Wikipedia talk:No original research

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Before we unprotect the page

We need to resolve certain disputes. Based on the past week's discussion and comments from vaious people, I am singling out two specific disputes, which is more than enough to work on for now. Once we resulve these, people are free to raise other issues which we can work on, one at a time, until we resolve them.

• General Discussion of the Status of Wikipedia Policies is not appropriate here, but rather here
• Opposition to NOR Anyone who is opposed to an NOR policy should develop, perhaps in consultation with like-minded editors (on your own talk pages or subpage), a specific proposal either to abolish the policy or replace it, and create a new proposal page in which you present your proposal and basic rationale, and invite discussion. You can do so by providing a link to your proposal page here, on the talk pages for NPOV and V, and at the administrator's bulletin board, and other places as well.
• The quality of sources please discuss this at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources, not here. As that guideline changes, we can discuss its impact on V and NOR on their respective talk pages.
• Other issues with the current text of this policy Please "Watchlist" this page, be patient, and introduce new issues to this page after we have resolved the current conflict.

Should the NOR policy distinguish between primary and secondary sources?

I have now slept on it and feel even more strongly than before that the NOR policy must make a distinction between primary and secondary sources. I think Slim Virgin is right (and I do not always agree with her and long questioned her on this). NOR needs to explain what "original research" is, and what it isn't and I do not think there is any way to do this without discussing primary and secondary sources.

Some people do not understand the distinction or think it opens up a can of worms but I now believe that is because they think too literally. What I mean is, some people think that things are what they are. I do not mean to go into a long philosophical debate but Wittgenstien and Pierce and Dewey - generally acknowledged to be among the most important philosophers ever in the US and Europe - argued that the meaning of things including words depended on how they are used. To a large degree, what makes something a primary or secondary source is, how it is used. Primary sources can be used to establish facts without violating NOR, but they cannot be used to make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, or explanatory or evaluative claims without violating NOR. Secondary sources by contrast are the only sources we can use to make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims (as long as they are the claims explicitly made by the source itself).

We can, did, and I think still should provide examples of primary and secondary sources, but they are just examples. The essence is in how they can or cannot be used.

This by the way means it is conceivable for a text to be either a primary or secondary source - depending on how it is used. Let's take On the Origin of Species for example. In it Darwin makes all sorts of analytic, synthetic, and explanatory claims about natural history. As a document concerning natural history, it is a secondary source. But in it he also expresses his own beliefs and judgements. As a document about Darwin, it is a primary source. In the article on Evolution we can use it freely as a secondary source. In the article on Charles Darwin it is a primary source and while we can use it for facts, if we want to mke arguments about what Darwin was like or what he meant, we should draw on appropriate secondary sources by historians of science, intellectual historians, and biographers of Darwin. I do not see this as a can of worms. I just see this as a more sophisticated way of thinking that understand things in terms of the ways they are used, and understands that appropriate uses depend on the context. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:43, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I think distinguishing between the three main classification of sources is useful, but I also wonder about how they are included on the main NOR "Policy" page. It is nice and very useful to have them wiki-linked to the appropriate page with the full-blown description, but I question the "nutshell" approach to the descriptions on the "Policy" page. I looked over the "nutshell" on the "policy" page and the full-blown linked articles, and there are differences, though at this point in time they are minor. If those linked pages ever changed, even just a little bit more, there could be enough of a difference between the "official" definition and the "nutshell" definition on the "Policy" page, that it seems that someone could easily claim the "nutshell" definition was itself "original research", making an inference that wasn't present in the "definition" page. wbfergus 12:25, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

This is one of the reasons that a few of us felt that it might be useful to have a seperate, possibly "policy", classification of sources in project-space. For the purposes of official policy and guidelines, stable definitions that are consistent across disciplines is more useful than a reference to the general definitions that are either restricted in application or change meaning unpredictably across different domains. I would suggest further development and adoption of that page, and then referring to that from guidelines and policies (including NOR). SamBC(talk) 12:33, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Folks, for some this is a very contentious issue. I think we first need to resolve the basic question of whether the policy must or should make this distinction first. Then discuss editorial issues. Sambc, if you want to, creat a policy proposal page and invite discussion of your idea there. But here, the question is simple: should NOR distinguish between primary and seconday sources? That's all! Slrubenstein | Talk 12:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

To a certain extent, people seem to react differently to "whether the policy … make this distinction" depending on what the distinction is. I would say that yes, it should me the distinction, purely because avoiding original research is best helped by different strategies in each case. However, the definition needs to be appropriate and stable, wikipedia-specific but based on real-world definitions. Is that acceptable supplementary material in this discussion, or is that still being too specific? SamBC(talk) 12:52, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Should the NOR policy explicitly encourage or privilege the use of secondary sources?

I would say, not exactly. It should give advice on the appropriate use of primary vs secondary sources, as primary sources are much more likely to lead to inadvertent synthesis, but can be used without it being OR. SamBC(talk) 12:34, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

"I" think the policy should be modified very slightly , so that the word "should" is italicized (since the entire sentence is already in bold), to help distinguish the emphasis. I don't see the wording anywhere (perhaps I missed it?) that articles "must" rely on secondary sources, nor do I think it should. To me, making any more of distinction of endorsement would seem to contradict the definition. This policy should clearly describe "Original Research", and only that, without branching out into endorsements of one type of "source" over another, or possibly creating new definitions of a "source" that may differ from what it links to. OR can easily be created from all three types of sources, though it may be more likely to originate from primary sources. An article based soley on secondary and/or tertiary sources, unless strictly an entire copy and paste from those sources (is that plagarism?) would be edited somewhat, correctly or incorrectly. During the editing process, condensing the article, or re-arranging the contents to allow the data from multiple sources to co_exist in a coherent flow, etc., the article can easily change the meaning or conclusion from the published source. I've seen this several times on various Military History articles.wbfergus 12:52, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

This makes sense. Would it, in that case, make sense to pare down the policy to a definition of original research and why it's bad, possibly with examples, and link to a new guideline giving advice on how to avoid and/or spot original research? I know this isn't what's being talked about principally, but if it's a plausible solution to the current mess (for want of a better word) then it renders some other elements of discussion relatively moot. SamBC(talk) 12:59, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

First order of business

I think the first order of business would be to stop using the words "primary" and "secondary" in a way different from how they are used outside Wikipedia. Choose/develop a different way to distinguish the usages from the Wikipedia point of view.

(Something about NOR I decided to move to my talk page, where it may languish and die, was here.) Minasbeede 13:32, 31 August 2007 (UTC)