Wikipedia talk:No original research

Rewrite 2004-2005: Draft • Talk "Primary v. secondary sources" subpages "Change needed": Proposal • Talk "Various examples": Examples • Talk "Transclusion example": Example • Talk

Tie-in books

Shouldn't e.g. works that build on a particular fiction franchise be regarded as primary sources unless they provide substantial discussion above the level of narration? User:Dorftrottel 13:07, January 30, 2008

Clarification or Amendment of WP:SYN

Hi. I've created a new policy proposal/discussion here:

Wikipedia:Synthesis on video games

Based on confusion over the WP:SYN policy. Discussion is still early. But a few editors seem to agree that WP:SYN isn't meant to exclude summaries or compilations of research (e.g.: 10 scholars have all said this, several games have been called "trading games"). Rather, WP:SYN seems to be directed at reaching a novel opinionated conclusion. But I would appreciate clarification, and if there is a consensus I'd like to see the WP:SYN policy re-worded slightly. Policywonker (talk) 19:57, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

NOR: Content vs Presentation

I've just been hit with NOR over an edit I made to the article Hebrides.

The thing is, I wasn't editing the content of the article, only the presentation.

The opening sentence in the article describes the Hebrides as an archipelago, which is not a commonly used word (at least in UK English). I had changed the article to say "group of islands" instead, as this will be acceptable to all, and I felt that "archipelago" qualified as jargon.

The "original research" in question was something I posted on the talk page to back up the edit where I took out "archipelago" as jargon. I did a search on the National Corpus to demonstrate how uncommon the word is. (Its only appearance in the spoken corpus is as part of an academic lecture.)

Does this really qualify as original research? It's a publically published dataset, and it has been academically selected as representative -- all I did was type one word in the box and hit search!

Even if this does count as original research, surely the NOR rule is only applicable to factual content, and not a change of presentation such as wording.

Thanks for your time, Prof Wrong (talk) 20:59, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Nothing you post on a talk page can violate the OR policy; it would only be an issue if you wanted (for some reason) to put your research into the actual article. Replacing the term "archipelago" with "group of islands" would not violate the OR policy. It's up to the editors participating on that page to decide how to phrase it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:04, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Is NOR Synthesis applicable to math and physics?

Article One: A = B

Article Two: B = C

My Edit in Article Three: A = C

Is my edit "A = C" in Article Three NOR Synthesis? 50MWdoug (talk) 01:20, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

While I cannot say for sure without knowing what article(s) you're referring to, what you describe could be problematic. As you mention, it could be a synthesis unsupported by the sources. Additionally, Wikipedia articles should not be used to support claims in other articles. In all cases, we should stick closely to the sources. Vassyana (talk) 18:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The key idea remains that you should never use two sources to make a claim that neither source would individually support. If your example is as literal as it appears, then it's not problematic, unless one of the sources seems to argue against the application/validity of basic algebra. A real example you were thinking of might help though. Someguy1221 (talk) 18:14, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The criterion for SYNTH is obviousness — anything reasonable and non-controversial is acceptable. If other editors raise issues (e.g. that the synthesis is non-trivial and is not obvious in their view), that effectively creates contention, and a better source, that shows A=C directly, is required. Crum375 (talk) 18:22, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Almost invariably, when someone presents a "simple" question here, the actual situation is more nuanced. In this case, the article in question appears to me to be Young Earth Creationism. Calling that a "math and physics" article stretches the terms to their limits. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

It is frequently helpful, in policy discussions, to look at the editor's contribution history to discover just what issues actually drove them to the discussion. Policies are broad, but their interpretation and implentation require editorial judgements about specifics. Dlabtot (talk) 18:40, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Scientific_citation_guidelines#Examples.2C_derivations_and_restatements

Wikipedia is neither a textbook nor a journal. Nonetheless, in mathematics and the mathematical sciences, it is frequently helpful to quote theorems, include simple derivations, and provide illustrative examples. For reasons of notation, clarity, consistency, or simplicity it is often necessary to state things in a slightly different way than they are stated in the references, to provide a different derivation, or to provide an original example. This is standard practice in journals, and does not make any claim of novelty. In Wikipedia articles this does not constitute original research and is perfectly permissible – in fact, encouraged – provided that a reader who reads and understands the references can easily see how the material in the Wikipedia article can be inferred.

As an example, the article on the Lambda-CDM model quotes values for Hubble parameter h and the fraction of the present universe made up of baryons, Ω_b. For technical reasons having to do with their Fisher matrix, the WMAP collaboration quotes values for h and Ω_bh². The values quoted in the article are more useful for the lay reader. Any reader who looks at the WMAP paper, and has a basic knowledge of error analyses, will understand how to go from one to the other.

From Wikipedia:Attribution#What_is_not_original_research.3F:

Editors may make straightforward mathematical calculations or logical deductions based on fully attributed data that neither change the significance of the data nor require additional assumptions beyond what is in the source. It should be possible for any reader without specialist knowledge to understand the deductions. For example, if a published source gives the numbers of votes cast in an election by candidate, it is not original research to include percentages alongside the numbers, so long as it is a simple calculation and the vote counts all come from the same source. Deductions of this nature should not be made if they serve to advance a position, or if they are based on source material published about a topic other than the one at hand.

--Filll (talk) 18:44, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

In this case, 50MWdoug doesn't seem to be actually referring to equations. I think he's referring to adding some sort of text to an article on creationism. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes I have seen 50MWdoug's contributions to the creationist and intelligent design articles. And to be honest, I cannot understand his contributions at all. They do not seem to be relevant or germane. They are confused. Often the English is horrible. They lack sources. So I do not know what to say in that case.--Filll (talk) 18:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

50MWdoug's example doesn't seem applicable to the area of evolution, which is highly controversial, and where you need sources for just about everything. But here's the standard in general, which applies to all math and science: A=C is improper original research if, and only if, A=C is not verifiable. The synthetic statement A=C is verifiable only when either (1) you have a reliable source for A=C, or (2) A=C is so obvious that nobody in the academic field would reasonably dispute it. Thus, for example, if A is "the cartesian product of two orthogonal lines", B is "a plane", and C is "an affine space of dimension two", and if A=B and B=C are verifiable, then you don't need a citation for A=C, because A=C is verifiable (that is, it is not reasonably disputed by any mathematician). If A=C were not obvious, or if some difficult proof were needed to show that A=B and B=C implies A=C (such as you have some strange definition of "equals"), then you would need a source.

On the other hand, if A is, for example, "God", B is "Designer", and C is "Intelligent Being", then you will need a citation that explicitly says A=C, because "equals" is such a squishy idea in this context, and the field is so controversial anyway, that people within the field will dispute just about anything that is said, and citations are almost always required. COGDEN 20:43, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

One could also ask the question whether the statemnt is so trivial that demanding a peer reviewed publication that points it out is unreasonable. Wiki articles on math and physics topics are usually almost 100% based on peer reviewed articles. If some statement is trivial according to the professional mathematicians/physicists, then an article pointing it out is not suitable for publication in a peer reviewed journal.

Now, what is trivial to professional scientists may well be extremely complicated to the lay public. So, we have to leave it to the editors editing the article to make this judgement. A good example is this equation The fact that there is a plus sign in front of the summation is OR. A peer reviewed article gives the same formula with a minus sign. But, you can easily find out that a sign mistake has been made. Also, you can go back to older articles and find out that it should be a plus sign. However, that involves some non-trivial (to lay persons) conversions of an old notation of Bernouilli numbers to the modern notation.

I notified MathWorld about the error (their page also contained the same error). But it took them a year to correct the error, see formula 15 of this page: "where $B_{k}$ is a Bernoulli number (Adamchik 2001; typo corrected)." That typo being corrected only because I spotted it  :).

So, in conclusion, I would say that quite a lot of what in wiki terms is usually called "OR" is allowed in physics and math articles. The technical nature of these subjects demands that to ensure correctness of the content. Count Iblis (talk) 14:18, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Math and physics are not unique in this regard - there are tons of conclusions not made explicit in humanities publications that are still regarded as too obvious to be worth anybody's while to publish explicitly. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Our output is geared towards lay persons, and so are our WP:V and WP:NOR policies. Everything we write must be based on verifiable and reliable sources, and all synthesis of sourced material must be trivial to a lay person, i.e. a reasonably educated Clapham bus rider. Crum375 (talk) 14:29, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

If our output is geared toward Clapham bus riders, there are a number of advanced topics in areas that we should simply delete outright as they simply cannot be explained to a non-specialist audience. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:57, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Not really. Don't underestimate the abilities of the Clapham bus rider. He may not be able to follow everything, but could still pick up a lot. He may follow links to get educated, look up references, and perhaps read some related books. Our goal is to explain as much as possible as clearly as possible, especially in the lead, and to ensure that anything we write reflects existing verifiable and reliable sources. No non-trivial synthesis of the sourced material is allowed, using the bus rider as judge. Crum375 (talk) 15:24, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The Clapham bus rider seems to have abilities that are arbitrarily defined as what you want them to be, and he does not seem a useful standard. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, thing is that the Clapham bus rider would find it more convenient to use a correct formula from wikipedia than to find out that it is not correct, that the peer reviewed article that gives the formula is also not correct and then to read the entire derivation and correct it himself. We have to realize that many people use mathematical and physics articles in wikipedia to look up formulas which they want to use. They would rather have a correct formula than an incorrect formula. They don't care if the incorrect formula is the same as what can be found in the literature. Count Iblis (talk) 15:48, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Phil, I think that it is an extremely useful standard, and the only one we really have. As an approximation, it is the average Wikipedia editor.

Count, the readers trust us to properly reflect what the reliable and verifiable sources have to say about a topic, not to improve or modify them. Crum375 (talk) 15:51, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

We are not really improving anything as correcting typos in formulas is not considered to be "original reseach" in the scientific meaning. The reliable and verifiable sources do indeed imply the corrected formula, but it may well be that the literal version can only be found with a sign error in it. To be able to verify the content of some scientific wiki articles you need to know a lot about the subject anyway. Count Iblis (talk) 16:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Correcting typos is certainly "improving". What I would suggest in such simple cases, is to use the corrected version, with a footnote explaining the correction, next to a link to the original with the error. Your goal is to convince the skeptical Clapham rider, who has no specialist knowledge, that you are not adding any new information. Crum375 (talk) 16:30, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I edit in many different articles, including Wave Power, where there is an obvious need, sometimes, to convert from CGS to metric units, or to go from source equations to Latex, or to combine two equations where it is literally the case that A=B, B=C, so one might enter A=C for clarity and brevity, with appropriate references obvious to other editors. There never seems to be a problem with these edits - except for the usual typos and errors. Outside of math and physics Articles, it appears to me that some editors use NOR Synthesis to reject opposing material on a selective basis with variable standards. 50MWdoug (talk) 17:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

It's really not so complicated. We are allowed to use synthesis of existing sources if it's simple and non-controversial, where the judges must be the Wikipedia editors. Like for most decisions here, we use common sense and imagine the Clapham bus rider looking over our shoulders. Crum375 (talk) 18:21, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The practical interpretation of "the average WP editor' is that the edit is not challenged in a reasonable manner. The most frequent example of unreasonable challenges is when it is advanced only because of dissatisfaction with the overall NPOV of the article. If you are going to say it is so obvious as not to be OR, then you're going to have to be able to convince almost any good faith editor of that. This is normally done by asking for outside opinions of uninvolved editors. DGG (talk) 20:19, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Crum375 (talk) 20:35, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Fundamental problems with this policy

As a counterpart to my line-by-line reading of WP:V, (which is being actively discussed at WT:V I've had a look at NOR. It is, for the most part, and mercifully, not as bad as WP:V. That said, it still has some serious problems, including what is probably the worst sentence ever put into a Wikipedia policy.

But for the most part, unlike WP:V, it doesn't need a top-down reconsideration, except in one area - it fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between sources and research. But even this can probably be solved through addition rather than deletion.

In any case, the specifics are in my userspace at User:Phil Sandifer/NOR. I've left the two most significant and subtle points below, because it's the one that I think will require the most discussion, though I hope people will read the larger discussion, as there are other bits here and there that direly need revision.

• "For that reason, anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source."

This is very possibly the single worst sentence ever enshrined as Wikipedia policy. This sentence is where the first and third problems I identified come to a terrible head. Because secondary source publication is generally a commercial act, what gets published in a secondary source is heavily determined by what is financially viable. That is a very, very different concern from what is useful or important. As a result, primary sources are vital to research - not just scholarly research, but all research. And this becomes even more true as you get to more and more specialist topics - this sentence effectively guts our coverage of science and mathematics.

Let me be clear here, and using a credible expert (my wife, a PhD student in chemistry). It is simply not possible to write an article on Single molecule magnets from overview-providing secondary sources. Any such article would be badly out of date. Specialist-requiring primary sources are *necessary* to write these articles.

This points also to an issue about credentialism. The current policy is all but anti-expert. That is, it basically requires that articles be written either by people who do not know the material or by people who are going to act like they do not know the material. This is *not* what our anti-credentialist position started as, and it's a terrible evolution of it. The original concept of our anti-credentialism was that you could replace a process of credential verification with a high-speed (i.e. wiki-based) open peer review process. That is, a mass of people whose credentials you don't verify can, if given the proper tools, provide as good a peer review as credentialed experts. But this does not assume non-knowledgeable participants - it merely says that we don't check the credentials. The assumption can safely be made that if somebody is editing an article in good faith, they know stuff about the topic. That doesn't eliminate the need for sources (any more than it does in academic research), but it does mean that this "articles must be able to be written by a non-specialist" policy is, frankly, an idiotic poison.

• "If the sources cited do not explicitly reach the same conclusion, or if the sources cited are not directly related to the subject of the article, then the editor is engaged in original research."

This bit, and really the whole section it's in is where the policy most falls apart. What it's trying to do is clear - and the plagiarism example a bit further down is (mostly) spot-on. (It's not unreasonable to mention the Chicago Manual for context there - it's the explicit conclusion-drawing that is a problem)

But as it stands, this sentence describes a research practice that is impossible. The idea that it is possible to simply and unambiguously transport conclusions from a source into a piece of research would be rejected by any credible school of teaching research skills that I am aware of. It is, frankly, the rhetoric and composition equivalent of spontaneous generation.

Indeed, the opposite is increasingly widely accepted. One of the major composition texts these days is called _Everything's an Argument_, and makes the case, essentially, that one cannot organize information without advancing an argument. Research is always an interpretive and synthetic process, and any presentation of research advances a position. The position our articles try to advance is a NPOV position, but it is still a position. NPOV is not "No point of view."

Given all of that, this phrasing of the policy is untenable and inaccurate. The section should be heavily cut down, and coupled with a section that needs to be written. That section must explictly accept that the basic act of organizing information into a NPOV presentation is an act of synthetic research. Connections, interpretations, and organizations are going to have to be introduced, not all of which can be drawn straightforwardly from reliable sources. It should openly acknowledge that determining what the best NPOV presentation and what the most significant viewpoints are is hard and requires a process of open and good faith communication among editors. How to write an encyclopedia article is not something that can be determined mechanically or obviously by an absolute standard or by outsiders brought in to mediate or intervene.

As I said, the policy is, largely, better than WP:V - it has only two egregious problems, both of which are closely related - its bewildering sense of "self-evident" sources, and its deeply flawed belief about the transparency of assembling information into a tertiary source. This can largely be fixed by new language and by careful rephrasing, but it is a fix that is desperately needed, as right now this page provides bad advice that is not and cannot be usefully applied towards writing an encyclopedia, and that should frankly be largely, if not totally, ignored by responsible editors. And that's a problem that we should fix, as this is a key policy that needs to reflect sane practice. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I actually see no major problem in WP:V or WP:NOR as they stand, or the concepts they represent. I see no problem in waiting for better secondary sources for novel topics, instead of relying on pure primary sources that require non-trivial analysis or interpretation to be made by wikipedians of unknown credentials. I think our concept of being a verifiable tertiary source which relies primarily on secondary sources is very sound, and has proven itself in our current product. If you have some specific point you'd like to change, start with one suggested revised sentence and let's address it specifically. Crum375 (talk) 21:17, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Largely because the problems are, in both cases, a bit beyond single sentence fixes - most especially here, where the problems, as I laid out above, really are that the page has an unrealistic sense of what research is, how sources work, and how reporting on sources works. There might be something to us being a bit slower to get information than we are now, but on the other hand, one of the things we're often praised for is how up to date we are, and that's one of the reasons why the wiki is such an appealing method. But even still, this loses far more than a few novel points in the sciences. As I said, there's no good way to write about Jacques Lacan or Jacques Derrida - two of the most important figures in literary studies right now - under this policy. We might be able to be two years out of date on single molecule magnets (though I think it's regrettable if we are, and that we shouldn't be), but if we fail miserably at those topics we fail at our most basic mission. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:24, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

We are already number 8 or so in popularity on the web; I don't see us losing much ground if we hesitate in adding some radically new material because we don't have the proper secondary source to help us interpret the primary sources. In reality, if something is new and important in science, there will be newspaper columns and Scientific American or Nature articles to serve as initial secondary sources. If there is something hot in the humanities, such as your literary examples, I suspect we'd be able to find some relevant news or magazine article there also. Bottom line: no rush, we'd rather have a verifiable encyclopedia of high quality, than a forum for editors of unknown credentials disseminating their personal knowledge. Crum375 (talk) 21:57, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Except that an encyclopedia by the standards you're proposing wouldn't be high quality. Single molecule magnets are a huge hot thing in inorganic chemistry right now, with tons of grants. A two year out of date article on them is of questionable value at best. And an article on Derrida or Lacan based on newspaper and magazine articles would be so laughably below the standards of my field that I, at least, would be forced to change my position on Wikipedia for my students (From "It's a great resource, but you need to go further for your research" to "it is worthless.")

I mean, this is the major problem - the model you're proposing simply does not work. It is not possible to write about most topics in the way you are describing, and not possible to write well about most to any of the ones you can write about. I mean, I don't know how to put this any other way - what you are espousing as high quality and verifiable is not. It's a recipe for bad coverage that meets nobodies standards, and is a radically different standard than the one we use in practice. (And notably, I am not trying to reform our practice on original research - I think this policy page is, in fact, badly out of line with actual practice, which is much closer to what I'm proposing). Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

If something is a "huge hot thing", it will get plenty of press coverage, in newspapers, online news sites, and magazines. There should be no problem at all to find secondary sources for your hot stuff. And our NOR policy is used every day to maintain the quality of our product. That some articles, maybe many, are not conforming to it, or to other policies, is no reason to trash or dilute the policies. By that logic we might as well do away with any quality standard. Crum375 (talk) 22:15, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I said "a huge hot thing in inorganic chemistry." The number of newspapers, online news sites, and magazines that devote substantial time to inorganic chemistry is minimal, due largely to the fact that it is substantially less commercially profitable than sports and celebrity gossip (which, I suppose, are relatively easy to cover under the policy as you advocate it). The policy as you advocate it guts our coverage of academic and scholarly topics - what should be the cornerstone of an encyclopedia. And, as you seem to admit, it is not current practice to gut those articles in the way you are advocating. I am thus forced to conclude that your approach does not have anything resembling consensus. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:19, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but if there are simply insufficient secondary sources to make a complete and accurate article on a subject, then that's simply something we're not going to have. I don't think opening the door to sources only alleged and unverified experts can decipher is at all an appropriate action, given the amount of POV pushing, original research, and self-promoters that are going to rush in alongside it. Coinciding with Wikipedia not having any time limits, there is no great detriment to being a couple years behind cutting edge scientific opinion, as encyclopedias have always been. And I highly protest your claiming that citing sources from different contexts is appropriate if you don't explicate the conclusion; if the purpose of the content remains blindingly obvious, and that's to lead the reader to an unsupportable conclusion, then it remains original research. The most we should do in that case is link to the article on plagiarism so interested readers can follow it and decide for themselves. And again, this loss of potential information is no great detriment to Wikipedia; if no reliable source has made a certain point, then it is beyond our purpose to make it ourselves. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:20, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

As I said, perhaps this is acceptable for single molecule magnets - I don't think it is, if only because the area is sufficiently hot that old information is not terribly valuable. But Derrida and Lacan are not new - Lacan, in fact, has been dead for 27 years. You cannot seriously suggest that we ought not have good coverage of someone who has been tremendously influential in the humanities for a quarter century because it happens to be the case that the sources are written for a specialist audience. The publication of accessible sources on the subject is not financially viable. To say that "if a subject is worth covering, accessible secondary sources will have been written about it" is simply untrue and unsupported by reality.

I mean, I don't know what else to say here. You are advocating a position that has two possible consequences - the elimination of coverage of academic topics, or blindingly bad coverage on those topics. Your description of what sources exist and what they can be used for is non-sensical (and I say this as somebody whose job it is to teach research-based writing to college students). The position you are taking is not merely an opinion I disagree with, but is fundamentally in error, and, if adopted (which it has not been by the community, as evidenced by our decent articles on many of the topics you propose gutting) would rapidly transform Wikipedia from a useful resource to a complete laughingstock. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:37, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Phil, I suspect there are plenty of scientific and industrial journals focused on various aspects of inorganic chemistry, plus a bunch of reliable websites. I would be surprised if this hot potato stayed secret for months, beyond the primary papers, if it's really so hot. And if we ended up being a month late, because we want to ensure high quality, I think it's an excellent trade-off. Crum375 (talk) 22:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Do you really think that the scientific journals are any more accessible or easily interpretable than the peer-reviewed primary sources from which the scientific knowledge is being proposed? I mean, all I'm saying is that you can't write a remotely up-to-date article on single molecule magnets without relying on sources that are genuinely hard to understand. This should be unsurprising, as single molecule magnets are an advanced topic in inorganic chemistry. They are, in short, hard to understand. "Easy to understand" is not an inclusion criterion, nor should it be.

But, if you will, change focus to Derrida and Lacan. Both have been dead for years - Lacan for 27 of them, Derrida for 5. Their work is tremendously influential in the humanities, but that still means it's primarily of interest to a specialized academic discipline. Newspaper articles on them are rare (especially now that they are dead), and the ones that did exist are widely disparaged by academics. (The New YorK Times's obituary on Derrida was scandalously bad, as is well-reported.) There are a handful of, essentially, Derrida for Dummies books, but basing an article on them would be fantastically low quality. What do you propose we do here? I have chapters on both Derrida and Lacan in my dissertation, and have published scholarship relying heavily on Lacan. And I do not have the slightest idea how to even begin writing a good article on Lacan without relying on sources that would be difficult to someone without my scholarly training at best, and near impossible at worst. But he's been dead for a quarter century. I can almost accept the possibility of being a few months behind on science topics, but a quarter century behind in the humanities? You can't really want that. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:37, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Random break

(outdent) I think there is some common logic here with notability. We say that if no one reliable has published about something, it's not notable enough for Wikipedia. In this case, you say something is vastly important, but you, like me, are a mere wikipedian, and our word doesn't count. If something is really that important and earth-shaking, even within its own community, some reliable secondary source will have published a review of it. If all we have are primary papers and a wikipedian telling us they are vitally important, then the best we can do is to reproduce the primary material without interpretation or analysis. Crum375 (talk) 22:52, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong - the secondary literature on Lacan and Derrida is vast. It's just also targeted at specialists, and no easier to decipher than the originals, and so doesn't provide any assistance in the transparency department.

The secondary literature doesn't have to be transparent or easy to decipher. What the policy prohibits is Wikipedians using primary sources as the basis of their own analysis of a topic; primary sources should only be used descriptively. So, "this is what the source says" is fine. "This is what the source meant by it" is not fine. If you want to tell us what the source meant, find a published source who agrees with you. That's all the policy means. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 04:13, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I see how, short of simply quoting directly and at length, there's a meaningful difference between "this is what the source says" and "this is what the source means" in most cases. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

For example, when Kant says that all knowledge begins with experience, but not all knowledge arises from experience, we want to know what published experts think that means, not what SlimVirgin thinks it means based on her own reading of Kant. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 04:48, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

But the assumptions being made even in that short summary are already enormous - first of all, that out of the mass of stuff Kant has written that is a significant and notable passage. Second of all, inasmuch as that is not a direct quote from Kant and that the context on each end is trimmed away, that this is a representative and illustrative sample of Kant. Now I wholly agree, we do not want SlimVirgin's own personal theory of what Kant means in that passage. But on the other hand, it does not seem to me that there is any way to even describe that passage without making some large assumptions about it that are not based on sources. Which does not seem to me to be a problem - far from it. But I do think, in a similar sense, we need to recognize that the organization and presentation of information, and even the most basic interpretations of difficult sources (both primary and secondary - this is another key point. Most of the most significant explanations of "What Kant Means" are no easier than Kant, and pose no less a formidable NOR problem) is still a contestable process. The judgment of well-meaning editors who are interested in the topic is going to be better than a mechanical rule of what is and is not original research. In practice, our articles on Kant are not based on simple restatements of sources - they're based on interpretations from multiple editors that are revised with an eye towards approaching what they all recognize as the consensus of what a NPOV presentation of Kant's views is. And, notably, that method works. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:54, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Regarding your first point, anyone reading the secondary literature will see that the sentence I cited is a key one.

You say "that method works," but does it? The article on the Critique is original research. It cites only one secondary source for one point. It offers nothing about the context within which the Critique was written, or why it was written. What was Kant trying to do, who was he addressing, why did he feel those were major issues? What issues did he try to avoid and why? What was the reception? How influential has it been? How is it viewed now?

None of that material is in the article, because it's just someone's personal understanding of what Kant was saying, relying only on Kant, with no indication of whether the editor understood it in the same way published specialists understand it. What kind of reader would this article help? Who is the article's target audience? SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 19:19, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I have a couple of possible answers, but which Critique are we talking about? Then I can go look at the article and respond more appropriately. :) Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:20, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant Critique of Pure Reason. I singled it out because I think it's a good example of the problem. It's pure OR, but most of it is probably right, as far as I can tell. But because it's OR and based only on the primary source, it leaves the reader uninformed. Someone knowing nothing about Kant will not be helped by it. Someone knowing a little is left not knowing how to find out more. Someone who knows a fair bit is given no clue as to why the editor is saying this, and not that (i.e. the reader is left not knowing which tradition the editor is writing within, because no sources are cited). And someone who's a Kant specialist will have no interest, because there's no complexity i.e. no arguments are presented about how Prof A thinks Kant meant X, but Prof B strongly disagrees.

So the article has basically left itself without a readership. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 21:41, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, and notably, there are tons of people involved in providing that summary. It's not one person's viewpoint, but a triangulation of the viewpoints of lots of people who have read Kant and know a fair amount about it. And it gets it largely right - that is, it presents a reading of Kant that is more or less a palatable default. Its major problem is actually NPOV - that is, it doesn't present all the views of Kant. I won't argue that the article could use more - a sense of the major disagreements about Kant, etc. But I don't think that what it has is unacceptable as such - it's just not done yet. But complaining that what's there is OR and should be trimmed seems to me a terrible idea, since what's there is a pretty accurate summary of the book that is certainly useful to someone who looks it up having little or no idea what the book is. So the problem isn't that the article is unacceptable - it's just not as good as we want it to be. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:51, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Single molecule magnets are a different case - there are not always secondary sources on each piece of research in the field. Then again, I, at least, have no problem treating the fact that a peer-reviewed academic journal saw fit to print it as a voucher of notability. After all, that's what the peer review process is meant to indicate - that the findings of this paper are significant. But even if we limit ourselves to scientific papers that have acquired citations in other papers we still don't get rid of the ease of understanding problem. The topics are, simply put, hard. Secondary sources make them more widely discussed, but they don't make them any easier. I thus don't think this is primarily a notability issue. My objection is to the statement "anything notable will have sources that a non-expert can understand and that can be transparently described for our audience." That standard is ludicrous. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:58, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that even secondary sources may be too obtuse for the non-specialist. Typically Scientific American and Nature type publication do cater to the general market for scientific topics, and I assume similar "popular level" periodicals and websites exist for other topics. But nowhere do we say, to my knowledge, that only "popular" secondary sources are acceptable. We are only saying that any interpretations, from any source, must be trivial to the non-specialist (Mr. Clapham). So all that means is that the more obtuse secondary sources will require stricter adherence to the source material. Not a huge problem IMO. Crum375 (talk) 23:09, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

You should have a look at my fuller complaint, linked to above. In short, the idea of any reading of a secondary source that is not an "interpretation" is something that has to be considered kind of ridiculous. There's just no way to present an unambiguous and trivial reading of a good source in many of these areas. Short of just block-quoting, which, for obvious reasons, we don't do, this is still an unrealistic goal. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:55, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Obviously. And the stock method of determining whether your paraphrasing of a source is "incorrect" is to see if a dispute arrises, and then see where that takes you. The only thing we can rely on in that case is consensus, and not "let's trust Phil, he's an expert." As with all the examples you keep citing, if you can make an accurate and comprehensive article on Lacan and Derrida, mainly using citations to reliable, secondary sources, and no one disputes it, then good for you! But I have to ask, if it's actually impossible to write a "useful" Wikipedia article on that without exercising original research, then why would you want to? As much as you claim you're trying to eliminate a bias in Wikipedia, it seems to me you want to use Wikipedia to alleviate a blind spot in the literature, something that we definitely shouldn't be doing. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:14, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, to be clear, it's eliminating a blind spot in the literature, not in the general consensus. This is closely related to WP:V and some of the changes I'm arguing for there - essentially, and you get at this with your comment, if the people who edit the Derrida article (who we can assume are probably generally competent on the subject) all agree that a given presentation of the information is sensible and hits the major points, we can, for our purposes, assume that it does.

It may be useful to compare the three models under discussion here. Model one is the traditional encyclopedia - the validity of a given presentation is determined by asking a credentialed and clear expert "is this right?" That expert answers, and the check is done. Model two is what this policy currently proposes - it says that the validity of a given presentation is determined by looking at its sources, which will transparently and clearly explain themselves, and anything that does not get clearly explained is rejectable. Model three, what I propose, and what I think is actual practice on Wikipedia, is that a mass of people of unknown credentials will collaboratively edit the presentation into a general form, each providing peer review and oversight for all the others, relying on sources not as things that independently establish the validity of the claims but as evidence for a subtle and complex argument about the claims.

The first model works, but, as Nupedia showed, was inadequate to the task of writing a free encyclopedia. The second model is a fantasy designed to mechanize the process of writing in a way that simply does not work. The third model is what we should go for. In the third model, the evidence that a statement is not original research is not that it follows transparently from the sources, but rather that the community of editors who are working on the subject in good faith and with an eye towards presenting a neutral, verifiable explanation of the major views that does not include any novel or original theories all look at it and agree that it follows from the sources. That is, the proof that something is not original research is the socially formed consensus to that effect. Which is what I was trying to get at with my statement that we need a passage to the following effect: One that will "explicitly accept that the basic act of organizing information into a NPOV presentation is an act of synthetic research. Connections, interpretations, and organizations are going to have to be introduced, not all of which can be drawn straightforwardly from reliable sources. It should openly acknowledge that determining what the best NPOV presentation and what the most significant viewpoints are is hard and requires a process of open and good faith communication among editors. How to write an encyclopedia article is not something that can be determined mechanically or obviously by an absolute standard or by outsiders brought in to mediate or intervene."

I'm sorry that I'm being wordy here - the downside of working with these issues professionally is that it is difficult to condense them to talk-page sized comments. (There's a reason I get a full semester with my students instead of a few quick paragraphs) But the point remains - it is extremely rare for a source to directly and transparently support a NPOV presentation of a topic. Writing encyclopedia articles is hard and requires subtle, not mechanized judgment. Our content policies need to reflect the subtlety of what we do instead of trying to bludgeon it into a mechanical process. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:02, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree with your characterization of "what this policy currently proposes". If you want to take the word 'clearly' out of the nutshell, I'd have no objection. Other than that one word, I don't think there is anything in the policy that says or implies anything like you are saying. Arguing over the semantics of what 'synthetic research' means, is not really helpful in this context. The point is that it shouldn't be original research. That's why it's called no original research. The point is not that you can't use your brain to write an article that draws on multiple sources, the point is that you can't use Wikipedia to publicize your new idea, interpretation, or synthesis of data. That's what we are trying to say here. Why make it more complicated than it is? Dlabtot (talk) 02:25, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Because while I wholly agree with what the policy is trying to say, what the policy actually says is a far cry from that. (And I think "transparently" and "clearly" are largely synonyms there - there is nothing transparent about reading and summarizing a source. If there were, we would not need summary.) Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:32, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I read this thread in its entirety, and fail to see what is the rationale for changing the current formulation. Rather than just argue for what is purportedly wrong with the current formulation, an example of a different formulation that may address your concerns would be more useful. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:10, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

If this is the idea, to "explicitly accept that the basic act of organizing information into a NPOV presentation is an act of synthetic research. Connections, interpretations, and organizations are going to have to be introduced, not all of which can be drawn straightforwardly from reliable sources. It should openly acknowledge that determining what the best NPOV presentation and what the most significant viewpoints are is hard and requires a process of open and good faith communication among editors. How to write an encyclopedia article is not something that can be determined mechanically or obviously by an absolute standard or by outsiders brought in to mediate or intervene.", well, I would strongly disagree. That is not current practice, and should not be. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:13, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

You believe that it is possible to mechanically determine how to write an encyclopedia article via an absolute and external standard? Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:13, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

No, I am not arguing that point. I am arguing that Connections, interpretations, and organizations are going to have to be introduced, not all of which can be drawn straightforwardly from reliable sources is the complete opposite of what current practice is in regard of V and NOR. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:15, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it's the opposite of what the policies say. I adamantly disagree that it is the opposite of how it is done. Short of having our articles consist purely of block quotes from sources, there is no way to engage in summary of multiple sources without introducing connections, interpretations, and organizations from outside of those sources. Summary simply doesn't work that way. I don't mean this on a level of "this is how it ought to be." I mean this as a simple statement of fact about how summary is understood in the context of writing and composition. Summary is, in composition classes, treated as a form of argument. When one summarizes one or more sources, one is understood as making an (implicitly original) argument about what those sources say, using quotes from the sources as evidence supporting the argument. This is not a statement about what our policy says - it is a statement about how research works and is taught. We can, if we want, reject the statement, but if we do we should recognize that Wikipedia is explicitly and consciously adopting a paradigm of what it means to read, interpret, and summarize that is rejected by the prevailing academic consensus. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:32, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors are in the business of reporting what sources say, with the caveat that novel syntheses are not acceptable. Sure, sound editorial judgment is needed, alongside of using other content policies to assist in that application of good judgment, that is using NOR, V, and NPOV within a framework of consensus. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:39, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

That's not really a response to what I said. What I said was that the act of reporting what sources say, when multiple sources are involved, involves advancing an original argument, or, at least, one that does not come transparently from the sources. The question of an encyclopedia is how do we evaluate whether a given attempt at that is OK. Traditional encyclopedias use credentialism. We reject that. Right now this page has us rejecting that in favor of the idea that, in fact, the description will come transparently and straightforwardly from the source in a way that is independently checkable. That viewpoint is, from the perspective of how research is understood and taught, wrong. Option three - which is the option that Wikipedia was originally built around - is that a bunch of interested editors checking and revising each others work will successfully check that a presentation of information accurately describes the sources it is based on. Thus the check is not some transparent consultation of a source but the consensus process of debate and discussion. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:51, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Phil, the mere fact that Wikipedia does not consist solely of direct quotations is evidence enough that people don't take this policy as literally as you fear they will or should. And I still don't see how this can possibly be fixed in your eyes, since we're not going to assemble a cadre of experts anytime soon. It is fundamentally impossible to give a definition of original research that can be applied without subjective judgement, and that is why we have several fantastical venues for discussing such things. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:03, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of flaws in logic, I think the existing policy is working. The actual question is not the theory, but the practice, which is a balance between permitting the necessary flexibility in writing articles, and preventing those with POV from abusing the system. I think the present wording permits us to deal adequately with the actual cases, and that we have a fair balance. DGG (talk) 00:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the existing policy is working not because of any merit in the policy but because nobody is actually following it as written. (Or, more accurately, very few people are following it as written. Some people are, generally to the detriment of the project) That the policy is so ignored as to be somewhat more harmless than it would be if it were followed, however, does not seem to me a strong recommendation for its current form. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Phil, even as it is, people are constantly using primary sources to come up with novel arguments advancing their views. The strong wording in the current policy is, in fact, the only thing holding us back from an original research free-for-all. If we water down the wording even further, we might as well just delete the WP:NOR page altogether. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:59, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

If you have gotten to the point where you sincerely believe that some strong wording in a policy is magically holding us back from a disaster that we would otherwise fall into it's probably time to take a bit of a vacation and calm down. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Can you show us an example of an article you regard as good, but which ignores this policy? SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 05:03, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Michel Foucault, a (deservedly) featured article, uses primary sources exclusively for its summary of Foucault's thought. Despite this, the summaries are concise, approachable, and deeply edifying. The page is as good a primer on Foucault as any I have seen (and I have seen quite a few). But there is no way to read the policy as it stands on primary sources and think that the Foucault article uses them in accordance with the policy. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

It sounds to me like you are saying there is not actually any original research in the Michel Foucault article, since according to you it is a "summary of Foucault's thought". If it were a summary of some WP editor's thought, inspired by Foucault, it would be a problem. Would it be better if that article relied on secondary, rather than primary sources? Sure. But after all, WP is a work-in-progress. Dlabtot (talk) 17:55, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, it's not original research. The policy disagrees - the conclusions drawn from the primary sources would not be obvious to a non-specialist reader, since the primary sources are torturously difficult. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:08, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, the point here is to create a quality encyclopedia. To help in the collaborative editing process, we have an interlocking set of policies and guidelines, one of which states that the rules are not to be an obstacle, but a means towards that end. Dlabtot (talk) 18:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Actual proposed change

To try to get through the smaller of the two changes that this page urgently requires:

Right now, the page reads "For that reason, anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. To the extent that part of an article relies on a primary source, it should:

• only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and
• make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about the information found in the primary source."

This is nonsense on the face of it - short of simply quoting primary sources at length there is no way to discuss them without making analytic, interpretive, or explanatory claims, and any article that references both primary and secondary source material will necessarily make synthetic claims as well. Evaluative ones can probably be avoided, to be fair. More to the point, the non-specialist clause is ridiculous. Wikipedia aims to explain hard topics. Hard topics cannot depend on only non-specialist interpretations. In many cases they can, perhaps, rely only on specialist interpretations of secondary sources, but this is an arbitary line - if I make a difficult to verify summary of Gayatri Spivak writing on Jacques Derrida it is no better for our purposes than a difficult to verify summary of Derrida himself.

I thus propose the following:

"When dealing with primary sources it is especially important to clearly cite and attribute statements to those sources so that editors can verify the statements. To the extent that part of an article relies on a primary source, it should:

• limit itself to descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, and limit itself to claims that are clearly germaine to the larger topic. It is especially important to avoid evaluating the claims of a primary source.
• carefully avoid claims about the primary source that are not supported by the prevailing consensus of reliable secondary sources. The best way to do this, of course, is to read and cite the secondary sources."

This, I think, still stresses the need to not expand on primary sources without setting up impossible or inconsistent requirements for them. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:43, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

short of simply quoting primary sources at length there is no way to discuss them without making analytic, interpretive, or explanatory claims, and any article that references both primary and secondary source material will necessarily make synthetic claims as well -- apparently you just fundamentally aren't understanding this policy, it's about not presenting ideas that have not previously been published elsewhere. Is that really so hard to understand? If I were not precluded from such speculation by WP:AGF, I would wonder if you were being deliberately obtuse. Dlabtot (talk) 03:59, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not misunderstand the policy as you state it. I am raising an objection to the policy as you state it - first that publication is too high a bar to write good articles about important subjects, and second that the current rules on primary and secondary sources are a sane way of achieving that goal. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:36, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

short of simply quoting primary sources at length there is no way to discuss them without making analytic, interpretive, or explanatory claims - Phil, I'm baffled by this statement. The way to discuss primary sources without making analytic, interpretive, or explanatory claims is to summarize what secondary sources say about them. This is basic, fundamental policy. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

As with the example above - Gayatri Spivak, undoubtedly one of the best and most respected Derrida scholars, is no easier to read than Derrida. Summarizing and explaining what she says is not a more straightforward task. How, exactly, does limiting ourselves to Spivak's summary of Derrida reduce error and original research that would exist if we used Derrida himself to find what Derrida said? Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:36, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

A summary of Spivak writing on Derrida can be as hard as you like in an article dealing with Derrida, though not in an article dealing with Spivak. That's because S on D is 2ary in the former and 1ary in the latter. This is perfectly reasonable.

More broadly, I think you are missing the point of why these restrictions exist and when they are enforced. They are set up in the way they are to police attempts to introduce novel material, not good-faith attempts to synthesise current views. The example SV gives above of the Critique article is valid: it might well be OR by the standards we set, but anyone can see that it is not worth making an issue of it. (And anyone who did would either be being disruptive or would wind up improving the article.) On the other hand, when you actually wade into the rest of the encyclopaedia, into the domain of cranks, activists and other failures, you realise that the thin walls of OR as currently written are all that stands between us and the deluge. This might be better said on the mailing list, but I'm telling you here first. --Relata refero (disp.) 08:37, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

As I asked Jayjg above, how does allowing editors to make difficult claims about a very hard source from Spivak eliminate errors and problems that would exist if we allowed similar claims about the comparably hard source from Derrida? That's why this doesn't seem like a sensible distinction to me - there is no higher probability that the claim "Spivak says Derrida says X" is going to have a better relationship to what Spivak (or Derrida) says than the claim "Derrida says X" will. As for the idea of this policy as a thin blue line, I have to ardently disagree. First of all, cranks are a problem on a handful of our articles. Second of all, cranks are not repelled by policy - they are repelled by being outnumbered by well-meaning editors. Those editors will, admittedly, have a harder job with a policy that demands consensus and discussion. However the job will not be harder because we are any less strictly opposed to cranks in our policy - I do not support weakening our stance on cranks one bit. It will be harder because cranks can no longer be dealt with on autopilot - one actually has to *gasp* talk to them, try to change their minds, try to nudge them towards productive action, and, moreover, take their views seriously and make sure you're right to recognize them as a crank. It's not harder work because there are more hoops to jump through - it's harder work because it's a more serious and meaningful project, and one that was always central to Wikipedia. The problem with this policy is that it tries to suggest that automated attempts at policing are an acceptable substitute for that process. They're not. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:43, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Just a thought on the Derrida example: We are not working to create graduate level papers here. We're making a general encyclopedia. Numerous authors and textbooks go to great lengths to explain Hegel, Husserl, DeSousa, Derrida and other "difficult" philosophers in a fashion comprehensible to the average student. I would think for our purposes, it would be best to refer to these (over)simplified explanations first, only referring to more complex material if necessary for detailed spin-offs. Vassyana (talk) 15:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Phil Sandifer: I think your proposal is better than the present version, but might be too ambitious, given our historical inability to build consensus here. I think one less-ambitious thing we do need to address is the non-specialist provision, which is not enforced and has never been enforced in Wikipedia. Of course, it's a good idea to simplify topics as much as possible, but there is a point when further simplification is impossible. Try, for example, dumbing down universal property so that a non-specialist can verify all the citations. You might be able to dumb it down from the PhD level to the Master's level, but there is a certain underlying framework you have to assume the reader understands, for the article to even be possible. Articles like universal property cannot exist consistently with the present formulation, which is why we need a change to reflect actual practice. Jacques Derrida is in the same boat, only you have the additional complication that understandable sources are not NPOV, and NPOV sources are not understandable. COGDEN 17:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Just a comment, but there's no such thing as a NPOV source, just a NPOV presentation of the sources. Vassyana (talk) 17:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I assume he means that the understandable sources are not notable viewpoints that we should report under NPOV, and that the notable viewpoins that we should report under NPOV are not understandable. This strikes me as true about Derrida - yes, there are textbooks, but they have the same relationship to the material that a high school chemistry textbook does to chemistry. Unlike in the sciences, where there often are advanced textbooks, once you get beyond the most intro of intro classes in the humanities you generally ditch the textbooks for primary and difficult secondary sources. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:21, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

We may be talking past each other to certain degree here, or we could simply disagree. In essence, it is my opinion that main articles about philosophers and philosophies should not be presenting anything more complicated than what is presented in general introductory texts. This is a general encyclopedia and even a very long wiki article would not come close to encompassing the information and explanations of a relatively basic philosophy textbook. There should simply be no need to delve into intricacies and complex detail in the principal articles. I also feel that citing textbooks and other introductory/overview works serves an additional purpose of directing people to comprehensible sources for their own further study. While I would even question the need for "complex" sources in spin-offs (considering we are making very brief summaries for a general purpose encyclopedia project), I could accept (if not always agree with) the argument that more complex sources are needed for articles explicitly dealing with intricacies and "deep" detail. Your experience with the humanities is somewhat contrary to my own, though I must admit I am not as familiar with Derrida (with whom I am familiar only because I am very familiar with phenomenology). I know, for example, that there are bountiful texts about Husserl and Hegel geared toward the upper undergrad/lower grad level. Certainly, there is a greater expectation to study the philosophers directly starting at that level, but there are still plenty of textbooks dealing with the fine details, common misconceptions and difficult-to-grok ideas of those philosophers even geared towards that level. Just some thoughts in return. *hands out grains of salt* Vassyana (talk) 22:44, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

This SYN issue might have come up before

...but I sure couldn't find it. Consider quotations made by individual in a foreign language interview about a nom de plume. Is the translation of that text synthesis?
The article in question, Fitna was apparently directed and written by either a production company or individual using the nom de plume (or nom de guerre, if you wish) of Scarlet Pimpernel to conceal their identity. The name isn't really mentioned anywhere, but a Netherlands (Netherlander?) interview notes the name as belonging to a film production company that was given a code name, so as to prevent reprisal. All of this in a foreign language. A pretty extraordinary claim, I think and as such, it needs a pretty extraordinary reference. The only source (thus far) is this foreign-language reference, and an Imdb reference (which was struck down as per RS)The film hasn't been out very long, and I expect we will have English references soon.
In the article discussion, folk have been suggesting that we can just translate the text and use it as a citation. I have been opposing this, as translation by a primary source (wiki editors) is essentially synthesis, as the vagaries of translation leave room for interpretation. Well, they say, the reader an verify it through Google translation tools or Babelfish. I've noted that these translation tools are imperfect as well (I once tried to translate an email from a Russian friend and ended up w/what looked like stream of consciousness Beat poetry), and furthermore, we are supposed to have the material fully processed before the reader gets it. I think we should wait on a reliable, third-party translation. Am I wrong here? - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 22:50, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

• • • • You are wrong. Translation has nothing to do with synthesis. This is synthesizing:

"Synthesizing material occurs when an editor tries to demonstrate the validity of his or her own conclusions by citing sources that when put together serve to advance the editor's position. If the sources cited do not explicitly reach the same conclusion, or if the sources cited are not directly related to the subject of the article, then the editor is engaged in original research. Summarizing source material without changing its meaning is not synthesis — it is good editing."

It's quite clear. Furthermore wiki policy expressly encourages translations:

it is hoped that polyglots who work in multiple languages will help spread new information around between the articles in different languages

"English-language sources should be given whenever possible, and should always be used in preference to other language sources of equal caliber. However, do give references in other languages where appropriate."

To summarize, translations of a single source have no relationship whatsoever with Synthesis. Indeed translation in and of itself would have no relevancy to ANY synthesis question. None.75.57.165.180 (talk) 23:08, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

And there you have the other point of view. Thoughts from folk who actually hang out here? - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 23:38, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I actually hang out here. You may have read my thoughts on the Fitna talk page. Avb 00:11, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Synthesis (or OR in general) occurs when extrapolating information not evident in the source. Whether that source is in English or in a foreign language is irrelevant. Sources can be used correctly, or sources can be misused, but language or form (or whatever) do not affect anyone's ability to do either. What foreign language sources do do is limit the number of people who can check the fidelity with which the source is being represented. But that limitation isn't the fault of the source or of the editor, and is not synthesis or any other kind of OR violation. -- Fullstop (talk)

ps: Under the circumstances, the claim Arcayne mentions is not all that extraordinary and quite plausible. I'm not sure that factoid needs mentioning though.