Wikipedia talk:No original research/Archive 9

message: - General issue:
I'm a bit puzzled by what that section is doing on the WP:NOR page - I'd say it's mostly about the subject of WP:NPOV, and it even doesn't have a direct bearing on WP:NOR. I think that something must be done about it, but I don't know what. Suggestions are welcome!
- Particular issue: In one article referral is made to a journal called "AAPPS Bulletin".
It's available on the web http://www.aapps.org/ , thus it's certainly verifiable; and its editor suggests to be well-known in Asia. However, I could not find it catalogued or referenced in Web of Science, nor in Scopus. Thus I fear that it's so unknown that isn't even not reputable. What to do with references to it? Harald88 22:13, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like a substantial website.  Certainly it is attributable, it boasts have subsiderary memberships. Terryeo 04:58, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Exactly: that makes it certainly NOR. However, as I pointed out first, this particular section is not really about NOR, but about reputability. Can a journal that apparently can't be found in any journals database be claimed to be reputable? Harald88 19:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, it says "AAPPS Bulletin" not "AAPPS Journal". You're looking for journals in all the wrong places... FeloniousMonk 20:42, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reputable publications -> NPOV 

message: If anyone still doubts the wisdom of requiring reliable sources, consider the problems that Wired magazine is currently having with its freelancers manufacturing quotes and information  , not to mention all the other recent scandals in both print and television. If professionally edited publications are having to tighten their own practices, the world's largest freelance-edited encyclopedia's policy on sourcing looks positively progressive and ultra-responsible. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 09:05, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Were Wikipedia to require editors to register, as opposed to any anon editor from any IP address, anywhere, anytime; our articles would have less vandalism and we editors' efforts would be better spent. Terryeo 18:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  We're not disabling anonymous editing. This comes up every week at the Village Pump. Deco 22:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  You don't have to disable anonymous editing, but vandalism is a problem.  For pages with heavy traffic, it's an annoyance, but it doesn't compromise the integrity of Wikipedia, because the edits are reverted quickly.  However, for pages that are infrequently trafficked, vandalism can sit on the page for months before someone removes it.  For those pages, you shouldn't disable anonmyous editing, but you should subject it to some sort of concensus voting.  Even requiring just one additional user to "ratify" an edit would cut down on a big chunk of drive-by vandalism.  Michael (talk) 19:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Except for the fact that someone could create two accounts, and use one to 'ratify' the other's edits. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 23:02, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Both funny and true. lol. Terryeo 23:42, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More reasons for sourcing 

message: Not sure why the warning against trolling is on this page. I don't see any sign of it, nor any indication that this page is more subject to trolling than any other discussion page. Am I missing some history here?
Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 20:59, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's been some in the past. Mostly archived now. The issue is that NOR was created partly to prevent trolls and cranks from posting original theories on WP; when they do, it is removed and NOR is cited. They come here and attempt to argue the problem is with the policy and not with them. Deco 22:46, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It seems to be a popular and common motivation to sprinkly discussion pages with warnings, constraints and other such triva.  Any editor can do it and many editors seem to like doing it.  I, for one, don't think they are worthy of discussion space since every discussion space falls under exactly all of and every policy and guideline.  Such warnings are drivel, distracting to the allocated discussion space and useless. Terryeo 14:12, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Why don't you call a spade a spade, and say 'crackpot theories'? There is nothing wrong with originality, but there is something wrong with misleading people. --Etaonsh 08:36, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I think it would be a good idea to leave it. The latest round wasn't that long ago. SlimVirgin (talk) 11:19, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  These templates probably mean a great deal to the people who place them.  But to the people who are doing the trolling, they mean nothing at all.  The template didn't cool the hot discussion that went on and on and on.  Terryeo 07:40, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The templates are not aimed at the trolls, they are intended to remind contributors to be careful about feeding trolls, i.e., that the best way to deals with trolls is to ignore them. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 12:28, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Indeed... Michael 02:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trolling 

message: Emerging from the discussion 'The true meaning of Original Research'.
Problem: There are types of contribution which are permitted under the NOR policy but which would be categorised as 'original research' in certain contexts outside Wikipedia. This is confusing to some users.
Discussion: See 'The true meaning of Original Research' discussion. Some concerns about NOR appear to come from misunderstandings of the policy. Within Wikipedia, "no original research" should be understood as set out on WP:NOR and not with reference to other usages of the phrase. In particular, the act of collation of published material, without any novel analysis, would be regarded as 'original research' in some contexts. An example would be the compilation of a catalogue of manuscripts on a particular topic, collated from the published catalogues of multiple archives. Novel collations are an important aspect of Wikipedia activity and are not inappropriate provided they include only factual and analytical information already available in reputable published sources. 
Proposed solution: 
To be added either to the 'Expert Editors' section or elsewhere as desired:
'Note that the Wikipedia definition of original research is specific to Wikipedia and may differ from usages of the phrase in other contexts. Wikipedia articles may, and sometimes must, bring together information which is not collated elsewhere. Provided that all analytical as well as all factual statements made could, if requested, be referenced to reputable published sources, a contribution meets the criterion of "no original research".' Happydemic 17:12, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good to me, I know it confused me when I first started here coming from a Master's Degree in Heritage Preservation as it meant something different to me before I got here. plange 17:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... --Etaonsh 19:09, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Sure. It's jargon, that deserves clarification. Deco 19:10, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks fairly good, but as a historian who works on historical articles, I'd like a somewhat stronger sense that the information is not selected or brought together in such a way as to present a novel narrative or interpretation, as mentioned in Delirium's discussion with Jimbo. --SteveMcCluskey 01:33, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Utopian, that. --Etaonsh 02:07, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

text: In order not to bite the newcomers, I would say rather that while anyone can make suggestions on anything, or edit anything, this article makes up one of the core policies of wikipedia, and therefore will likely take a lot of wikipedia experience to really understand.  (and, his suggestion did not seem unreasonable to me) --Xyzzyplugh 23:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just because someone's new doesn't mean they don't have something valuable to add. On the contrary, sometimes new people are still able to see the forest while we're all mired down in the trees. They can have a fresh take on things and be able to see how policies are actually presented without all the "baggage" of knowing what it really means. Does that make sense? plange 02:11, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. Something I said myself the previous day in the field of Irish spelling[]. --Etaonsh 08:23, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal: State that "no original research" has a specific meaning on Wikipedia 

message: I don't buy into the claim that the last act of a democratic system is to vote out democracy. I equally don't buy into the claim that the last act of a consensus system is to refute consensus. Wording removed. 
See also: Wikipedia:Verifiability.
In addition, no original research has been negotiated and eventually discarded in the case of wikinews, another wikimedia project. Stating that this guideline would be non-negotiable is therefore empirically false, and extremely misleading.
Kim Bruning 12:43, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:V just applies to Wikipedia as far as I know, so that last bit is not relevent. Anyway since when is Wikipedia a democratic system? It specifically isn't. We operate on consensus for the most part... but sometimes consensus is wrong. If there were a consensus to put unsourced libel into an article, would we have no choice but to go ahead and do it? Consensus is not a suicide pact. --W.marsh 14:08, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Consensus is not a suicide pact, but neither should we walk all over it. It's a very bad day when people trod on consensus. Kim Bruning 15:36, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

text:  Huh? Kim Bruning 15:36, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

text: And I am in complete agreement with Jimbo. My problem is only with the specific way it's been worded, which precludes future maintenance... That might be just a bit of a problem if we want to keep the wiki around for over 100 years (which I do) ;-)  See also: Wikipedia talk:Verifiability, for discussion about the phrasing there. Kim Bruning 16:06, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Jim Wales says, in the link, 'we are not qualified to evaluate such things,' surely a direct contradiction of his key earlier assertion that NOR was introduced because of 'physics cranks' []? --Etaonsh 18:35, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see no contradiction. Some physics articles, filled with lots of long words and impressive-looking equations, are true. Others are nonsense. Many Wikipedia editors are incabable of telling the difference, and Wikipedia has no mechanism to distinguish the qualified from the unqualified editors. The solution is to remove the responsibility from WP editors and place it on reputable publishers. --Gerry Ashton 19:20, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So, because some people are capable of seeing that other poor folx just ain't, the one-eyed Jimbo is king? --Etaonsh 20:04, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

text: It used to be that the only non-negotiable policy was WP:NPOV.  Then someone introduced that all three policies are non-negotiable.  Well, I just don't think that is the intent of our founder.  I think that leads to arguements on this page, based on the false assertion that WP:NOR is absolute and non-negotiable. Smarminess results from misunderstandings Terryeo 20:20, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Non negotiable

message: I'm new around here, or at least my account is new. But I've been using Wikipedia anonymously long enough to have learned about some of its policies beforehand. And I had a question about this, one of the holy trinity of Wiki policies. 
Let's say we have John. John decides to make the article List of Fictional Characters with Widow's Peaks. Ignoring the fact that this is flgarant listcruft, on the surface is seems to violate WP:NOR, since I doubt there is a compendium of the sort John has made in any (reputable) source. However, since one of the things the NOR article says is that synthesis in the context of the article is okay, John could simply cite a source for every character in the list which proves said character has a widow's peak. This seems agreeable.
Now we have Scott. Scott has used prior scientific knowledge to craft a grand unified theory. Instead of doing what a sane person would do -- publish the article in a peer-reviewed journal and reap in the mountains of acclaim within the scientific community and without, he instead makes the Wikipedia article Scott's Theory of Everything. Obviously, despite its status as nobel-level science, it cannot be accepted in Wikipedia until an outside source has verified it. But if all John did was synthesize previous verified knowledge and used it in the context of the article, what's wrong with it in the first place? It doesn't seem to be outright original research. Where is the line between synthesis of a secondary source and the creation of a primary one? And how much does WP:Verifiability weigh into situations such as these? Thank you for your time. --The Sultan of Surreal. 13:44, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To answer one idiosyncratic posting with another: the only problem I have with 'Scott' arriving at a valid Theory of Everything and democratically posting it here, first, rather than some exclusive scientific journal, is not his claim to have unravelled the underlying theory behind the cosmos, but the suggestion that said theory is somehow his ('Scott's...'). --Etaonsh 17:28, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, well, the title of the article was only to elucidate a point (and for humor), but I am absolutely sure that Scott's GUT would be deleted as per WP:NOR. Should it, though? --The Sultan of Surreal. 19:38, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Line?