordered him to go in. You can imagine how much time had elapsed! I was saddened by his actions.

I specifically remember this aspect of the incident because due to my assignment at CP2, the LTC ordered me to assure that the soldiers congregating around to view CPT Bonifas' body did not, in fact, see him. I did, and I have been living with the residuals of it ever since. That's why I am telling this story, as it actually occurred."

BTW, my name is Bill, and the reference to Mike above is to another buddy of mine who was also included on the email. I also changed a person's name to just their initials in case they don't want their name known. So, since the US Army issued a statement almost immediately that was wrong in so many ways, it is allowed to stand since the other eyewitnesses and/or myself haven't published anything to contradict it, and the lie is allowed to florish forever? And seriously, if I was to issue to press relase staing the actual events that day, would any news organization really run it or care? No, because it would contradict the "official" version as published by the US Army.

I am very careful about my edits, trying to remain as nuetral as possible and report the actual events as accurately as possible, however this came to a head when somebody wanted to change the word "Murder" to "Killing", claiming that the term murder is POV and trying to diminish the actual events of that day Talk:Axe Murder Incident. I do have some references to a web page I have where I placed some of my recollections from Korea, and also from another buddy who was there with me (Mike, from the quoted part above). Both of our references are listed as "eyewitness account...". Also regarding the term "Murder" for the above immediate problem, a Google search for +"Axe Murder" +korea returns 1100 hits, while the same search that replaces "killing" for "murder" only returns 209 hits. Both sets of hits return some entries for other events, but more inaccurate results occured with the word "killing". So, the term "murder" is also more associated with the events of this day than the term "killing" is as well, adding prevalent thought and opinion to the term.

In conclusion, the history of the world would be in sad, sad shape if it was solely relegated to whichever side expended the most effort in promoting their version of events. I do see where this leads to edit wars, etc., but in many cases, I strongly feel that they need to be decided on a case-by-case basis, where a "group" of educated, non-partisan parties, preferably with both an interest and some background on the subject matter, can decide what should be "allowed" or not. Otherwise, as others have said above (and paraphrased by me), all Wikipedia is, is just a regurgitation of what's already available, so where's the added "benefit" of even using Wikipedia, if all you're are going to see is what's already available everywhere else? Has anybody ever tried (and had success) writing Encylopedia Britannica telling them a cited "fact" is incorrect, offering proof, and actually gotten them to change it? I haven't, and I seriously doubt if anybody else has had any luck in that regard either. That's what makes Wikipedia unique and adds value to many of the articles.

Thanks for any and all opinions on this, regardless of whether there's agreement or disagreement from my POV. wbfergus 15:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I think your biggest misunderstanding is the role of an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is not supposed to be the place where ground is broken, discoveries are made, or truth uncovered. An encyclopedia is the place all the currently acknowledged information on a subject is laid out comprehensively. When someone reads an encyclopedia, they should come away with knowledge of "things as they are known to be". Encyclopedias are a starting off point to research, not the final answer. You start research by finding out what is already said on the subject. The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth does not mean choosing falsehood over truth, but disavowing both as irrelevant. Encyclopedias are a summation of existing knowledge, what has already been printed and then acknowledged and/or disputed. Your difficulty with WP policies is because you wish Wikipedia to be something it is not. It is designed to be "just a regurgitation of what's already available". The benefit is that it is a free-content regurgitation of what's already available. That is the revolutionary part.--BirgitteSB 16:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

"Truth" is highly variable, particularly when getting into differences between eyewitness accounts. Any editor on Wikipedia could claim to have been an eyewitness and try to present the "real" version of events. In the absence of information from a reliable source, there is no way to verify such a claim. No matter how "true" someone insists it is, with no way to verify such a claim we cannot in good conscience present it in an encyclopedic article. This is especially true of claims that contradict the conventional wisdom regarding a topic. If someone has vital information that contradicts the current consensus about a topic, I would strongly encourage that person to seek a reputable publisher for their claims. Wikipedia collects and paraphrases existing published claims. That supports the central purpose of building the encyclopedia. It is not the place for novel research and claims that cannot be verified in published literature. Vassyana 16:41, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The benefit is that it is a free-content regurgitation of what's already available. That is the revolutionary part. Unfortunately, it's not revolutionary. A simple Google search will result in numerous hits on an item, almost all of which are free. It is then up the reader to compile the various results into a cohesive "train of thought". What makes Wikipedia "different" or unique is that various readers can do this themselves (oftentimes with input from a multitude of other readers who usually have an interest in the subject), to create a new version of what an encyclopedia may already have, but with far better references (due mainly to constant bickering back and forth), and the ability to also allow for eyewitness accounts in applicable context.

I can see the points being made above regarding something like religion or some new science-related technique and it's results, etc., but as a general blanket policy, it will in the long run, severely restrict any benefit of Wikipedia. Why use it if all it is going to do is repeat what's already considered "common knowledge" by a few monied sources? Most people that "publish" do so for some sort of gain, usually either monetary or because it's required for their doctoral thesis. They rarely will seek to contradict the established "concensus of opinion" on a subject unless they are seeking to make a name for themselves, delve soley into "original research" themselves (regardless of whether can can actually prove it), or merely as some do, to create controversy. Once they have done so, then all of a sudden it's established as fact, because some wacko actually went to the effort to get something published? Or, in the example I cited above, the US Army's version will always be the version repeated through the ages (to protect a fellow officer), rather than the accounts of eyewitnesses who contradict the publish statement, since in this case, 1.) there simply isn't enough information to warrant more than a few pages at most, far from what would be required for a "book", and 2.) as I stated in my post above, even if the other eywitnesses and myself all banded together and issued a "press release", would any of the news organizations actually publish it? No. So therefore, regardless of the truth, the lie prevails, simply due to the power or monied source of publishing might? Why use Wikipedia then? There is plenty of free information out there already, much of which is BS, but at least the user can also have access to additional sources of information which Wikipedia's "core group" won't allow because it's not published as a hard-copy book or magazine/newspaper article? Much (most?) of what is in Wikipedia is already freely available through the web with a simple Google search.

Regarding "Any editor on Wikipedia could claim to have been an eyewitness and try to present the "real" version of events.", I backed up my claim as an eyewitness (just to avoid this possibility), with the UNC Certificate of Appreciation I received from Gen. Vessey, the UNC CINC at the time. So, without picking a fight or arguement, the above statement was written "off-the-cuff" without looking at any of the linked materials to determine the true and full scope of the question, which in itself is one of the problems with many Wikpedia articles. Many editors read one or two "articles" on a subject and then deem themselves expert enough to judge the acurracy of all subsequent edits to that Wiki article, even if they read the "fringe theory" versions of that subject. Or, as is the case on here lately, when "editors" come here to push the POV of their country, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I at least have presented a credential verifying my status as an eyewitness.

Anyway, my main point of contention is that since I was an eyewitness, my revert of the word "killing" back to "murder" is being questioned as OR, whereas if anybody else had done the same thing, it wouldn't have, since the overwhelming preponderance of opinion and stated publications all call it "murder" (more than 5:1 use the term murder). I guess I should have made that point a bit more clear. Thanks again for the feedback though. wbfergus 18:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

"Free-content" means free as in freedom, not free as in beer. There are plenty of google hits that are free as in beer while being tied up by restrictive copyright. That content cannot be derived from with obtaining a license from the copyright holder, likely for a fee and with restrictions. Wikipedia is available under a free-content license (GFDL), which allows anyone to make derivative of it's content, for any purpose, so long as they they license it under the GFDL as well. For example this means that the plentiful (in english and some other fortunate languages) information you would find by google is available for you to read and learn from, but you are prohibited from translating it into Swahili. It may seem that we are regurgitating what is already available to you. But it is not widely available to everyone, and in the end Wikipedia is making information available in places it was not accessible before. In twenty years you will understand exactly how revolutionary this is.--BirgitteSB 19:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there is a lot on here that more or less is copied verbatim from other sources (even copyrighted ones), then a few minor changes are made, fixing a typo, rearranging sentence structures, maybe deleteing a sentence or two, etc. Does that automatically make it legal? By removing some of the context, if that context applied to the entire paragraph and laid the groundwork for an assumption in the last sentence (or another paragraph the editor didn't agree with), doesn't that constitute OR? If someone edits something thats been published to change the meaning, so they can skirt potential copyright issues, and winds up (even inadvertently) changing a meaning of something, doesn't that in itself constitue OR? I'd maintain that almost everything would be OR, even it was copied verbatim and then a couple small changes were made. All of a sudden it's no longer a secondary source, as it is now different and "interpreted" by somebody else. That suddenly makes it "original". If it wasn't "original", and was based even remotely on copyrighted work, then it's a copyright violation, since they (almost) all state something like "cannot be copied in whole or in part".

Sure would help make all of this unique and revolutionary though if there was free beer. wbfergus 15:45, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

You misunderstand some of the concepts behind original research and copyright. Ideas cannot be copyrighted only the creative expression of an idea is copyrighted. Original research involves a novel idea or synthesis of ideas. A new expression of a documented idea is not original research, nor does it infringe on the copyrights of the documented expression. Editors rewriting the ideas expressed in existing sources in their own words is exactly what is supposed to be happening here.--BirgitteSB 17:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, then my eyewitness accounts (the very few I have added, about two total), meet these criteria of not being OR, and my revert of the word "killing" back to "murder" is not OR either. The few occasions where my personal eyewitness account came into play was in clarifying a few vague points made by secondary sources. This is the point I was trying to get clarification on, though I guess I muddied the waters with my example above, which hasn't been used in any article. I've only used the example on talk pages, as the Lt. that the Army report covers up, has already had to live with his bad decision these last 31 years. I know that already would be a great burden to bear for most people, without making it more blatantly obvious who the person was.

Perhaps there could be an award of free beer for those who get an article to "FA" status? wbfergus 18:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Has your account been published in a reliable source? From what I understood above using your own account would be original research. Whether the word "murder" is original research depends on what reliable sources have published about the incident. If there are reliable sources that describe it as murder you can cite them and it would not be original research. If reliable sources disagree, explain all viewpoints and who holds them.--BirgitteSB 18:35, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The example I've used above has only been used on talk pages, not in any article. The article itself, "Axe Murder Incident" however is titled after not only the facts, but far more numerous published sources than any variation terming it "killing". Several of the references even call it "Murder", and I also have in my possesion probably one of the first booklets ever done (within three days of the incident), title "Axe-wielding Murder at Panmunjom", which several of the pictures I've added were taken from (the booklet itself says everything may be used, no copyright). wbfergus 19:18, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The content of that article can only be settled on the talk page, not here. But I hope you have a better understanding of this policy now.--BirgitteSB 19:31, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Is the article Jennings Rutter Battle original research?

The article describes a "battle" between Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, two US game-show contestants. They have appeared on various game shows, sometimes head-to-head and sometimes not. The article attempts to compare their achievements and declare a "winner" of each "round". I believe that editors have invented the structure of this "battle" themselves, although each specific fact in the article is referenced to a source. Is this OR? --Cinematical 16:27, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

It could quite easily be synthesis, a form of OR, but I don't have time right now to check the sources. Notability might be an easier thing to challenge, though. SamBC(talk) 16:55, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

COGDEN's edit (Two-part test as applied to secondary sources)

Cogden, could you make sure you have clear consensus for any changes before making them, please? This is a policy page and it has to be stable.

The change you made didn't make sense to me. You say all sources should be handled the same way. You then say "the source should not be used to support or imply any analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims, unless those claims are supported by some other reliable source."

That means that a secondary source cannot be used to make any analytic (etc) claim, unless supported by some other source. So you're now saying that multiple sources must be available for each edit, which is a major change.

It's also not true that all sources should be handled the same way. Primary and secondary sources are, as a matter of fact, handled very differently. The policy has to reflect that. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 18:59, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Looking it over, I agree with what you're saying. It should have been phrased differently:

"the source should not be used to support or imply any analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims outside the source itself, unless those claims are supported by some other reliable source."

With this addition, I think this represents current practice and consensus with respect to primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. For example, if I have a secondary source that makes one conclusion (e.g., "Thomas Jefferson slept with slaves"), I can't use that source to make a second, somewhat different analytical conclusion (e.g., "Thomas Jefferson wasn't a racist"). This is actually a slightly stronger formulation of the ban on original research, but I think it represents the practice of the Wikipedia community. COGDEN 19:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

But that just says "don't go outside the source," and don't violation SYNT, which we say already. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 21:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

We already say it, but we could say it more concisely as a two-part test. Also, by saying it's a requirement for primary sources, but conspicuously omitting it as a requirement for secondary sources, we kind of imply that the requirement is not as important for secondary sources. COGDEN 17:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

As to the first part of the test:

"it should be clear to any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge that the source is cited accurately,"

I think this is quite clearly Wikipedia policy, and it probably would have the support of Jimbo, who said that one reason for the original research policy is the fact that lay editors on Wikipedia "aren't really equipped" to verify new scientific or historical theories. [8][9] Therefore, any citation to a source (primary, secondary, or tertiary) should not require specialized knowledge in order to verify that the citation is found in a reliable source. It can be a citation to a highly-technical source such as a journal article or a physics textbook, but a lay person must be able to look at the source and determine that what is cited matches what is stated in the article. It doesn't really matter in this sense whether the source is primary, secondary, or tertiary. COGDEN 20:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Based on use

I'm not certain that changing the wording to say "based on how they are used" for the Primary, Secondary and Tertiary source use is a purely stylistic change. I think it needs to be discussed and a consensus reached before making this change. Dreadstar † 20:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I removed the challenged sentence regarding "based on use". Do you actually disagree with this, or are you just protecting the interests of those whom you think might disagree. Are you saying that primary sources are absolutely primary sources, regardless of how they are used? Based on discussions here and elsewhere, I thought it was non-controversial that the same reference can be either a primary source or secondary source, depending on what is being cited. COGDEN 20:17, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for removing it. I think I've made myself clear in the above discussions that I do not believe use of a source necessarily affects its status as primary, secondary or tertiary. If I missed something that shows this to be the incorrect view, please let me know. Thanks! Dreadstar † 20:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that use doesn't affect primary/secondary/tertiary status in most fields; however, I thought that "based on use" had general support. A citation is not there for the source, it is there for the claim. Jacob Haller 20:27, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

(ec) Materials that are generally considered primary sources (such as historical works) are always primary sources. However, some secondary works may be used as primary sources. For example, the work of a historian may be a perfectly reliable secondary source for the historical events that the book addresses. However, the foreword from the same book, describing the scholar's approach and general opinion would be generally considered a primary source in an article about the historian herself. Vassyana 20:31, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

(ec)The clearest way the use of the source matters is this example. An notable historian writes a book about WWII. The book can be used as secondary source in WWII article, and as a primary source in the author biography. --BirgitteSB 20:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

So, there is consensus for adding that single sentence about use? I may have missed that part in all the action. If there is support, it's a pretty complex issue that would require more than a single sentence of explanation, similar to what Vassyana and Birgitte just had to describe. Is the concept of 'use' explained in that detail anywhere? Dreadstar † 20:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

If you disagree, that's evidence there is not consensus, at least a Wikipedia consensus. But since the distinction between primary and secondary sources is used outside Wikipedia, we should back up whatever we put in the policy statement with reliable sources. I don't happen to know any, though. Most sources discussing this issue don't make that fine a distinction. COGDEN 21:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I think we should leave out "based on use." Most people know what primary and secondary sources are, if only roughly. Those who don't know can look it up. We should keep it simple here. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 21:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

(ec)This section of the policy has always tended towards the often (rather than always) accurate interpretation. Although I think the 'use' issue has agreement among the Wikipedians that have examined the issue, it is only explained on various talk pages. As yet, no one has written an explanation of the issue that is simple enough for newbies without containing inaccuracies through oversimplification. The current explanation is correct most of the time. The benefit of having it available to point editors to in without an argument has always been decided to be worth it's inaccuracy on other occasions. Several times the talkpages have been over this and come to that conclusion. This is one reason people will not speak up here, but will revert changes. They likely think there is nothing new to be said about the issue, and the decision will be the same as always. However I think it is only a matter of time before the person who is capable of writing this issue clearly enough for a newbie without any inaccuracies comes along. Or instead a person with some unforeseen out-of-the box solution to current stalemate.--BirgitteSB 21:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

If we put it in, we'd need to explain it; and the detail needed to describe those rare situations where it would be useful seems to be a bit much for the small impact it would have, so I'm all for keeping it simple and leaving it out for now. Thanks for the excellent explanations everyone! Dreadstar † 00:47, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I did a brief review of who defines primary and secondary sources based on use, and I found some definitions that I think are particularly germane to this policy page, because their "use-based" distinction has a stronger connection to the idea of "original research". Here are a few definitions of primary sources:

• "Manuscripts, records, or documents providing original research or documentation." [10]
• "Primary sources contain original information and are usually the place where the original information first appears. Examples of primary sources include interviews, diaries, letters, speeches, results of experiments or original research, literary works, autobiographies, original theories, and other materials. Compare to secondary source."[11]
• "An original work such as a book, manuscript, or document produced by an author. A book can also be a secondary source. A scientific or scholarly journal article is usually a primary source."[12]
• "The main source used to defend a research question. For example, critical essays, documented studies, scholarly or technical journals, or interviews with experts."[13]
• "Information which has not been interpreted by another person, ie, original articulation of an idea or concept."[14]

Here are a few definitions of secondary sources:

• "second-hand report or review of original research that is written by someone other than the original researcher"[15]
• "A document which interprets or analyzes a primary source. It is something written or reported about someone else's work."[16]
• "A source that contains information that other people have gathered and interpreted, extended, analyzed, or evaluated, such as newspaper articles, a documentary on television, a website, a science text, and an encyclopedia entry."[17]
• "materials or sources that contain information that has been cited, translated, or based upon another primary or original source."[18]
• "Materials that are not original manuscripts, contemporary records, or documents associated with an event, but which critique, comment on, or build upon primary sources."[19]

Thus, whether something is a primary or secondary source really depends upon what aspect of the work is being cited. If I'm citing some original research (such as a new scientific theory or a new interpretation of history), it's a primary source, even if the original research was derived from evaluating and analyzing other primary sources (such as raw scientific data or diary entries). In other words, all original research begins its life as a primary source. If someone else adds an additional new idea, they too can be cited as a primary source as the originator of that new idea. Secondary sources don't add any new theories or interpretations, they just comment on primary sources.

According to this framework, sources can be both primary and secondary sources. A biography is a secondary source to the extent it describes, critiques, or analyses primary source material in a non-novel way, but a primary source to the extent it introduces novel theories, analyses, or interpretations about the subject's life. This is not the only way out there to distinguish primary and secondary sources, but given the focus here on the meaning and use of "original research", does adopting this type of framework make sense? COGDEN 21:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

There's been some discussion and attempt at clarification of this at the essay/talk page Wikipedia:Classification of sources. Might be worth a look, and if there's consensus on what it says (or is made to say) it can be linked and/or used as basis of new wording/section? SamBC(talk) 22:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Classification of sources is just starting out as an essay, and it considers the three types of sources with respect to WP:NOR, WP:Notability, and WP:NPOV. We'll have more time to work that out, but here, since this is a policy and it has to reflect Wikipedia-wide practice and consensus, we need to make a change quickly. We can't let it remain much longer in its non-consensus prescriptive state. I'm just thinking that focusing more specifically on how the primary/secondary distinction relates to original research, we can avoid the larger more controversial issues. COGDEN 17:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

In that direction, here's few thoughts:

• Aggregation of primary source information, sorting it, and doing basic maths on it isn't original research.
• Interpreting it without reference to another source making that interpretation is.
• Similarly, putting together multiple interpretation to make a new interpretation may be original research.
• There are interpretations that wouldn't be considered original research, but there's probably no way to delineate them besides examples and common sense.

Do these make sense? Can they be worked into/reflected in the policy? SamBC(talk) 18:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Primary v. secondary sources in the scientific literature

This is somewhat related to the above thread, but with a slightly different focus. I would like the cited examples of primary and secondary sources to include something about the application of these terms to the scientific literature. To me, primary sources in this context include journal articles reporting on novel research conducted by the authors of the article. Examples of a secondary source, in a scientific/medical context, would be a review article synthesizing available primary sources, a textbook chapter, or a statement from a large/respected organization such as the WHO/CDC/NIH/etc. The basis for this? Editors may claim journal articles as "secondary sources" and selectively cite specific articles, out of context, to advance their point. Editors should not be in the business of deciding which, of the thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles published every week, are the most scientifically significant ones. Instead, such determinations should be made by experts in the field, as indicated in the sort of secondary sources I've described above. This dovetails with WP:WEIGHT. What I'm suggesting would be, in fact, a very minor change (proposed changes are in italics):

• "Examples of primary sources include archeological artifacts; photographs; historical documents such as diaries, census results, video or transcripts of surveillance, public hearings, trials, or interviews; tabulated results of surveys or questionnaires; written or recorded notes of laboratory and field experiments or observations; scientific journal articles describing novel research conducted by the article authors; and artistic and fictional works such as poems, scripts, screenplays, novels, motion pictures, videos, and television programs."

• "An historian's interpretation of the decline of the Roman Empire, or analysis of the historical Jesus, is a secondary source. Scientific review articles, chapters from widely used textbooks, or position statements from well-known scientific bodies are secondary sources. Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources."

I don't want to open another can of worms about SPOV and so forth; these stipulations would exist to clear up an issue of what is primary vs. secondary within the scientific literature, and would not in any way prioritize scientific sources over non-scientific ones. MastCell ^Talk 22:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

We've tried to discuss and address this at the essay Wikipedia:Classification of sources — have a look and see what you think. Unfortunately, we're not too sure about the wider acceptance of this (either on wikipedia or in academia). SamBC(talk) 22:42, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it's an interesting essay. I wish it wasn't necessary to spell this out, but I've seen it become an issue from time to time. I guess I'm wondering if there is any objection to adding the examples I've listed above to the list of examples in the current policy, or for that matter any objection to the way I've delineated primary vs. secondary in this context. I want to keep this particular proposed change separate from the "use-dependent classification" and "third-party" issues. MastCell ^Talk 22:59, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I would support the change. I think you're right, and we ought to make this clear. COGDEN 17:35, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I have added the proposed examples to the policy page. MastCell ^Talk 18:28, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't agree with this idea. Many important journal articles aren't expounded on in "review" or "meta-analysis" articles, or in the mainstream media. This could lead to a lot of edit-warring and removal of good cites. I say that this kind of journal article may be both a primary _and_ a secondary source. If it's peer-reviewed it is a secondary source. Squidfryerchef 19:37, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I also disagree with the change, as I've stated elsewhere on this talk page. (Sorry for the repetition -- should have posted here in the first place.) --Coppertwig 19:43, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Could you repeat your objections for my sake? No one is saying that an important journal article not covered in a review or the mainstream media needs to be removed. However, such articles are generally handled as primary sources de facto (see WP:MEDRS for example). They can certainly be cited, but when it comes to determining WP:WEIGHT, secondary sources like those I listed are essential. The idea that peer-reviewed == secondary source is one I strongly object to, and one that does not mirror current practice on Wikipedia. There are thousands of peer-reviewed articles published every week; calling them all "secondary sources" puts individual Wikipedians in the business of deciding which of these thousands are most relevant. That determination should be made not by editors here, but by reliable secondary sources such as reviews, textbooks, scientific bodies, etc. MastCell ^Talk 20:49, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

In a scientific research article, the actual data (such as filled-out surveys) is a primary source; the published report is a secondary source and normally contains interpretation of the results by the scientific authors. It says clearly in the policy that a journalist's report of a traffic accident is a secondary source. There are huge numbers of such newspaper articles. Part of the task of Wikipedians (who are intelligent human beings, not robots) is to discern what is interesting and relevant.

The wording in bold type on this page makes it sound as if primary sources are not to be used or are rarely to be used. Defining scientific articles as primary sources would lead to large amounts of good data being cut out of articles.

Scientific articles normally contain commentary on other scientific articles, (often in their introduction), quite similar to what one finds in review articles but on a smaller scale. I see no reason not to treat this part of scientific articles as a secondary source. Scientific articles also usually/often contain interpretation, commentary, opinion, speculation and/or recommendations based on their results. Again, I see no reason not to put this into the same category as a journalist's account of a traffic accident.

Common sense, the wiki editing process and the basic idea of "no original research" is normally enough to keep people from building up new interpretations from a collection of scientific articles. Special words that make it sound as if scientific articles should rarely be used are not needed and could lead to a lot of harmful clearcutting of articles and loss of information, or at least a lot of wasted time arguing over and over again that scientific articles are OK to use as sources. --Coppertwig 21:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Facts and Interpretations

The definition of secondary sources currently reads, in part:

... An historian's interpretation of the decline of the Roman Empire, or analysis of the historical Jesus, is a secondary source. Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources.

Scholarly work focuses on primary sources precisely because it focuses on facts, more than later interpretations of these facts. As written, this makes it easier to reference interpretations than facts, which is just backwards.

I suggest (rambling):

• Wikipedia articles should build on factual claims, not interpretations
• Wikipedia editors should not introduce new factual claims (OR) or new interpretations (OR)
• Wikipedia articles should list sources for important factual claims and all non-obvious interpretations
• Factual claims can come from primary or secondary sources.
• Interpretations can come from primary or secondary sources. Nonpartisan secondary sources are preferred; however, other sources may provide fact claims which contradict the interpretation in question.
• Quotes may be used, but are not necessary. If possible, quotes should come from the primary source and appear in secondary sources (some older quotes may only appear in secondary sources).
  • Quotes should be removed if they are taken out of context
  • Quotes may be challenged if they contradict other statements from the same author, if they contradict secondary sources about their author, if they are excessive, if they are misleading, or other reasons. Jacob Haller 23:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I am very opposed. At the root, such a liberal policy would open up a world of abuse and grossly neglects some basics. For example, historical sources need to be evaluated for accuracy, reliability and similar factors. That requires the use of secondary sources to avoid original research. To present a specific, Caesar's Gallic War is widely renowned for its exacting language and relative accuracy. However, it is also known to contain likely false hearsay and is considered a masterwork of propaganda. So, even one of the most well-regarded historical sources has problems and only reliable secondary/tertiary sources can distinguish for us between the good and the bad, if we're to avoid original research. Primary sources were discouraged with good reason, the change spurred by abuse of such references. Outside the census data and precious few other examples, there is no demonstrated need for primary sources, and we're perfectly allowed to judge when an exception is appropriate. Vassyana 02:08, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I understand your concerns. But the way this is written, it's as though the addition of interpretation makes it the reliable source, and we end up being able to cite interpretations, but not facts. I wish we could tag multiple qualities of sources. Jacob Haller 02:20, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there's any bar to citing facts. You can cite primary sources - you just can't use them to make a case that goes against their interpretation by reliable secondary sources. You could cite Einstein's paper on special relativity directly (despite it being a primary source) - you just can't cite it in support of the Time Cube. I think that's really (one of) the point(s) of WP:NOR. MastCell ^Talk 03:15, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I am very happy to see that someone above has cited 'common sense', never forgetting that once 'common sense' was that africans had not soul, and perhaps also women as well. But apart this, the fact remains: there are many good stuff both about first and secondary sources, and still the question should be better understood. If i write about Anna Frank or Caesar is pointless tell me 'use only secondary sources'. Perhaps this was meant more for Mein Kampf and similar stuff. Still if i check on a diary of an ace and then a source that negate that day one air victory has occourred, i must at least take care also of the detailed narration of this ace. Then i can add that ufficially squadron X did not substain any losses in Y day, but this not discard automatically 100% the 'ace' narration of the fact, at least must be reported as 'claim'. But as i would remark, the common sense is good, but must be better understood. As example, here in Italy there are many parts burning in flames. Common sense should suggest to arrest incendiarys and trown away the key, instead they are arrested and then released, so if there is still a forest that they did not yet burn, they had the opportunity to do so as freemen. Common sense is good, but overall is not meaning any precise rule and automatic action, nor it does a policy that do not discriminate between Hitler and Anna Frank. Becasue this is the real problem.--Stefanomencarelli 14:53, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I think Jacob Haller's analysis is a good one, although I think it's important to build both on facts and interpretations. Sometimes interpretations are just as important as facts. I think maybe we should start a separate Wikipedia Guideline, or maybe beef up Wikipedia:Classification of sources, because this issue gets far beyond the basic issue of prohibiting original research, and also includes issues of WP:NPOV (secondary sources are more biased than primary sources), WP:Notability (the existence of secondary sources is one indicator of notability), and WP:Reliable sources (sources, whether primary or secondary, must be reliable). COGDEN 17:47, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree: build on both facts and interpretations. Facts can be based on primary sources, and interpretations from secondary sources. Both are important to a good encyclopedia article. --Coppertwig 19:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Currently the page says in bold type: "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources." This gives a strong impression that primary sources are not to be used. Perhaps it needs to be edited/clarified -- or at least the bold type removed. --Coppertwig 19:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Dual nature of OR

I think Jacob Haller hit on a very important point in the second bullet above: " Wikipedia editors should not introduce new factual claims (OR) or new interpretations (OR)." OR as defined here has two different aspects:

• Creating a primary source by making new factual claims
• Creating a secondary source by making new interpretation of facts

This may be behind much of the confusion, misunderstanding, and misapplication of this policy. This NOR policy brings two different concepts under one umbrella term, but does not make it clear that it is talking about two different but related things by comparing and contrasting them. We should further develop this distinction. Dhaluza 12:09, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposed new section on Primary and secondary sources

Here is a proposed new section on primary and secondary sources. I think this is a better explanation of the difference between primary and secondary sources, and sets a clear rule for editors to follow, which we need, since this is a policy, not a guideline. If we want to make further suggestions or guidelines regarding the primacy of primary or secondary sources, we can do that in a separate guideline, or at Wikipedia:Classification of sources.

Primary and secondary sources

Research that consists of collecting and organizing material from existing sources within the provisions of this and other content policies is encouraged: this is "source-based research," and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia. However, care should be taken not to "go beyond" the sources or use them in novel ways. Sources may be divided into two categories:

• A primary source is a manuscript, record, or document providing original research or documentation. A primary source is where original data, information, theories, or conclusions first appear, and all original research begins its life in a primary source.

• A secondary source is a second-hand report or review of a primary source. It includes reviews or interpretations of original research written by someone other than the original researcher. A source may be both a primary source and a secondary source; for example, if a scientist reviews the experimental results of another scientist, her review is a secondary source. But if the scientist makes further novel conclusions based on the prior scientist's data, her writing is also a primary source with respect to those novel conclusions. Secondary sources that review many primary and other secondary sources are sometimes called tertiary sources. This sub-category includes textbooks, treatises, dictionaries, and encyclopedias such as Wikipedia itself. Tertiary sources are not usually sources of original research, though they may report and review original research found in other publications.

Wikipedia can never be a primary source. Before being cited by a Wikipedia article, all original research, data, or information must first appear in a primary source, or be commented upon in a secondary source.

COGDEN 18:30, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The use of "original research" here does not fit in with my understanding of it. Original research does not begin its life in a primary source. It can be born in my own imagination. I have done so before when composing examples on this talk page. This proposal is very far off-base in my opinion.--BirgitteSB 18:45, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

If it's in your own imagination, it isn't a "source". You can't cite "my mind": it has to be something written. COGDEN 22:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Exactly "original research" is the opposite of "source-based research" it does not depends on sources. You cannot say "all original research begins its life in a primary source"--BirgitteSB 13:25, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with this edit. It differs from WP:RS. It's important that Wikipedia articles be able to cite scientific research articles. In a scientific research article, the actual data (such as filled-out surveys) is a primary source; the published report is a secondary source and normally contains interpretation of the results by the scientific authors. Peer-reviewed articles are normally considered reliable sources. Disallowing them would result in major cutting of science pages -- a lot of useful information would have to be removed. I doubt this change could achieve broad consensus. --Coppertwig 19:14, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree it's important to cite scientific research articles. This edit would not disallow that, and in fact encourages it. Just because a new theory in a scientific article is a primary source doesn't make it unciteable. Primary sources aren't bad, they're just original. COGDEN 22:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Response to suggestion

Just as a quick note, it has been pointed out that, in certain unusual cases, wikipedia can be a primary source - about itself.

In terms of Wikipedia:Classification of sources, if there is a perceived need (as there seems to be sometimes) then that can be worked into a guideline, although it would need to change in focus somewhat. SamBC(talk) 18:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia can be a primary source, and not only about itself. For example, if someone makes a controversial statement on a Wikipedia talk page, and that statement is later quoted in newspaper articles, and then there's a Wikipedia page about the controversy, the original talk page statement would be a primary source about the statement -- which might have nothing to do with Wikipedia. --Coppertwig 19:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia talk page can be a primary source, but a Wikipedia article should never be a primary source. That's the essence of the original research policy. COGDEN 22:35, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

An edit to a Wikipedia article can be a primary source, for the same reason as the talk page. Wait, even a Wikipedia article itself (or a particular version of it) can be a primary source. Suppose there are a lot of newspaper articles about an incident centring around the fact that a certain Wikipedia article contained a certain controversial (perhaps false or even outlandish) statement at a certain time. The original version of the Wikipedia article would be a primary source to establish a basic fact re the incident -- although the newspaper articles would be required to establish the significance of the whole incident. But, the Wikipedia article would not be being used as a source in the ordinary way, i.e. to gather facts about the subject matter of the article by taking it at face value. --Coppertwig 22:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that a Wikipedia article can be a primary source. I'm just saying that it shouldn't. If a Wikipedia article every becomes a primary source, something in the process has gone wrong, or somebody hasn't followed Wikipedia policy, and it usually becomes an embarrassment for Wikipedia. COGDEN 19:27, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm saying that a Wikipedia article should be able to be used as a primary source in a case such as I described. Please explain why you think it should not. To clarify, here's an example: Suppose a particular version of a Wikipedia article says something controversial about a country, and a leader of another country publicly quotes it as "Wikipedia says that ...", the first country takes offense, and a war begins as a result. Suppose it's all documented in newspaper articles and other reliable sources. Later, a Wikipedia article about the causes of the war should be able to use the (appropriate version of the) original Wikipedia article as a primary source to establish a basic fact, i.e. the fact that the Wikipedia article did (or did not) say a certain thing, in the same way that it would use, say, the original newspaper article as a primary source if it was a remark in a newspaper instead that had started the whole thing. --Coppertwig 19:57, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Are we sure we want a special rule for scientific articles?

OK, so there's been a lot of discussion a few sections up. So far, anything published in an academic journal was a secondary source, just like newspapers and non-vanity press books were secondary sources. While that did create a situation where an article in a peer-reviewed journal that reported the original experiment would serve as both a primary and secondary source, I'm not sure we want to change the rules so that the article is no longer a secondary source. I'm concerned that it's going to lead to a lot of flimsy "OR" allegations and removal of good cites to good journal articles. Squidfryerchef 19:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree -- see my message above. --Coppertwig 19:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I responded above, but briefly - we're not talking about a special rule, but about codifying the way these articles are generally already handled. No one is talking about removing good journal articles, but calling anything peer-reviewed a "secondary source" creates a huge problem: it puts Wikipedians in the position of selecting which, of the thousands of peer-reviewed articles published every week, are the important or notable ones. That determination should be made by review articles, scientific bodies, experts in the field, etc (per WP:WEIGHT). Otherwise you get an editor who cherry-picks a 1970's study suggesting Depo-Provera causes endometrial cancer in animals, and chooses not to present the subsequent studies showing that it has a protective effect in humans (off the top of my head, but a real example). The solution is to use secondary sources (e.g. textbooks or reviews on Depo Provera), and cite primary sources (journal articles) within that context. Otherwise the door is open to all sorts of cherrypicking which violates WP:WEIGHT. MastCell ^Talk 20:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The primary/secondary source distinction is inherent to history and similar fields but not useful or even applicable to all other areas. That is the fundamental problem here. Journal articles in the sciences are often both primary (reporting original research) and secondary (interpreting previous research) sources. In any case, we have always treated peer-reviewed sources as reliable; the issue of undue weight is orthogonal to the issue of reliability. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Using textbooks etc. is only one solution. Some research may not make it into that kind of source for a long time. Another solution is the wiki editing process: Wikipedians use their judgement as encyclopedia writers to decide what is interesting, relevant and imporant to include, and if one Wikipedian puts in something about cancer in animals, another Wikipedian comes along and insists that it be balanced by a statement about cancer in humans -- or that it be removed because the article is too long, because of arguments about undue weight, etc. Scientific articles are an excellent, valuable resource for Wikipedia. Limiting ourselves to textbooks etc. would exclude a large amount of useful information. As someone pointed out (but I can't find it now), some results aren't reported in review articles at least not for a long time: scientists consider the ordinary scientific articles sufficient in many cases. I don't see any particular reason why the opinion of a scientist writing a review article should carry much more weight than the opinion of a scientist writing an ordinary scientific article. --Coppertwig 21:14, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

(ec) I don't think reliability is at issue. I'm merely suggesting that journal articles reporting novel research should be used in a manner which hews very closely to the interpretations drawn by the authors. Reliable, peer-reviewed journal articles can be (and often are) cited out of context to support a conclusion not specifically reached by the authors or contrary to the meaning assigned those papers by experts in the field. That's a WP:WEIGHT issue, but it also turns on WP:NOR and primary vs. secondary sources. To Coppertwig: I'm not saying (nor does WP:NOR say) that journal articles can't be cited till they appear in a review. I am saying that they should not be cited out of context or in a manner unsupported by any secondary sources. MastCell ^Talk 21:20, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Aha! "the interpretations drawn by the authors" -- that sounds like secondary sources to me!! All secondary sources, not only scientific articles, should be used in a manner which hews very closely to the interpretations drawn by the authors. Things are cited out of context; they should not be. We can repeat that things should not be cited out of context. We'll never stamp it all out.

I don't understand. First you say you're not saying that journal articles can't be cited till they appear in a review. But then you say that should not be cited in a manner unsupported by any secondary sources. If you don't count the ordinary scientific articles as secondary sources, and if they haven't appeared in a review article yet, then what secondary source can you use to support them? I think it's too much to require that they must be supported by a secondary source. That's equivalent to excluding a lot of scientific results -- anything that isn't reported in a review article or similar type of source. A lot of good information isn't. --Coppertwig 21:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I've never claimed that journal articles can't be cited unless they've appeared in a review. I am proposing that journal articles should not be cited in a manner that directly contradicts the findings of more secondary sources. If I write that the annual incidence of pancreatic cancer is 5 per 100,000 and cite a primary source/journal article, who's going to disagree with that? But if I cite an article from the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons claiming that vaccines are responsible for all human ailments as a rebuttal to the World Health Organization, or if I cite a 12-year-old paper by a tobacco-industry consultant to rebut the Surgeon General's finding that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer, then I'm engaging in original research or synthesis. That's all I'm getting at. And these are real examples. MastCell ^Talk 21:50, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

It seems that a lot of the objections to the classification of journal articles as (partly) primary sources seems to be that this would exclude their usage. However, there has also been discussion as to the (relatively recent) exclusion of primary sources in any case, as opposed to clarifying their appropriate use. Is it possible that it might be better to connect the two discussion more? SamBC(talk) 22:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that makes sense. Usage is really the main issue anyway, and classification is secondary to that. I know what this policy says, but in practice primary sources are frequently cited and rarely objected to unless they're being used as part of an improper synthesis. The thing about scientific articles would not in any way mandate that they be removed from articles where they're properly cited - it's just an effort to clarify their appropriate use. MastCell ^Talk 22:31, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Whether a journal article is or is not a primary source, we shouldn't assume that primary sources cannot be cited. They clearly can, because they are, and very frequently, and by our best articles. We need to make sure, however, that we are accurately representing the difference between primary and secondary sources. Based on my review of the literature, I think the predominant usage is to call journal articles primary sources, particularly when they contain original research (which they nearly always do, by definition). When you cite the first published instance of a new idea, you are citing a primary source. That holds whether you are in the field of science, history, religion, or any other academic field. COGDEN 22:42, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

What if you have some original research and also some interpretation of others' research? The entire distinction is problematic for many disciplines. It's most useful for history and degrades quickly when you move away from that field. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:44, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

If the interpretation of the others' research is novel and original, I think it's a primary source as to that new research. It's also a secondary source, however, as to any review of the prior research other than the novel research. For example, if a scientist reviews prior scientific results, and then applies those prior results in a new way, the first part is secondary, while the first part is primary. If the Wikipedia article is discussing the new conclusions, the source would be treated as a primary source. If the Wikipedia article just uses the source as an overview of the prior research, it would be treated as a secondary source. COGDEN 19:24, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Right. It's a matter of wording. Not citing journal articles in a way that contradicts a secondary source, OK (within reason: if it's an important, widely-cited and accepted scientific article that contradicts an earlier secondary source that can now reasonably be considered outdated, it would be OK to cite it -- though that should probably not be explicitly stated in policy or it would be widely abused; just carefully write the policy so it doesn't prevent it.) Not contradicting a secondary source is one thing. Not using it if it's unsupported by any secondary source is something else and would be too restrictive.

I agree with CBM. Outside Wikipedia, I think the terms "primary source" and "secondary source" are used in history or similar fields but not widely used elsewhere. --Coppertwig 22:47, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I think the definitions are just a bit field-specific. There's a pretty clear distinction in the scientific literature between articles which report novel findings, and those which largely or only synthesize the work of others (e.g. review articles, textbook chapters, etc). Perhaps calling them "primary" and "secondary" sources sets up a misleading parallel with historical sources, but the distinction is very real and appropriate nonetheless. MastCell ^Talk 22:49, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree there are "research" papers and "review" papers. In the field I edit here, math, we already cite textbooks and review papers for the bulk of things, and research papers almost only when we need to cite the original work. But the review papers often have original research in them (rephrasing theorems, proving unifying results, etc.). That's why the primary/secondary distinction isn't particularly relevant. In every case, the point is to cite the best reference(s) for the ideas being described. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Outside of history, the terms are not used widely, but are used sometimes. Basically, they are terms of historiography, and they are used to refer to the history of science, math, as well as other fields. Science historians, for example, refer to primary sources (e.g., original writings by Copernicus, Charles Darwin, or Einstein), and secondary sources (e.g., a 1875 newspaper article explaining the theory of Evolution in lay terms, or a Discover magazine article describing the theory of Relativity). But if a secondary article both reviews past scientific or mathematical research, and adds its own original research, it's both a primary and secondary source. COGDEN 22:58, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Carl that the most important thing is to cite the best (or I would say "most appropriate") sources for what is being described. I think we need better guidance on this, less blunt and confusing than what NOR currently seems to say. SamBC(talk) 23:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

(ec) There's a couple of references in the discussion at WT:SCLASS the show that the terms are used, or at least understood, in natural and social sciences. SamBC(talk) 22:59, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I agree with this sentence, but it seems to have been in there for some time: "Although most articles should rely predominantly on secondary sources, there are rare occasions when they may rely on primary sources (for example, legal cases)." If this sentence is present, then classifying scientific articles as primary sources is pretty much equivalent to excluding their use. Besides, scientific articles don't fit my intuitive idea of what a primary source is. --Coppertwig 23:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Intuition isn't often the best measure. However, this whole sort of thing is why some of us thought that it might be worth having interdisciplinary working definitions for wikipedia, which is how WP:SCLASS started. SamBC(talk) 23:05, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, ISTR that that sentence was in part a reaction to other sentences in the page that suggested that primary sources shouldn't be used, full stop. SamBC(talk) 23:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree. That's why this sentence must go. It does not reflect the current consensus of the Wikipedia community, nor does it reflect current or past Wikipedia practice. We can't even come to a consensus as to what primary source means, let alone that they should be "rare". COGDEN 23:08, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree - I have no intention of altering policy in a way which excludes the use of scientific papers - quite the contrary, I'd rather they were used more often where appropriate. I've been the primary contributor to 2 featured articles (acute myeloid leukemia and cholangiocarcinoma), and you'll see that the bulk of the sources I used were "primary source" journal articles (though I would hope that the review articles etc. that I cited supported their use). Perhaps User:Sambc's suggestion to tackle the usage guidelines makes the most sense. MastCell ^Talk 23:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with COgden that Wikipedia articles are based on both facts and interpretations. Facts come from primary sources, and interpretations from secondary sources. I therefore support COgden's recent revert along these lines: use of primary sources should not be restricted to "rare".

One editor's intuition as to what something means is a reasonable predictor that there will likely be (at least some) others interpreting the words of the policy along similar lines. --Coppertwig 23:11, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Coppertwig that a well written article contains both "facts and interpretations" and it is only OR if the facts or interpretations come from the WP editor, not WP:RS. We need primary sources for facts, and some subjects are necessarily fact heavy, because they either have not yet had extensive published analysis, or they are hard subjects that are not very subjective and not subject to interpretation in RS. So the blanket statement that all WP articles should rely on secondary sources is just wrong, and does not even approach a consensus opinion. It's probably OK to say that articles should rely on secondary sources where practicable, or some such weasel words, but if it has to be weasel worded, it should probably just be dropped. Dhaluza 15:46, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Page protected

I've reprotected this page for 7 days, since it took a shade less than 24 hours after Husond's unprotection for people to go back to edit warring. It's unseemly to do this on a major policy page.

Sort out compromise wording here and I (or someone else not directly involved in the dispute) can unprotect earlier. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Here's the issue: we need to decide what language, if any, should replace these two controversial statements:

1. Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources. (in bold)
2. Although most articles should rely predominantly on secondary sources, there are rare occasions when they may rely on primary sources.

A policy is "the codification of current convention and common practice which already have wide consensus." It is supposed to "document the way that Wikipedia works." (See Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines). If we can't come to a consensus that these two statements document the way that Wikipedia currently works, we should just omit them. Personally, I don't think there is even consensus about what a primary or secondary source means, let alone that they should be "rare" or "predominently relied upon" COGDEN 23:59, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately some of us believe those statements do document the way Wikipedia works. It would be much easier to settle if the disagreement was actually over how articles are written rather than the particular wording that describes how articles are written.--BirgitteSB 13:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I concur. I don't believe the statements need to be rewritten or replaced. Dreadstar † 17:41, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

But on the other hand, "I" don't beleive that Wikipedia should be so restrictive as to prohibit truth either. A made up example would be along the lines of "(no name, but somebody with a bunch of money) was driving while drunk, sideswiping several cars before crashing into a mailbox, and rendering a child who was a passenger in one of the sideswiped cars comatose. Another person inside the car climbs behind the wheel while the "rich person" staggers out of the car and leaves. Several, say 40, eyewitnesses observe the entire chain of events and report it. The "rich persons" publicist immediately makes several press releases which are then printed and even included in an upcoming biography of the person, saying that the "rich person" wasn't present, and the car was only occupied by the one who subsequently traded places with the drunk "rich person". The only accounts of the eyewitnesses is in a police report which is sealed by the court by the "rich persons" lawyer, and on several blogs that the various eyewitnesses maintain. The media only makes a casual mention of these, saying "various fringe elements contend that the car was actually driven by "rich person", but no proof of these claims has ever been documented"." A crimal charge of reckless driving is made against the sober driver, and in a civil suit, the "rich person" offers to pay a small settlement to the parents of the comatose child in exchange for keeping the proceedings sealed. The parents are now restricted from publicy acknowledging the truth, the eyewitneses don't get any money either way, and just their simple little observation isn't worthy of an entire book, even though one them tried to get it published.

So, by Wikipedia "standards", the only thing that ever appears on here would be the perpetuated lie, as the eyewitness accounts would be a "primary source", correct? Just trying to get some clarification on how things are "supposed" to work on here, vs. how things "should" work. wbfergus 14:15, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, you can only put the media accounts and such on Wikipedia. Unfortunate in some cases, but consider this: what if a group of 40 people who hate "rich person" decided to lie and say that "rich person" was in a particular place when "rich person" really wasn't? (Or what if a bunch of people saw someone who looked quite similar to "rich person" and started claiming (and believing) they'd seen "rich person" after they heard that other people were claiming the same thing?) What if the newspapers rightly ignored them? Maybe false claims like that happen often to famous people. If it's sufficiently important, couldn't you find at least one newspaper or thingy leaning in the political direction that would publish it? Isn't it better to err on the side of saying nothing than to wrongly defame someone -- both from an ethical and a pragmatic point of view, since contending against a single "rich person"'s lawyers could bring the whole Wikimedia foundation to bankruptcy? --Coppertwig 16:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

It is worth nothing that our living persons policy encourages the immediate removal of any unsourced material about living people, whether negative or positive. Vassyana 17:31, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'm now starting to see why there's been so many articles, blog postings, etc. about how Wikipedia has so much false information. I always just thought it because anybody could edit (and therefore vandalize), and more interested people were needed to keep tabs on articles to revert vandalism faster. Now it appears that if any wacko gets a book published, no matter what is in it, then parts of that book can used as a reliable source. If I could get a book published saying Kennedy was actually shot from the grssy knoll by three hidden snipers and the CIA has the recovered shell casing in different calibers locked away in a safe, then by Wikipedia "standards", this could suddenly be placed in the Wikipedia article, as long as it's appropriately referenced and perhaps written as "according to some sources..."? I know of a few places here in Colorado that will publish books for anybody on any subject for a minimum order of $5,000 (US). That's all it takes? wbfergus 18:07, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Self-published (including vanity-published) sources are excluded, and have been for quite some time. SamBC(talk) 18:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Right, it would very quickly run into WP:V self-published as well as Wikipedia:Notability issues. Dreadstar † 18:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, if a writer uses a pen-name (so nobody knows who they really are) to get their work published, and then references that book on here (under a different name), how would anybody be able to put two plus two together to determine that the author and the editor were the same person? The wiki editor could claim that since their names were different, he wasn't the author and he was just citing it, as I've seen on many different military history articles on here (the claim that is, not the actual made-up example, though there is one questionable site that I've seen cited on several articles, www.centurychina.org or something like that, under the KoreanWarFAQ). Basically, I'm just playing devils advocate here, trying to when and/or if there are certain occasions where the rules do get broken, either intentially, unintenionally, or with concensus of that articles editors. wbfergus 18:36, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Self-published doesn't mean published by the same person who is editing the Wikipedia article (as in WP:COI); it means the author and the publisher are the same person, i.e. someone has paid to have their work published. If an author sends their work to a publisher and the publisher decides to publish it, then there is an additional step of approval, so it's more reliable, but still not necessarily a good source. See WP:RS. Just because something is in a book doesn't necessarily mean it has to be in a Wikipedia article. Also, often the Wikipedia article will say something like "A book by X states that ..." rather than just asserting controversial statements. --Coppertwig 18:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Responding to Birgitte's statement that: "Unfortunately some of us believe those statements do document the way Wikipedia works" :

I think the key word here is "some". I doubt you could even say "most", and that is clearly not a consensus. Besides nobody has responded to my repeated argument that nearly all Wikipedia:featured articles make liberal use of primary sources. If it's deemed acceptable in any substantial number of featured articles, it's clearly not a policy. COGDEN 19:18, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Besides nobody has responded to my repeated argument that nearly all Wikipedia:featured articles make liberal use of primary sources. I don't see the argument in that, those articles still rely on secondary sources. If you instead had said that nearly all Wikipedia:featured articles do not rely secondary sources, then there would be an argument. From your proposed re-write above, I am not even certain you clearly understand what original research is at this point. I understand that you believe the status quo of this policy doesn't have consensus, but by that same argument you can hardly claim that your own edits have consensus. Consider that under this status quo policy, many quality articles that you are happy with have been written. Therefore do you not think it is possible that this status quo policy actually supports those articles and is more in line with your own ideas than you have believed up till now.--BirgitteSB 19:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

BirgitteSB, please clarify. I think maybe you mean that all Wikipedia articles should rely on secondary sources, and that they may also rely on primary sources too: i.e. Wikipedia articles should rely on either secondary sources, or a combination of primary and secondary sources. Is that what you mean? --Coppertwig 20:00, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Not to speak for Birgitte, but what she previously said seems to agree with my perspective that Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources, although there are rare occasions when they may rely on primary sources. Exactly what the policy stated prior to Cogden's non-consensus changes. Please correct me if I'm wrong, BrigitteSB! Dreadstar † 20:37, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

(ec) I think the distinction is whether they use them, or rely on them. Would the article be plausible (albeit sparser) without them? SamBC(talk) 20:38, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Right, good distinction. How often does an article completely rely on primary sources alone? I think we would run into problems if there were limited or no restrictions on use of primary sources. I tend to think that 'rare' is is indeed the watchword on the subject of articles relying on primary sources. There can be a mixture, naturally, but to totally rely should be somewhat of a rarity, I would think.... Dreadstar † 20:50, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Endorsing the use vs. rely distinction. It should not be rare for an article to use a primary source, however the more encyclopedic portions of the article will inevitably rely on secondary sources. Direct quotes give nice illustration and insight into article but what is encyclopedic is information put context. What is parts of an event were most important, what incident was a turning point, whose decision made a difference, what lasting influences of that event are still felt today. These things answers can only be found in secondary sources which have the "distance" to look at the event within a larger context.--BirgitteSB 21:07, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. Well put. Dreadstar † 03:29, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Wrong, as I have already commented above, in aviation, specifically for aircraft and airports, we rely on primary sources. Also many, many geographic place articles rely on primary sources. So while the majority of articles may be primarily based on secondary sources, there are significant sub-groups of articles that do not. The myopic focus on primary vs. secondary sourcing, and the wholesale depreciation of primary sources is unnecessarily distracting. Why don't we focus on how and why primary and secondary sources are problematic, rather than trying to make one-size-doesn't-necessarily-fit-all prescriptive guidelines?

The current version of this sentence is fine: "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published primary and secondary sources.". An earlier version which said "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources." is at best confusing.

I think it only adds confusion to make a use/rely distinction. Two different Wikipedians can write the same article in the same style using the same proportion of primary and seconary sources in the same way, while one of them sees the facts from the primary sources as being dry and less important and the interpretations from the secondary sources as the essential glue that holds the article together, and the other Wikipedian sees the facts from the primary sources as being the important information in the article and the interpretations from the secondary sources as being the mere glue that holds the article together. Since both Wikipedians are carrying out the same edits to create the same article, they must both be following policy (or both violating it), yet to one, the article clearly "relies" on primary sources to establish facts. Actually, even if one considers the facts unimportant, can't one still say that the article "relies" on a primary source to establish certain (unimportant) facts? Maybe the people writing "rely" in the policy really mean that it's the article's existence or the article's central threads that must rely on secondary sources, not that the article must rely on secondary sources for everything, even the establishment of (little) facts.

The definition of "encyclopedia" in my dictionary says nothing about secondary or tertiary sources. I think many people consulting Wikipedia are looking for specific facts such as "What is the population of Australia?" To them, the important thing about an article is whether it contains this fact and how easy it is to find. We can specify how articles are to be organized, but we can't legislate mind control over either the readers or Wikipedians. We can allow or disallow the inclusion of facts from primary source (I strongly vote allow), but we cannot force readers or editors to think of these as unimportant. --Coppertwig 13:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

May I suggest that we further clarify the sentence: "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published primary and secondary sources." to say "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published primary sources for facts, and secondary sources for any interpretation of those facts." I think this slight expansion should cover the major points raised here, and make the distinctions much clearer. Dhaluza 15:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) The only problem I see with that, personally, is that there are circumstances where primary sources are nonexistant or not available, at which point getting facts from secondary sources is fine. Primary better for facts, secondary acceptable. SamBC(talk) 16:08, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but in that case, you are still using the source as a primary source to support the fact. A fact remains a fact throughout the chain of custody, so even if it has been repeated 10 times, the source is still being used as a primary source. Naturally, the fact becomes less reliable the more times it is repeated, so we prefer the original source to a non-original source. But if we are citing a fact as a fact, we are using a primary source. Perhaps we need to make a clear distinction between original and primary sources to clear some of the confusion? Dhaluza 16:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Responding to Birgitte's comment above, "What is parts of an event were most important, what incident was a turning point, whose decision made a difference, what lasting influences of that event are still felt today. These things answers can only be found in secondary sources which have the "distance" to look at the event within a larger context". While I mostly agree with this, there is still that old adage that goes something like "the victorious get to write history". Especially with ancient history, most of the sources of information are from those who were victorious, so practically every interpretation through time has been made solely on the accounts of the victor. In many cases, everything from the vanquished was destroyed, leaving only a one-sided perspective, however right or wrong. It also makes it almost impossible to present the side of the vanquished without making conjectures from what limited information may be available for that side. As well, in many cases, such conjecture may not be worthy of an entire book or article, but maybe it could be included in a section called something like "Editors conjectures" or something. Some way of not preventing the thoughts of some of the well educated editors on here, and allowing some ideas to be presented, and then left to the reader to decide whether there is any merit in them or not. A possible case may be with a recent arguement we had over on the Korean War page. Most western sources place the Chinese casualties at approximately 400,000 killed (either directly or indirectly) with approximately 486,000 wounded. The Chinese however claim to only have lost 114,000 dead and 380,000 wounded (exactly). Just the dry facts themselves lead to many edit wars, while a policy that would allow something like "A claims X, however B claims Y. The actual Z is probably somewhere in between". I've never seen this print anywhere, yet it is logical to assume that, yet Wiki policy currently prevents it. wbfergus 15:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

No, just state "A claims X, however B claims Y" and leave it to the reader to form their own opinion. Your "The actual Z is probably somewhere in between" is just speculation and should not be included, because that is OR. In your example, the western sources may also have underestimated the actual casualties for a number of reasons, and putting speculation in the article, informed or not, is nonsense. Now if a respected military historian came to that conclusion after studying the evidence from both sides, then you could attribute that opinion to the expert, and it would be relevant in that context. If dry facts lead to edit wars, it's not the facts' fault, and your solution just creates a bigger problem, because it sends us down the slippery slope. Dhaluza 15:34, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

"Appears that"

Am I right in believing that pretty well any sentence in Wikipedia that says that something "appears to" be true or false or what have you violates this policy? For example, in hackle, the statement "the French-speaking fusilier regiments do not appear to" wear hackles looks to me like somebody was unable to find any reliable third party sources indicating that these regiments wear hackles, and then concluded that they probably don't. That conclusion is OR, no? Sarcasticidealist 09:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Not necessarily. The sentence with "appears to" might have a footnote attached, going to a source stating that X does not wear Y or that apparently X does not wear Y. In that case I don't think it would be OR. It does sound a bit like a weasel word, though. --Coppertwig 16:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

While it won't apply to 100% of situations, "appears to" is a pretty good indicator of OR. If a source states something like "X appears to be Y" then it should be stated in the article that "according to source S, X appears to be Y". Otherwise, even it is properly sourced, it's going to appear to be OR. Chaz ^Beckett 16:37, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I get it. If a source states "X is Y", then the Wikipedia article can either state "X is Y" (if this is uncontroversial), or "According to source S, X is Y". But if the source says "X appears to be Y", then I can't think of a good way to word the Wikipedia article without prose attribution. It wouldn't sound right to say "X appears to be Y," since that's an opinion, and a Wikipedia article can sometimes assert facts but cannot assert an opinion. (But what if everyone agrees that X appears to be Y -- for example, if that's the only reasonable interpretation of a certain scientific result?) --Coppertwig 17:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

If everyone agrees that a claim is factual and accurate, then a citation is probably not required. References are required when a claim is challenged, or likely to be challenged. Vassyana 17:27, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the important point is that it should always be made clear where a particular assertion came from. A prhase such as "appears to" is almost always going to be a interpretation or judgement instead of an objective fact. It especially important to make sure it not us, as editor, making the interpretation. We need to cite who's making it and possibly quote their reasoning. For example, "according to John Smith, professor of economics at Harvard University, the housing market appears to be stabilizing, based on several new reports". If an editor read these same reports and stated that the housing market appears to be stabilizing, that would be OR. Overall, with the exception of direct quotes, I can't really think of situations in which "appears to" would be a good phrase to use in an article. Chaz ^Beckett 17:32, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, all. You've more or less confirmed what I thought, but I didn't want to start deleting what is a very common phrase on Wikipedia's lower-end articles without some validation (even now I'm not going to become some kind of crusader - I'll just fix it as I come across it). Sarcasticidealist 18:13, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

How about in a caption to a photograph. Then it would be just a careful way of wording a description of the photo without making any assumptions. For example, if there was a photo of one of these regiments mentioned in the original post, and it was a bunch of soldiers not wearing hackles, then it could be appropriate to write "the French-speaking fusilier regiments do not appear to wear hackles". Squidfryerchef 01:28, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

A different explanation in hopes of clarity

I don't know if this will be useful but it likely won't hurt. So let me share an interesting quote from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing: "Knowledge differs from data or information in that new knowledge may be created from existing knowledge using logical inference. If information is data plus meaning then knowledge is information plus processing."

I would argue that primary sources, for our purposes here, are "unprocessed" sources. They can only offer us "data" and/or "information", while an encyclopedia must contain "knowledge". Primary sources are certainly acceptable sources for "data" or "information". However if an article does not rely on sources which actually offer "knowledge", it will fail to be encyclopedic. You can write beautiful source-based descriptions and spreadsheets with primary sources, but you cannot put them into context without either relying on a)your personal interpretations or b)secondary sources. A) would be original research while b) would be source-based research. Of course this is not the only way to produce original research but is the way the concerns the disputed section. Hopefully this explanation can clarify a few points.--BirgitteSB 21:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

That's a reasonable distinction between "knowledge" and "information", but not between primary and secondary sources. If a primary source is so narrowly defined as to only include "unprocessed information", that would include novels, journal articles, interviews, and poems, all of which are treated by non-Wikipedians as primary sources, even though they usually contain conclusions, interpretations, and other original "research". For example, a transcript of a reporter's interview with Abraham Lincoln might contain Lincoln's novel conclusions and insights into the Civil War. It's interpretive and analytical, yet it's also a primary source by any definition in common use outside of Wikipedia.

I think the kernel of the primary/secondary source idea has to do not with the rather metaphysical distinction between knowledge and information, but rather with the concept of precedence in time: A "source" is an idea, information, or research that can be cited, and it is "primary" if what you're citing is the original source of that information or conclusion. The information or conclusion being cited is "secondary" if it comes to the reader second-hand, not directly from the idea's original source. COGDEN 23:45, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

That brings to mind another example: Churchill's six volumes on the 2nd World War. He was there when many decisions were made, he made many decisions himself. With anything Churchill wrote and with anything anyone else wrote there's a need to be aware and sensitive in choosing what to use in writing about the war but to claim that secondary sources on war-cabinet-level decisions, actions, discussions, and conflicts are superior to Churchill's own writings seems absurd. Granted, Churchill may often or always have a personal agenda, but there is no proof that writers of secondary material do not also have agendas. Nor is having an agenda inimical to the truth.

In some ways this entire discussion is reminiscent of a comic sketch in which one person says something and another immediately claims that what the first person meant to say was something else. Here the primary source speaks (or writes) and a multitude of Wiki editors scurries around looking for someone, anyone, who removes all that nasty "primary" character from the statement (or writing) and turns it into good, solid, secondary material - necessarily altering it in character to get rid of the stain of primariness. (There's a possible religious example to be used here, too: a religious leader or prophet says something, hoards of later proponents of the religion based on that prophet's words expound a hugely different and distorted message. But they're secondary, so by the attitude so often exposed here they're correct and the original great figure was misguided - or something.) There's good and bad primary material, good and bad secondary material. Use the good, don't use the bad. Be willing to have someone else show why what seems good may not be, be willing to correct that someone if that someone is in error, be willing to work to resolve the issue if it's not all that clear (and in the case where it's not all that clear nothing other than useless simplicity is served by relying on some strict but unrealistic rule.) --Minasbeede 03:52, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Total in agreement, to my mind. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stefanomencarelli (talk • contribs) 19:10, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe another religious example (thanks for reminding me of it) is this. My dad majored in dead and ancient languages when he went to seminary, so that he could read all of the original biblical texts in their native language instead of through somebody elses interpretation of them. One example he always used was the 6th Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill". According to my dad, in the original language (Hebrew I think), it actually tranlates closer to "Thou shalt not commit murder". So, the translation itself was flawed, by using the most common verbiage of the time, while the actual word more accurately translates into a different meaning. While murder is killing, killing is different than murder in that killing does neccessarily involve premeditation or forthought, hence a completely different meaning and context. So in this case, the secondary source is almost always cited as being correct, when in fact it is incorrect and replied solely on original research, while the primary source (the original scrolls in their native language) by Wikipedia standards, can't (or rarely, should) be used. wbfergus 17:34, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Right, that's i also try to explain. No dogma can solve this issues, nor burocracy can do it as well. But it happears to be a dialogue between deafs.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Stefanomencarelli (talk • contribs) 19:10, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

There is a mountain of reliable modern secondary sources available for the meaning of Biblical phrases and words, including such discussions in context of cultural period, etc. If current sources do not document the claim, it's quite likely a fringe or extreme minority claim, if not purely novel. Also, Bible translations are not a secondary source. A translation of a primary source is still a primary source. Vassyana 23:55, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Correct, and the modern Hebrew language (which hasn't changed that much from the ancient Hebrew), translate the key symbols or word on the scroll as "to kill, murder or slay". The problem with translations is (especially with ancient translations) that along with literally translating the words or symbols, the resulting translation must also take into account common usage and context, making most translations "interpretations" or secondary sources. This is something that wasn't done hundreds of years ago during original transcriptions of the Bible, which is why King James allowed a new version to be re-translated, though some of their "guidelines" still specified various occasions to not translate correctly, like keeping "church" instead of correctly translating it as "congregation". Again, this is an incorrect (and acknowledged) translation, showing how the orinal source is incorrectly "interpreted", but the resulting incorrect translation can be the one perpetuated down through the years, as it is more common in daily use. There are also numerous examples of updates from the King James or older versions to more common modern language, so the inaccuaricies get perpetuated once again, possibly giving even more of a different meaning to various phrases or words from the original source. Sometimes during the translations of ancient documents, the original language used words that have no counterpart in modern languages, and various translators over the years struggle (and argue) with which word or group of words, would most accuratelt convey the same meaning, again lending the resulting translation to "interpretation and synthesis", both of which move something such as this from the "primary source" into the "secondary source" category. Also, if as you claim, even the (incorrect) translations of the Bible are considered "primary sources", then by the arguments of some on here, there should never be any quotations from the Bible on Wikipedia, as they come from a primary source. wbfergus 12:35, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a gross misunderstanding of what the policy prohibits. The policy certainly doesn't say the primary sources should never be used. It states that relying on primary sources should be rare and done with great caution. (Whether or not it creates a de facto prohibition due to the general interpretation of the policy is another question, and a possibility I'm willing to accept.) Additionally, on a ridiculously well-covered topic like the Bible and accompanying religions, it's quite sufficient to limit the citation of the Bible to what reliable references say about it. Certainly, in the case of the Bible, it's incredibly rare that you would be able to cite a Bible verse independently of a secondary source without explicitly engaging in original research. Far and away, the vast majority of cases where people want to cite Bible verses, it is to support a particular interpretation of Christianity, Jesus, the Bible or the verses themselves. It's a wonderful example of why primary sources came to be discouraged, in relation to original research. Vassyana 23:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Sources proposal

I have worked on a draft fleshing out the idea of what we're trying to address in this policy. There is a variety of sometimes conflicting definitions for primary, secondary and tertiary sources. Our concern should be what sources articles should rely upon, and which sources should be used with caution. This line of thought was spurred by BirgitteSB's comments about such a distinction.[20] I've taken some time to read over the talk page archives here and review what everyone has been saying, to try and take many of the opinions expressed into account. I think I have encapsulated the intent in a more direct fashion, with less confusion between primary, secondary and tertiary sources. I also believe the proposal draft better addresses the circumstances that are most appropriate for the use of historical, primary and similar sources, at least from what people have seemed to express. The draft proposal is intended to replace WP:NOR#Sources. Please take a look over the draft and express your opinion. Please tell me if this approach is workable, in your view, and why or why not. If it is workable, but the draft is flawed (as drafts tend to be), please share your criticism and concerns. I figured it was a thought worth fleshing out and discussing. Vassyana 16:41, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it is too biased against primary sources. I do like the concept of "auxiliary" sources, but to me that would be for something like a blog which you wouldn't solely rely on, but might link to for informational purposes. Squidfryerchef 04:06, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Why is it too biased against primary sources? What specific problems do you think it would run into? Vassyana 10:26, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Again, to cite the aviation example, it would prohibit basing an article on manufacturer data on an aircraft, such as gross weight, size, range, etc. which are critical to understanding these types of subjects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dhaluza (talk • contribs) 12:36, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think this kind of concern is already addressed. I worked on language specifically to acknowledge such exceptions. (from the draft) "Some of these sources may be particularly reliable and helpful in presenting a complete encyclopedic article, such as census data. Some auxiliary references may also be useful for providing supporting facts, figures or limited quotations to accompany claims and analysis from reliable secondary sources." Does that address your concerns? If not, what needs to be added/changed to address those concerns? Vassyana 18:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

On the whole, I like your draft a lot better than the current policy page. It is more concise and contains far better explanations and examples. However one point I saw on my quick "look-over" is the last section on auxillary sources, with the sentence "Article claims that rely on an auxiliary source should (1) only report what the source states, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and (2) make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims". It's probably the very rare occasion, but I think that there would be times when something like an eyewitness claim could enhance an article with an explanation that is missing in other published or secondary sources, since those are usually "space limited" (especially articles), and the additional explanation may not have been worthy enough to keep in the article with the wealth of information on that subject and space restrictions. I do agree that these "additions" should somehow be appropriately referenced, perhaps with a special "reference template" (for lack of a better term) that helps distinguish these rare occasions from the more acceptable secondary sources, but not to inhibit (or prohibit) them in their entirety. I think that the draft should elaborate a tad more on this so that some people don't read it literally as "the law", but instead will understand that it should be taken figuratively and that there are exceptions to every rule. I guess, maybe something as well that these are general guidelines for most articles, and that exceptions can and do occur. I doubt if this could be "categorized" into something along the lines of "these types of articles (science, physics, etc.) should never use auxillary sources, but these types of articles (modern history, current events, etc.) may use auxillary sources on rare occasions when a further explanation only available from the auxillary source would further enhance the article without adding conclusions or other inferences". Just my opion on one point, I'll have to re-read the entire several times and think a bit more on it. Thanks for the effort so far though, it's very good. wbfergus 13:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

"Using auxiliary sources" specifically refers to WP:IAR, WP:COMMONSENSE and WP:CONSENSUS in an attempt to emphasize there are exceptions. Is there something I could do to help make that more clear? Vassyana 18:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

(Why is it too biased against primary sources?) It implies that primary sources can only be used in very, very limited circumstances. In certain types of articles, such as the aforementioned example of aircraft, the primary sources usually have the best information, and you might have only one secondary source to establish notability. I'm of the opinion that, once notability is established, an article should cite as many primary sources as can be found, and we should encourage that. Squidfryerchef 17:10, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

This should not be a rule with exceptions, it should not be a rule at all. As has been discussed ad-nauseum above, there is no consensus for limiting the use of primary vs. secondary sources. All sources can be misused regardless of arbitrary classifications. Singling out a particular type of source is just inviting a crusade against articles using these types of sources by a misguided cabal of editors with an authoritarian personality preclusion. This is why we make policy descriptive, rather than prescriptive. To "make it more clear", address the real issue with OR, rather than trying to promulgate simplistic prescriptive guidelines that fit most but not all cases. The real issue with OR is editors confusing and conflating articles and sources by trying to make WP a source of new published information, rather than a repository of information already published in WP:RS, regardless of whether those sources can be classified as primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary or what-have-you, including auxiliary. Dhaluza 21:33, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

See my comments above. Generally speaking, a single secondary source is not enough to establish notability. Also, as emphasized in the draft, this is specifically focusing on concerns related to original research. The current policy version is more restrictive on primary sources and arose from the tendency of primary sources to be abused for original research. I do not think a policy that's wildly permissive, and especially encouraging, of primary sources is at all in the interests of the project, which focuses on reflecting current knowledge. Permitting a heavy reliance on primary sources is contrary to that focus and an invitation to a wide variety of content abuse, notably including original research. Most people who object to the current formulation are concerned that the policy will prohibit people from using primary sources in some select circumstances. I tried incorporating that (apparently) consensus concern. Two such "exceptions" that seem to be brought up frequently (which I took into account in the draft) are using particularly reliable data, such as aviation figures and census reports, and using primary sources to complement/illustrate secondary sources. Additionally, it explicitly encourages people to employ WP:IAR, WP:COMMONSENSE and WP:CONSENSUS to identify specific exceptions. Vassyana 18:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

If by "generally speaking" you mean in most cases, then yes, multiple secondary sources are usually used to establish notability. However there are many articles where one or no secondary sources are cited, needed, or even available. To take something that is mostly true and make it a requirement is not only unnecessary, it is contrary to the whole idea of what a policy on WP is supposed to be. Regardless of how sound an argument may seem, or how convincing a case you may make, WP policy is supposed to represent actual good practice, not what people wish good practice would be. To some extent WP:NOR is an exception as a core policy, as it expresses a basic tenant that all articles must meet. But taking this and shaping the definition of OR so narrowly that it only allows secondary sourcing except in the most extreme cases would create a bias against producing good articles in a host of subject areas where hard facts are more important than opinion. Dhaluza 21:17, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

If there are no reliable secondary sources available, it is impossible to make an encyclopedic article without original research and therefore is an inappropriate topic for Wikipedia. I have yet to hear any convincing case where primary sources are needed, only convenient. Even census statistics, aviation data and the other examples the draft would explicitly permit are not needed since there are copious secondary sources that include such information. However, it is good practice (and convenient) to source the figures directly. The proposal is nowhere near as restrictive as you'd try to make it sound. The draft explicitly allows auxiliary sources, including primary sources, to be used in a broader context than the current formulation would allow or imply, in line with "actual" good practice and a review of this talk page's archives. I'd also direct you towards some of BirgetteSB's insightful and eloquent comments, which may help further clarify the issue.[21][22]][23] Vassyana 23:03, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

(Answering points raised since) A single secondary source can be enough to establish notability. Secondary sources aren't required for articles that are inherently notable, such as many geographic topics. It is very easy to use primary sources without slipping into OR. I don't understand where all this is coming from. We're not here to rewrite WP:RS. Squidfryerchef 23:18, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Nothing I've said here is contradictory to WP:RS or WP:V#Sources (on the contrary, I think the proposal would bring the policies into better harmony), so I'm not sure why you get the impression we're revisiting reliable sources. Regardless, it's nearly impossible to build an encyclopedic article based entirely on primary sources without liberally engaging in original research. We absolute need secondary (including tertiary) sources to provide the context, analysis and interpretation of those source necessary, so a proper article can be built. Otherwise, the article either violates this policy or it's just a collection of facts. Either way, sole reliance on primary sources in highly inappropriate. Vassyana 23:31, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOR is stupid

it's been thrown around in both afd's for streisand effect and i'm tired of it. WP:NOR is stupid. the examples provided in that article are examples of the streisand effect and you don't need to cite an article that mentions the words "streisand effect" to see that - what you need is common sense. all you should need for any article is common sense. for that reason, this page should be redirected to WP:UCS and people should not nominate streisand effect for deletion every 2 months. 209.209.214.5 05:35, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

No, the NOR policy concept is sound, but some editors engage in a corollary of NOR by going beyond the policy consensus, and labeling things OR that most reasonable editors would not. Specifically they take "No original research" literally, forgetting that "original research" is a defined term on WP and cut it down to "no research". The article you cite is an excellent example, because it has survived two AfD's with a strong consensus for keep each time, so we have a fairly reliable indicator of the community consensus. Despite this, a small minority of editors object to the content because they think it's OR, even though the content is sourced. The objection seems to be related to an extreme interpretation of OR which holds that grouping things that are synonymous is OR if the references do not use the exact same terminology. But that is not OR, it is making an obvious conclusion that should be apparent to any educated person, which is specifically allowed. So the policy is not stupid, but that does not mean that stupid people can't use it stupidly. Dhaluza 13:03, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I would tend to agree. Some concepts are clearly grouped as a single subject, but have widely varying terminology. Talk:Dharmic religion is having a discussion about such a subject currently. The best way to head off such problems, I tend to think, is a well sourced section describing the problem. Taoic religion#Terminology is a decent example. (Of course, a dose of common sense doesn't hurt either.) Vassyana 21:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

End-runs around WP:NPOV?

I find that many religious articles are hopelessly biased. It is quite common for works which present and defend one theology to characterize certain opponents as "false prophets," "heresiarchs," "heretics," etc. but it is quite inappropriate for Wikipedia to do the same thing (recognizing that what is biased as the "voice of Wikipedia" may be unbiased as the "voice of x tradition," so attribution can avoid bias).

I have encountered two arguments which I see as efforts, deliberate or not, to use WP:NOR in an end-run around WP:NPOV; the most common simply adds citations and removes the neutrality disputed tag as though it were a citation needed tag; another argues that secondary sources much state the person was NOT an X to remove the description as X. Jacob Haller 18:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Strongly POV statements like "false prophets" need to be explicitly associated with a specific source/author. However, they should not be excluded. NPOV is not about presenting an objectively "neutral" article per se, but rather about reporting all relevant POVs. If the reference is a fringe work or representative of an extreme minority, the reference is not suited for Wikipedia in most cases. In a contradiction between sources, the article should present both views, without an attempt to reconcile the sources (unless a third reference happens to do so). Also, recalling examples you raised before, remember that people are not permitted to take a dictionary definition and employ an analysis/synthesis to say "the dictionary says X is Y, since Z is not X, Z is not Y". Such tactics have a number of flaws. If a historical figure is being discussed, does that word still have the same connotations and meanings? Does the dictionary encompass all legitimate applications and meanings of the word? Questions like that are best left to reliable third-party sources, or else original research is nearly unavoidable. Vassyana 18:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, if they are calling one side "heretical" then they are taking sides - they are not third-party sources in that sense. It doesn't mean they aren't useful sources. I've used quite a few of them myself, it's just that people need to follow both NOR and NPOV. I'm also not averse to write-hangon-fix. I've written stuff with fact tags in the original text to cite, and possibly correct, it later. Jacob Haller 20:15, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Lists of People?

Not long ago the Auxentius article was utterly screwed up. There were two fourth-century Auxentii in question (plus various other Auxentii), both of whom were "Arian" bishops of Milan. One source used Auxentius to refer to the earlier and Junior Auxentius to refer to the later bishop, but most other sources did not, and editors, including myself, unfamiliar with the arrangement included information on both Auxentii in the same article. I separated out the info and turned Auxentius into a disambiguation page.

This convinced me we needed some lists to keep track of the participants (and events) in the Arian controversy. (I started with the "Arian" ones on the Arianism page but later moved them onto the new page and started adding "Orthodox" ones as well) (note that both terms are imprecise in this context as well as slightly POV).

The problem, however, was that the secondary sources I had immediately available had very short, selective lists. The earlier Auxentius (of Milan) was mainly relevant to western Church history, and the later Auxentius (of Durostorum and Milan) was mainly relevant to Gothic history (being Ulfilas' adopted son, and the author of a short bio of his father), so that many sources referred to one without referencing the other.

I decided to use the older church histories, starting with Philostorgius and Socrates Scholasticus, to build the lists. I am nowhere near done with this, and plan to get back to this project at some point. All these are partisan and, in most senses, primary sources. I think that this is useful, in that it can help detect and avoid screw-ups like the one with the two Auxentii, and it is source-based research, but I'm not sure how to do this without violating WP:NOR. Also, the article is lopsided and list-heavy, but that can be fixed by working on the rest of the stuff.

So what are, or should be, the appropriate practices for creating such lists? Jacob Haller 20:45, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

This is an incredibly broadly discussed topic in reliable secondary sources. If the sources you have available provide short and partisan lists, invite other editors to help find better references or hit up a library. The older church histories are not suitable sources, as since you mention they are both partisan and primary (as well as historical). We need to rely on modern third party sources to interpret and analyze such sources for us. Vassyana 21:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, the primary sources provide the raw data; the secondary sources can provide basic categories, chronology, etc., if we wish to divide them by faction or order them by time. In this case the primary sources include names, often cities or regions, who they taught or followed, etc. If one of the sources states that "Basil supported the homoiousios" and "Basil proceeded to depose the opponents of the homoiousios," it doesn't take much interpretation to move Basil from an "unclassified" list to a "factional" list, unless another source contradicts this. If there is ambiguity or uncertainty, it can be noted in the entry in the list.

Further, this was not just an issue with the secondary sources I had available, this was an issue with the secondary sources others were using too, or someone would have caught the problem with the two Auxentii long before.

I'm perfectly happy to use secondary sources in areas which involve synthesis and/or interpretation (as in defining factions), or where the primary sources get messy (as in tracking time), but it seems excessive to use them for simple facts. Jacob Haller 21:36, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

But such attributions are not just "simple facts". Were other opponents inappropriate labeled in those lists? Were neutral parties punished for their neutrality by being lumped in with the "opposition"? These and related questions are ones that can only be answered by reliable secondary sources. It would even be sufficient if reliable references supporting the accuracy of the lists were cited. "Simple facts" are rarely so simple, especially when dealing with biased and historical sources. Vassyana 22:36, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I was quite concerned with these possibilities, as well as the possibility that partisan sources might list prestigious neutral or non-aligned individuals among their own supporters. I started with primary sources from two opposing sides, as well as an unclassified section, to minimize this problem. I could double-check some entries against secondary sources as well.

One possibility is to introduce labels (see Amory's People and Identify in Ostrogothic Italy, if it is available; he uses an approach for very different issues) which indicate what justifies their inclusion in this list, and what might justify their inclusion in another list. In this case, one label for the generally-acknowledged leaders or founders of one faction (requiring secondary sources), one for those who taught these people; one for those who were taught by these people, one for those who were ordained by these people, one for those who hold such-and-such doctrines, using unambiguous formulae, in their own works, another for quoted fragments of their own works, one for those who subscribed to such-and-such in a synod, one for those who were deposed for holding such-and-such views - a much weaker case than the above - and so on.

All things considered, secondary sources might work better for this encyclopedia than extensive tags for different reasons. I'll need to think about this some more. Jacob Haller 23:00, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The actual use of the primary sources agrees with most of the last several policies and commentaries: I use them to source specific facts ("anyone —without specialist knowledge— who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source.") The only issue is that the lists don't rely on secondary sources, because the lists have no reason to, though other parts of the article, including list headers, do. Jacob Haller 23:00, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, that was my earlier edit before the above one. That's still my goal. I'm planning to use more secondary sources, and double-check things too. Jacob Haller 23:00, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I would recommend explicitly attributing the source in most such usages of primary sources. It helps avoid the pitfall of implicitly (or even explicitly) endorsing the source as accurate and reliable (which a secondary source should do). Just a thought. Vassyana 23:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)