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

message: Do we have a plan about what we are doing?  I know I haven't been active in the discussions, recently -- but I care very much about the work being done here.  I happen to think the opening section is now very, very good.  What are our priorities now, for finishing this?
I have a set of questions about the state of the discussion here, because sooner or latter (I think sooner) we should try to make this the new version.
(1) As SlimVirgin remarks, we have removed the stuff on "tertiary" sources.  That term is used in the current active policy.  Should we include something on tertiary in the opening?  What should we say?
:I would just as soon we didn't mention tertiary, only because primary and secondary cause a degree of confusion already; but if you can think of a very clear way of describing it, I'd have no problem with that. SlimVirgin 03:02, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
(2) I have a reservation about this:
:Statements not known to have been published elsewhere may be acceptable if they are not disputed. But if your edit is challenged, you must provide a reputable reference or delete the edit.
I think it opens up a can of worms.  I think we should dump the first sentence and keep the second.  People may still use unpublished things, but I don't want to put ideas in their heads, especially when the opening section is so clear.
:I agree. SlimVirgin 03:02, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
(2) I have a reservation about this:
:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is not journalism. Wikipedia articles are not news reports, personal journals or weblogs. Wikipedia is not here to provide writers with a platform for their ideas.
I agree with it, but we do have a space for current affairs.  I think we need to explain something about how that space works, so as not to confuse people.   I also think a major problem here is some people who like to write personal essays, so maybe the stuff on no "personal journals, weblogs" etc. could be expanded.
:The current affairs space is only allowed (as I understand it) to report on news reports. Editors there are not allowed to report the news themselves: as in, the president gets shot right next to my computer, and I type a description of the assassination straight into Wikipedia - not allowed, because it's original research, so the same rules apply. SlimVirgin 03:02, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
I just think we should make this clearer in the draft.  Do you have any ideas?  I think you know more about journalism than I do and could come up with a clearer explanation of our policy. Slrubenstein 17:14, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the section on verifiability because it goes to the heart of original research. Lots of editors understand "no original research" to mean that they're not supposed to submit one of their undergraduate essays or some such. But they don't get that they're not allowed to insert something just because they personally know it to be true. This came up a lot with the videos of the hostages who were beheaded. Several editors had watched the videos and wanted to say X and Y about them, even though these opinions had not been expressed anywhere in the mainstream press; but they couldn't understand why they weren't allowed to describe something they had actually watched. Same with the example I gave above. President gets shot and slumps into my personal lap: I'm still not allowed to mention it on Wikipedia until it hits the wires. So I feel this verifiability versus truth issue is an important epistemological distinction, and I don't believe the verifiability page mentions it, though Jimbo Wales has stressed it several times. This also came up frequently with the LaRouche editors: they kept writing "LaRouche supporters believe X, Y and Z", and they knew what they were talking about because they were referring to themselves, and therefore couldn't understand why I kept deleting and asking for a reference. If you feel we can improve the verifiability page, then by all means shorten the references to it on this one, but please not too short, because this may be the only page people read, and remember: this page is policy, but the verifiability page isn't. SlimVirgin 03:02, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
As you know, I agree completely that verifiability is important.  My point was purely structural.  Well, we just have to agree to disagree.  I would like to know what others think about this. And there is one thing I'd ask you to think about: are you saying that "verifiability" should not have its own page (that the concept is entirely subordinate to "no original research?"  If this is not what you are saying, I encourage you to say more about what must be on this page, versus what must be on another policy page. Slrubenstein 17:14, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  how things stand 

message: Should the following from capitalism be deleted according to the new guidelines? 
:Opponents of capitalism counter this by pointing out the unchanged after-tax income of the poorest quintile of the US population during the last two decades.  While at the same time the average income and especially the income of the US rich have increased. . Supporters of capitalism point out that the percentage of people in developing countries living below $1 per day have halved in only twenty years, especially in countries like China that has embraced capitalism .
Should it be deleted as "generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation" of "primary" sources? Ultramarine 17:00, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Huh?  Don't the links serve as sources/citations?  How is this original research? Or are you saying the sources are disreputable, invalid, or inappropriately used?  Slrubenstein 17:51, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is interpretation and generalization to say that the income data for the US is evidence against capitalism in general.
You are misreading the very passage you quote.  It does not say that income data is evidence against capitalism.  It says that some people believe that income data is evidence against capitalism.  This is actually a completely different claim.  It is not a claim about capitalism, it is a claim about a group of people. Slrubenstein 18:12, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: But the problem is much bigger than this. Every text in Wikipedia that is not a direct quote is an interpretation of another text. Even a summary is an interpretation of the original text. Ultramarine 18:04, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: What is the definition for interpretation, synthesis, analysis and generalziation in this policy? When is a change of an original text an interpretation and when is it not?Ultramarine 18:19, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Primary vs Secondary sources

message: I think that photos, which are intended to make a specific point, should not be uploaded to Wikipedia unless they have been previously published by a disinterested, reputable 3rd party.
Flikr.com, weblogs, partisan political web sites (dailykos, freerepublic, etc) and such are not acceptable, but commercial news organizations and commericial publishers and to a lesser extent, non-profits would be ok. There is simply too much opportunity out there to stage photos, for example:
Supporters of Candidate A take Candidate B's signs and make a big mess in a parking lot with them and leave also a lot of trash like water bottles and sandwich wrappers.... the Wiki caption for this reads, "trash left behind after local rally for B". 
Clearly it's a staged photo intended to make a point. If the control parameter of "intended to make a point" is not enforced, the excuse regarding the above scenario would be "I found the trash & signs in the parking lot and merely snapped the photo". Such assertions could not be disproved, opening a pandora's box of scheming opporunities.
Rex071404  216.153.214.94   06:27, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  NOR policy update needed