Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard

Welcome to the no original research noticeboard
This page is for requesting input on possible original research. Ask for advice here regarding material that might be original research or original synthesis. Include links to the relevant article(s). Make an attempt to familiarize yourself with the no original research policy before reporting issues here. You can also post here if you are unsure whether the content is considered original research. Sections older than 28 days archived by MiszaBot II. (For help, see Wikipedia:Purge) If you mention specific editors, please notify them. You may use {{subst:NORN-notice}} to do so.
Additional notes: "Original research" includes unpublished facts, arguments, speculation, and ideas; and any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position. Such content is prohibited on Wikipedia. For volunteers wishing to mark a discussion resolved, use {{Resolved|Your reason here ~~~~}} at the top of the section.
To start a new request, enter a name (section header) for your request below:

Constructing a sales chart

What do folks think about the following, which is being proposed at the Felodipine article? It is a chart of annual sales, constructed from the company's annual reports.

  AstraZeneca Revenue for Plendil in millions USD

References

Never seen anyone do this before. Is this OR? Kind of interesting. Thoughts? Jytdog (talk) 00:38, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

How do you find all this amazing stuff!? A chart like that is not suitable for Wikipedia unless a reliable secondary source has produced the chart and analyzed its meaning and significance. Anyone could extract figures to show rising/falling sales or popularity or whatever, and a chart may lead readers to a false impression of the underlying situation. What would be the point of the graph? What it is trying to say? If those questions can be answered in text supported by reliable sources, and if the information is WP:DUE, the text could be considered for inclusion in the article. However, if no suitable answers are available, the graph is not suitable. Johnuniq (talk) 01:32, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

It is not medical content so IMO does not need the same degree of sourcing. I assume this sort of sales graph is similar to what we would find for many brandname products. Totals sales of the compound would be more interesting. When did the generic manufacturers join the picture. Are these global or just US sales? Etc. I also hate graphs that do not start from zero. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:34, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

If they underlying data comes from a reliable source I don't see why formatting it into a graphical would somehow make the data non-suitable for Wikipedia. A graph contains the same information as a table, just in a different layout. Sizeofint (talk) 01:50, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

The figures are worldwide sales by AZ. The question about when generics entered the market is pretty obvious, isn't it? 2003. Besides not showing generic sales, the other thing that is weird here is that the drug started out being marketed by Merck in the US in 1991 and AZ everywhere else, and all the pre-2004 revenue revenue isn't shown here. The chart is kind of useful to show what generic entry does to originator revenue, but that is about it. It doesn't give a complete picture of AZ's revenue nor sales of the drug by anybody, including after generic entry. I would say too arbitrary a dataset, and so falls afoul of OR in that regard. Jytdog (talk) 11:51, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Another business thing

Might as well go back-to-back here.

The question to the community is - is the inclusion of content about biotech in the Silicon Alley article WP:OR?

OK, so the following content is in the Silicon Alley article:

The biotechnology sector is also growing in Silicon Alley, based upon the region's strength in academic scientific research and public and commercial financial support. On December 19, 2011, then Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced his choice of Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to build a US$2 billion graduate school of applied sciences on Roosevelt Island, with the goal of transforming New York City into the world's premier technology capital. By mid-2014, Accelerator, a biotech investment firm, had raised more than US$30 million from investors, including Eli Lilly and Company, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson, for initial funding to create biotechnology startups at the Alexandria Center for Life Science, which encompasses more than 700,000 square feet (65,000 m²) on East 29th Street and promotes collaboration among scientists and entrepreneurs at the center and with nearby academic, medical, and research institutions. The New York City Economic Development Corporation's Early Stage Life Sciences Funding Initiative and venture capital partners, including Celgene, General Electric Ventures, and Eli Lilly, committed a minimum of US$100 million to help launch 15 to 20 ventures in life sciences and biotechnology.

References

Right. So, in New York City, "Silicon Ally" is parallel to, you know, Silicon Valley. Computer industry -- digital media, apps, etc. Information technology. For short, the "tech industry". Which is =/= biotech.

Looking at the refs used above:

• well, nothing for the first sentence. Unsourced.
• The first two refs are about Cornell tech campus, which is engineering. Not biotech, no wetlabs. Discussion of that does belong in this article.

  NYT ref no mention of biotech. all about tech

  cornell chronicle - no mention of biotech. all about tech

• Then we have WSJ article on Alexandria Center which is biotech/pharma lab space - nothing to do with tech or Silicon Alley. Funded by life science (not tech) VC; about the biotech/pharma (not tech) activities there. This is the only ref that ~could~ have supported discussion of biotech in this article, and it doesn't.

I edited the above to read as follows, taking out the biotech:

The New York City government has worked to support the tech sector. On December 19, 2011, then Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced his choice of Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to build a US$2 billion graduate school of applied sciences on Roosevelt Island, with the goal of transforming New York City into the world's premier technology capital.

References

That was reverted by User:Castncoot, and i have asked them why they included biotech in this article, and they just keep writing stuff like this, in which they say that "biotechnology" includes "technology" (it is applied biology) so of course biotech is part of the "tech industry" and so it is part of Silicon Alley. I have asked them to bring refs showing that biotech is part of Silicon Alley, and they have brought none, and instead just cited the dictionary at me.

What more could I tell you? Here are the first bunch of refs used in the Silicon Alley article itself.

1. business insider - all tech. no biotech
2. NY Daily News - all tech; no biotech
3. CNN: "New York has made a lot of the digital age. The city hosts a thriving tech sector with 300,000 employees -- on par with Silicon Valley -- and city government is praised for its use of analytics in evaluating all manner of programs." all tech. no biotech
4. "Venture Investment - Regional Aggregate Data - probably includes some biotech. source is not about Silicon Alley so that is fine
5. NYT about ted cruz - this is ref and the content about it is bizarre. nothing to do with silicon alley or biotech
6. AP piece on environment - bizarre. nothing to do with silicon alley or biotech
7. NYT on climate change protests on environment - bizarre. nothing to do with silicon alley or biotech
8. NYC EDC plan for telecom - all about tech; nothing about biotech
9. wi-fi expansion in harlem - tech; not biotech
10. office space coworking - a tech thing. all tech, no mention of biotech (which need wetlabs, not desks for coworking). And on those go.

I have shown Castncoot stuff like A Tale of Two Startup Worlds: Biotech And Tech VC Ecosystems and Why Biotech Startups are Not the Same as Tech Startups and Patent fight: Tech vs. pharma, round one (the role of IP is extremely different) and explained how the tech industry and biotech industries are wildly different (different amount of time and money to get to market, different regulatory scheme (none for iT!), different buyers (insurance companies for drugs, consumers for IT), different people doing it with very different skills, different investors, very different role of patents, etc etc). The industries are as different as a silicon chip and a beating human heart. To no avail.

I have shown them this page from the NYC Economic Development folks, showing the ED folks' very different plans to help the different sectors (IT vs biotech). To no avail.

So - the concrete issue is the content above in the Silicon Alley article. The question to the community - is the inclusion of biotech in the Silicon Valley article WP:OR? Jytdog (talk) 12:19, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

For User:Jytdog to suggest that Silicon Valley doesn't include biotech is just downright nonsensical. Just google "Silicon Valley biotech" and it is self-evident that biotech is an important part of Silicon Valley's technological scene. What User:Jytdog is trying to do here is to redefine tech and biotech and supplant them with his own definitions and interpretations for some unknown reason. He hasn't denied a conflict of interest with regards to a company he suggested listing in the Talk:Tech companies in the New York metropolitan area and then edited that entry extensively on that article page. I have repeatedly pleaded with Jytdog to address this issue regarding the base biotechnology article, which clearly defines biotechnology in the first sentence by consensus to include "any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use" (UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Art. 2)". To no avail. Rather than bringing this discussion up at the base article (or even acknowledging its existence), he is trying to gut and redefine the longstanding status quo at this article, perhaps to give him a stepping stone to also modify the longstanding status quo at the base biotechnology article as well. Parent Wikipedia articles and their consensus-sanctioned material serve as the base for other articles incorporating the same topic or concept.The numerous refs he cites are wasted breath which merely express some authors' opinions about this material but neither contradict the fact that biotech is merely biological technology, simply one type of technology and nothing more mystical or magical, nor contradict the primacy of Wikipedia's fundamental principle of WP:CONSENSUS. Castncoot (talk) 17:51, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Once again, no one but you are me seems to care about this. :( Jytdog (talk) 20:41, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Alley, Valley, rather confusing. Biotech is more than drugs design; MRI machines and pacemakers are made by engineers, not biochemists; biochip manufacturing (lab-on-a-chip systems..) uses lithographic techniques developed for the semiconductor industry. The same signal and data processing techniques are used in all industries, fMRI uses an FFT algorithm that was developed to detect nuclear tests (and first invented by Gauss to interpolate the trajectories of asteroids). An article on techcrunch.com article named Silicon Valley and Health Valley (Basel, Switzerland) as the two hotbeds for innovation in biotechnology, so (assuming there's some truth in it) inclusion of biotech in the Silicon Valley article seems justified. Whether it also merits mentioning in the Silicon Alley article, I don't know... Prevalence 00:37, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Your view is consistent with what I've been saying all along, that biotech is one form of tech, supported in addition by the fundamental examples you've cited above. Silicon Alley may not (yet) have reached "top two" status in biotech, but as you can see in the new Biotech and pharmaceutical companies in the New York metropolitan area page, it may be getting there (along with Greater Boston); certainly a significant biotech presence in Silicon Alley has already been attained. Yet User:Jytdog doesn't even want this new article to be mentioned as a "see also" in the Silicon Alley article, which I believe is an unreasonable stand to take. Castncoot (talk) 23:33, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

References

What our one commentor said, is i don't know. for pete's sake castncoot under your logic we should class peanut butter as Category:Dairy products because it has the word "butter" in it. Jytdog (talk) 08:38, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Baloney. He agreed that biotech has significant commonalities with tech (and has given examples, which you've conveniently ignored) such that lines are blurred – which is diametrically opposed to your trying to portray tech and biotech as having nothing in common but the four letters "tech". So as far as I'm concerned, I've demonstrated the most fundamental point of all. Now are you going to make a big obstructionist stink about simply adding the Biotech and pharmaceutical companies in the New York metropolitan area page in the see also section of Silicon Alley? Castncoot (talk) 21:38, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

We don't agree and the feedback here has not been clear. (in fact it just added fog - fMRI is not biotech, it is medical imaging, which is kind of on the edge of the medical device industry -- GE/Siemens/Philips are not Regeneron or Biogen; different science and business universes). This has not worked out to resolve the dispute; I will consider a different method of DR. Jytdog (talk) 02:50, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Rómaiak, románok és oláhok Dácia Trajánában (Budapest, 1935)

Hello all. I wish to know if the source in the title could be reliable considering its age. The author is Tamás Lajos - (the link is to the Hungarian Wikipedia article about him); the book is referred here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Transylvania#cite_note-60 . 123Steller (talk) 23:19, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

OR related to Voter Turnout in the 2016 election article.

There is Original Research being placed in the United States presidential election, 2016 article by Gsonnenf concerning Voter Turnout. It needs to be removed immediately. It is false and it is not supported by a reliable source and Gsonnenf is falsely claiming that the number Gsonnenf is making up is supported by the leading expert in the field, when it isn't.

Election Day may be over but the counting of the votes has not finished. There are still about 4 million or so votes to be counted.

Various editors have been asking that Voter Turnout not be placed into the article until ALL of the votes have been counted because--all of the experts (including Dr. Michael McDonald, Associate Professor at the Univ of Florida Political Science Dept and principal at the United States Elections Project)--have stated that no one can determine Voter Turnout until all of the votes are counted.

However, Gsonnenf has taken it upon himself to decide the true number of votes and to decide the number of eligible voters and calculate the Voter Turnout on his own--even though he is merely a Wikipedia editor and is not an expert. This is original research. Especially since the people that specialize in it--such as Dr. Michael McDonald--say that it cannot be determined until all of the votes are counted and McDonald is reporting a different, higher number.

Gsonnenf keeps reverting other editors and jamming into the article's infobox his original research number. This violates Wikipedia in all kinds of ways. Gsonnenf claims that his edits have the consensus of the talk page and that could not be further from the truth. He was involved in a discussion and he did not like the direction the discussion was going and just decided the consensus went his way and now he says his edit are the consensus over and over again--even though that claim is not true.

Gsonnenf edited article to state that Voting Turnout is 53.7%. You can see his edit here: Gsonnenf's false claim that U.S. Elections Project reports 53.7% Voter Turnout. The fact is that Dr. McDonald has claimed publicly that he believes the Voter Turnout is NOT finalized but it should be about 58%--not Gsonnenf's made up 53.7%. Please see Dr. McDonald's 58% Voter Turnout Estimate here: On November 14, 2016, Dr. Michael McDonald stated 58%--not the false number Gsonnenf uses

When you compare Gsonnenf's made up number (and he is NOT an expert, just a Wikipedia editor) with the number that has been posted by Dr. McDonald on his Twitter account, you can easily see that Gsonnenf is engaging in original research--which is verifiably incorrect and Gsonnenf is flat out making up a number and then--to put the icing on the cake--he cites Dr. McDonald, saying that Dr. McDonald supports the false 53.7% number. Dr. McDonald does not support any such thing.--ML (talk) 17:29, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Consensus was reached here: [2] that this is WP:CALC. User:Proud User also said it was WP:CALC. MaverickLittle refused to participate in dispute resolution via similar issue, calling it a "joke", here: [3] and we are currently also on the edit warring board on this very issue here: [4]. I don't think anyone is really happy with this guys behavior, so I'm hoping the admins will just resolve this.Gsonnenf (talk) 17:53, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

There is no consensus about original research. What you are saying is that if two different Wikipedia editors get together and do original research and as they agree that what they did is correct then original research is acceptable. But unfortunately that is not the way that it works. These two editors got together made a fake number (53.7%) and then they claim that Dr. Michael McDonald supports their fake number. Dr. McDonald says the number is 58%. Gsonnenf just made up a number, which is incorrect. On November 14th Dr. McDonald stated, on his Twitter account, that Voter Turnout is 58%. You can see his Nov 14th estimate here: McDonald's Nov 14 estimate. On November 10th, the Washington Post quoted him to say that as of Nov 10th Voter Turnout was 56%. You can see that quote here: McDonal's Wash Post estimate 56%. As more and more votes are counted the Voter Turnout number is going up, not down. Gsonnenf's number is well below the expert reliable source. Also note that Gsonnenf does not even attempt to provide substantive support for his made up, fake number because he has ZERO reliable sources to support his fake number. He has no substantive arguments. He just attacks me personally. He truly lacks any credibility.--ML (talk) 20:24, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

All the editors in that discussion decided that dividing total votes by voting population was simple arithmetic and would make it consistent for comparison with the 2008 and 2012 election page. Its from the same source in the same table. Read the discussion and you will understand. If you look at this MaverickLittle edit history[5], he edits articles almost every single day since his start date, for hours on end. Its beyond me that he acts like this. I think he is a paid political editor.Gsonnenf (talk) 23:28, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Once again, just because a couple of editors decide to engage in original research does not make it acceptable. The expert in the field clearly states that Voter Turnout is going to be in the area of 58% and you claim that Voter Turnout is 53.7%. You do not cited a reliable source for that number. All you cite is your incorrect calculations, based upon a number of actual voters that is changing each and every day. Also, you are confusing voting eligible population (VEP) and voting age population (VAP) they are not the same thing and you are not qualified to make that comparison or that calculation any way. You are just a Wikipedia editor. We need to wait until: (1) All of the votes are counted, (2) We have a solid set of numbers for VEP and VAP, and (3) a reliable source quotes a well-known expert in the field. You have not done any of those things. You are just making up a number. Please note that Gsonnenf did not provide you with a substantive explanation for his false number. He just attacked me personally. Why didn't he give a substantive reason for the fake number? The answer is simple he made the number from whole cloth and then he worked very hard to keep placing the false number in the article even though it has been removed by several editors.--ML (talk) 17:06, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Voter turnout is not a simple calculation because we do not know how many votes were cast or how many eligible voters there are. While we can estimate the uncounted votes, that is a matter of judgment. Similarly we do not know how many listed voters are duplications or otherwise not eligible voters or how many eligible voters failed to register. We also have the issue of disenfranchised voters, people who have lost the right to vote, but are hard to estimate and may in any case be on the electoral rolls or may have voted. Voters may lose or re-gain the right through moving to a different state. Also, American Samoans vote for president, but it is not counted. Millions of Puerto Ricans (we do not know how many) have moved to the U.S. where they can vote. Better to use estimates by an expert. TFD (talk) 03:45, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Murder of Sherri Rasmussen

Ir seems to me that the article linked above has a plethora of Original research. Its principal writer has asked for a Peer review. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 17:11, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

It seems equally likely to me that this editor, who so thoughtfully placed this notice here without notifying me that he had done so, doesn't truly understand the concept of original research. I have responded to his, uh, allegations here. Daniel Case (talk) 20:58, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Find a specific claim in the article that you think is lacking a verifiable source and then post it here. Not many people are willing to do that work for you.Scoobydunk (talk) 22:29, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

@Scoobydunk: The basis of his claim is that a fair amount of the article (though not all of it by a long shot) is sourced to the California Courts of Appeal decision upholding the conviction. He claims this all should be reported by independent sources to be included. I don't know by what reading of this policy sourced information counts as OR.

Nor do I recall anyone ever claiming we can't use court decisions as sources. This has never been a problem on other articles I've worked on. Daniel Case (talk) 16:00, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Directly from WP:OR "Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them." Court decisions are primary sources and should only be used to cite straightforward facts that do not require interpretation and that anyone looking at the document could verify. On top of that, there would be notability concerns because thousands of court decisions get made every day. We give importance to these decisions based on their usage in reliable secondary sources. So while it's not against the rules to use a primary source, there are many limitations that the primary source must meet first. In general, if something is worth noting from a primary source, then it shouldn't be hard to find a reliable secondary source to cite instead.Scoobydunk (talk) 05:03, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

@Scoobydunk: In this instance, there are plenty of secondary sources. The appellate decision isn't the only source for the facts of the case; there are two longform articles in national magazines plus some of the LA Times's daily trial coverage. Most of what I took from that decision is specifics, like the type of ammunition used by the shooter.

Where I used it as the major source was the section on the appeal itself and the court's decision, in which case the decision is the subject of that section and so I think there's wider latitude for relying on it. Daniel Case (talk) 16:15, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

The James Brown line from What a Man

In the page Whatta Man, I removed the passage that in ictu oculi added. IIO says that the line "Make me do the James Brown, every time I get on my feet" refers to Linda Lyndell's backing act days with James Brown. However, the song's connection to Brown is just analysis on the song, discouraged by the "no OR" policy. I searched for sources connecting the song to Brown but found none. I found this source and that source, but I don't think those sources link the song to Brown. --George Ho (talk) 06:39, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

These are two factual statements with no connection analysed: "Lyndell had sung as a support act with James Brown (fact), and the song includes the line "Make me do the James Brown Every time I get on my feet." (fact). In ictu oculi (talk) 09:17, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

George Ho seems to be trying to disprove a connection between this song (or a version of it) and James Brown personally, but no editors or sources are making such a connection to begin with. (Or maybe I'm missing something?)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:54, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
PS: It seems unlikely that WP would be the first to have a note about this; Google may turn up addl. sources: [6] (I'm out of time to pore over all that).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:03, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: for background George is currently proposing a RM to the version title - the page isn't Whatta Man and the version doesn't include the "do the James Brown" line. So searching for Whatta Man won't produce anything. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:20, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Ah, well, fix up the search then. Anyway, if the concern is simply that the Lyndell/Crawford song referring to James Brown is somehow in any way connected (obviously) to Lyndell having worked directly with James Brown needs a source directly stating something to this effect, one shouldn't be that hard to find. An alternative would be to mention Lyndell having worked with James Brown and that the [orignal] song refers to James Brown (in either order) and letting readers draw their own conclusion. There's no point try to suppress either fact.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:24, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

From what I can see, the "do the James Brown" quote is only used in a citation of the song lyrics. However, that citation doesn't support the associated statement it's tied to, which says Lyndell was associated with Brown and the Turners. That statement is true and is backed up by the AllMusic cite. The song lyric cite is unnecessary and should just be removed.--Cúchullain ^t/c 22:44, 2 December 2016 (UTC)