Wikipedia talk:No original research

Open science

Is referring to open science considered as original research? --PJ Geest (talk) 11:02, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

WP:PRIMARY is abused and out of control

In the past few days I have been running across editors who arrive on a page and seek to delete content based solely upon WP:PRIMARY. They will state that the New York Times or wsj is a primary source, etc. Then they will use this justification to delete sections, or call an overall article into question.

Example: An editor sought to section blank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum#Implementations because he/she said it wasn't properly cited. Then a revert war started and the page ended up marked up with citation problems for non-primary sources, etc. A healthy discussion started on the talk page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ethereum#Sources and eventually the matter was closed.

Is the standard that everything that is included on wikipedia to be the secondary sources, only allowing cases when the NYT reviews an article written in the WSJ?... is the bar we are going to hold for inclusion of content? I argue this is taking it too far. I understand and agree with the premise of sources, but it has gotten out of control in the past couple of years. Yes, it is fully needed in WP:MEDRS and in cases of debunking. Maybe the editors and admins can think of adding some more clear guidance to primary sources, and clearly state that third party reporting by large news organizations is different from a witness who reports seeing something on the street. A strict reading on WP:PRIMARY is detrimental to the overall purpose of wikipedia to accurately describe everything， because everything would never have secondary sources. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 05:05, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

So if the NY Times reports that the temperature in New York City reached 64 degrees on April 1 that can't be cited in a Wikipedia article until some other source corroborates the value? OK, so it's not the NY Times, it's a weather web service. Same thing: what they provide is always primary material. The same holds for a primary scientific article. There is always reason for a degree of skepticism but that doesn't seem to demote the majority of scientific publication to being regarded as too unreliable to cite. If it is so unreliable there's a huge problem because within science such citation - without waiting for secondary source corroboration - is routine. (Is necessary, or the progress of knowledge would be much slower.) Well, sure, I can understand the concept that a few Wikipedia editors know better than the entire scientific community but golly: I don't think there's a single source of any category (primary, secondary, or tertiary) I can cite as evidence of that concept being valid.

I was taught that the experimental section of a journal article was likely to be accurate, the analysis not so much so. It seems that some insist that what is published as the result of research by someone isn't as reliable as a secondary source. I'm aware that every few years it comes out that an author intentionally deceived in describing an experiment and its results. That's an incredibly minute portion of what is published. The policy seems to say that primary sources describing experiments can't be cited but the problem is that if a second researcher does the same experiment and gets the same results that very often results in no publication, there being no reason to publish. It's only the cases in which the second researcher cannot duplicate the results that something is published. (I can't help suspecting that the policy is targeted at history and social science material, not physical science material, but as worded it hits all with the same force. That is unfortunate.)

I see objections now very much like the objections I saw seven years ago, when I participated more vigorously in this discussion. I predicted then that the same objections would continue to be raised. There is very ardent enforcement and insistence upon of a very badly constructed policy. There are reliable and unreliable primary sources, there are reliable and unreliable secondary sources. Even if some statistical statement can be made about primary and secondary sources as a whole it is a misuse of statistics to judge individual sources on the basis of broad categorization of all sources of that type unless a category is either 0% reliable or 100% reliable, which neither category is. The standard has to be care in selection and interpretation of sources (with interpretation being very limited, naturally) and a good dose of wisdom. I can foresee that this policy will never be shortened to "use wisdom" but it wouldn't be bad for that to be the general philosophy. Add detail and exposition as needed - but respect wisdom. Minasbeede (talk) 19:39, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

@Minasbeede: The policy does not say that primary sources can't be cited; quite the opposite: (1) Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are appropriate in any given instance is a matter of good editorial judgment and common sense, and should be discussed on article talk pages. (2) ... primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia; but only with care. Secondary sources are required to judge notability and avoid synthetic interpretation of primary sources. But primary sources are certainly appropriate in many instances, as in the case of peer-reviewed scientific primary literature—and note again that, generally, scientific and other academic articles are typically secondary sources as well, depending on what claim you're citing, since they will almost always refer back to the extant literature. —Nizolan ^(talk) 02:46, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I think the problem does not lie with the policy but, as Minasbeede states, the abuse of the policy to change article content. The problem is that too few Wikipedia editors show sufficient wisdom; but I am not sure that a change in policy can enforce wisdom. Arnoutf (talk) 11:57, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree it can be abused, but yeah, that's not going to change by changing the policy. The policy as it stands is fine. It seemed to me that Minasbeede was taking the policy itself to sanction that kind of action, which it doesn't. —Nizolan ^(talk) 17:32, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I note Jtbobwaysf inadvertently failed to notify anyone at Talk:Ethereum of the attempt here to influence the discussion there. After a blatant recruitment on Reddit, Ethereum has suffered a tremendous influx of editors who have a COI - either a strong financial position in ETH, or (in one case) an Ethereum Foundation board member editing while COI without notification, even after having the WMF TOS pointed out to them. So we have a financially-motivated group of advocates on the article, including a series of personal attacks on me on the talk page (which Jtbobwaysf has been participating in). So, more eyes on the article and the talk page would be most welcomed, particularly in relation to sourcing - David Gerard (talk) 21:59, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Use of primary sources and secondary sources.

Just recently on the on-going article 2016 Stanley Cup playoffs, there has been an edit war between me and another editor on the use of primary sources being used to reference the general recaps of each individual series. The other editor's argument being that an article cannot have a majority of primary sources, but the policy (or guideline...?) says that an article should be based on secondary sources. Now this article is mostly fact-based, with the primary source being the most reliable in telling game recaps, but I do agree that this article should not be based entirely off the primary source.

My edits are the series recaps: New York-Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay-Detroit, Los Angeles-San Jose, etc. Of which I supply the game recap references to each individual game, with a paraphrased sentence that precedes the reference. This is not an interpretation of the events that happened, it is almost a direct word-for-word. The primary source being NHL.com.

Can an article be based with a majority of primary sources?Conyo14 (talk) 07:20, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

First, we use NHL.com a lot in our other Hockey playoff related articles (for example, see:2015 Stanley Cup playoffs) so I see no problem using it in a similar way in this one.

That said... NHL.com contains both primary statistics and secondary reporting on the games. Using the raw statistics to create a game recap would be OR... Citing the reporting to support a game recap is not. Blueboar (talk) 11:34, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Gregorian centuries, routine calculations, and WP:SYNTH

This section is motivated by a disagreement at the List of oldest living people regarding the presentation of Emma Morano as the last known living person from the 1800s. The fact is cited, and gives every indication of being true. However, it is trivially easy to find sources that refer to her as being the last living person from the nineteenth century,[1] yet it would clearly be in violation of Wikipedia's standards to declare that nakedly since it would not be true as could be verified by a routine calculation, regardless of the existence of sources. The underlying problem is that many journalists are ignorant of the fact that 1800s ≠ nineteenth century (and so with other centuries), and thus participate in a proliferation of confusion. I would like to add a sentence of clarification that Morano is not the last known living person from the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a citation for this outside of web forums,[2] which may violate WP:SOURCES, although I probably will once she and one of Violet Brown or Nabi Tajima are deceased, so this entire matter may be better left to WP:NORUSH. However, we would then be waiting around for people to die in order to create situations which allow for nonconfusing wording as filtered through low-quality journalism, and we would be failing to settle the matter for similar cases.

I propose, since the misunderstanding of start and end years of centuries is so widespread in journalist sources yet entirely settled by the relevant authorities, that clarifications as to this matter be made explicit exceptions to WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, perhaps under "routine calculations" and in WP:What SYNTH is not. In other words, if a claim as to the first or last of anything in a given nth century or '00s exists on Wikipedia, that it always be understood NOT to be in violation of either policy to clarify that that claim is different from the first or last of anything in a given '00s or nth century, respectively. 0nlyth3truth (talk) 17:16, 16 May 2016 (UTC)