Wikipedia talk:NPOV, V and OR

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Contents 1 Original introduction to WT:No original research/history 2 Page created (2003) 3 March 2005 revisions 4 Rest of 2005 5 April 2006-December 2007 6 Restatement of "Primary source" (PSTS) history 7 Original introduction to WT:NPOV, V and OR 8 Status 9 Requested move 9.1 New proposition: Origins of the core policies 10 Status and page name

[edit] Original introduction to WT:No original research/history

This page is a chronological log of significant changes to WP:NOR with additional description. It is intended to describe the history and evolution of the policy over time, to better facilitate discussions and references to old versions. It may be viewed as a concise and selective index to the edit history of WP:NOR and NOR talk.

This page is currently (12/22) still in draft mode.

[edit] Page created (2003)

• 2003/12/21 Page created by Tarquin (first edit; diff; minor edit; stable thru 2/6
• 20034/2/7 - Scientific theory & crackpot info added (diff)
• 2004/2/13 Edits by Reddi introduce "Wikipedia is not a primary source" (diff)
• 2004/2/13-2004/9/14 - Minor edits ([1])
• 2004/9/14 Minor changes (diff)
• 2004/9/22 Chalst added "what is research" section (url, diff) diff)
• 2004/10/07 UninvitedCompany added "official policy category" (diff)
• 2005/1/6 Fleshing out examples & cleaning up text diff)
• 2005/2/17 Insertion & removal of paragraph about adding facts discoverable by an ordinary person (diff)

[edit] March 2005 revisions

• 2005/3/8 Significant revision (url) begun with edits by Slrubenstein (diff) based on "draft revision". Further edits thru 3/10 follow (diff 2/17-3/10) (Slrubenstein, SlimVirgin, Paul August, ChrisG). Edits include
  • Addition of statement, ""Original research" refers to original research by editors of Wikipedia; it does not refer to original research that is published or available elsewhere."
  • Definition of "original research" as including data and "any new interpretation, analysis, or synthesis"
  • "Original research ... produces primary or secondary sources"; defines primary & secondary
  • Defines articles that would acceptably be based entirely on primary sources (e.g., apple pie or Current events)
  • Articles usually use both PS & SS; PS should be have been published or made available; syntheses should come from SS that are available.
  • Viewpoint controversies should be addressed
  • proposing ideas is OR; content is acceptable if it has "become a permanent feature of the public landscape", e.g., "accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal" or "have become newsworthy ... have been independently reported in newspapers or news stories"
  • Publish your great ideas elsewhere first
  • List of examples for sorts of things that are okay
  • How to handle theories
  • Describing "Cite sources" policy
  • Describing what counts as a reputable publication
  • Describing "Verifiability"
  • Describing "NPOV"
  • Origins - Jimbo Wales quotes

[edit] Rest of 2005

• 3/10 - 6/2/2005 (diff) - More rewriting of primary source/secondary source; added note about talk pages
• 6/2 - 9/29/2005 - significant edits throughout policy (diff) - need description & possibly breakdown
• 9/29-12/31/2005 - significant edits including addition of "original images" section (diff) - need description & possibly breakdown
• 12/31/2005 - 1/5/2006 - minor edits (diff 12/31-1/5; diff 1/5-1/5)* 1/5/2006 - 3/31/2006 - (diff)
  • added nutshell ("Articles may not contain any unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, or ideas; or any new analysis or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts, arguments, or ideas.");
  • copy-editing & futzing with Primary/Secondary section
  • re-write of motivation section ("why do we exclude original research");
  • changes "it introduces a synthesis of established facts in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing the synthesis to a reputable source." to "it introduces an analysis or synthesis of established facts, ideas, opinions, or arguments in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing the analysis or synthesis to a reputable source;"

[edit] April 2006-December 2007

This section includes a lot of policy churn; these are just very short sign-post diffs but do not mark particularly significant changes, yet.

• April significant revisions (diff)
• May - Aug 2006 revisions; significant; edit-warring; led to page protection (diff)
• 8/23-9/18 edits (diff 8/23-9/18 diff 9/18)
• 9/18-12/31/2006 edits (diff)
• 12/31/2006 - 3/28/2007 - more edits, more page protection, disputes over page protection - diff 12/31/2006-3/31/2007 * 3/28 - 8/23/2007 - 190 more edits & more disputes (diff)
• 8/23 protected again (diff)
• 8/23 - 9/30; protection on again, off again; 79 edits (diff)
• 9/30-12/22 - 322 edits (diff) - more edits wars over PSTS; edits on "Sources"; removal of "Origins" and "Other options" sections; significant editing of basic statement & nutshell

[edit] Restatement of "Primary source" (PSTS) history

Description by Blueboar taken from Talk:NOR (url):

I think part of the problem is that the section has taken on a life of its own. If you go through the history, it started when the phrase: "Wikipeida is not a primary source" was added. Soon afterwards, a (very short) definition was added to explain what a "primary source" was... followed by a definition of "secondary source" to show what Wikipedia should be. As time went on, the definitions became longer and longer. What started as a short sentence in the lead, soon became a section in its own right. Somewhere along the line, however, the phrase that started it all got lost. Someone cut the line "Wikipedia is not a primary source". From that moment on, we lost the entire reason why we were explaining the terms primary and secondary in the context of this policy.

However, the text remained useful as a policy statement in other ways. It was handy to have what amounted to a "primary sources are bad (not forbidden, but strongly cautioned against)" statement in a core policy... even if it did not directly relate to the policy itself. So, bit by bit, the definition wording was shifted from talking about what Wikipedia should not be, to talking about what types of sources we should use. Unfortunately, we now are at the state where the section is useful, but is so divorced from its original intent that people are wondering why it is there in the first place and no longer think it belongs in the policy.

Thus we are faced with several options... do we 1) break off a useful, but unrelated, policy statement into a new policy or guideline? 2) rework the discussion of primary and secondary sources so that it is referring to Wikipedia itself and not the sources we are using within wikipedia (ie return to the original intent of including the definitions)? 3) a combination of both?... or 4) none of the above. Personally, I would opt for number 3. I think PSTS should be policy... I just don't see it as being part of this policy. However, If we return to the concept of "Wikipedia should not be a primary source" then I can see a reworded section to explain what that means. Blueboar (talk) 02:16, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Original introduction to WT:NPOV, V and OR

Page created to remove essay-like content from WP:OR that is common to (but not really needed in) all 3 core policy pages. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:20, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Status

This page has very little activity. It also has no categories. In the interests of pigeonholing (another example of which is being discussed heavily at WP:A), what is its status?

• Policy: it used to be in WP:OR last year.
• Guideline: it doesn't really have strict rules.
• Proposal: removing it from WP:OR happened without much if any discussion.
• Essay: it's essay-like per FT2.
• Historical: it's actually old content and may become superseded as the other policies evolve.
• Other: it's currently uncategorized having its own uniquely worded "notice" template.
• Merge candidate: it might well go into, say, Wikipedia:Key policies and guidelines.
• Userfication candidate: it reads like User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles.

I would favor "guideline" at first glance. I'm going to add the "proposed" template boldly just to get conversation started. I would also move this page to the title WP:Neutrality, verifiability, and nonoriginality. JJB 20:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Come on, this content is not needed. This page was created because it was not needed. The non-historical part is short and repeats in many other policies/guidelines/essays. And the rest deals with history, so... "historical"? :)) --Kubanczyk (talk) 19:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Status and page name

As you can see from the above, three editors favored a new name, one favored the old name, and one merely objected to an alleged neologism in one of the new names. Since the three editors did not agree on what the new name should be, in Wikiland that is translated as "no consensus default unmoved". Oh well. Let me reopen the two points that did not get answered by consensus:

1. What is its status? I said "proposed" or "guideline", Kubanczyk changed to "historical", B.Wind hinted support for "historical", and DoubleBlue reverted all to "other" (a unique infobox). I must agree with DoubleBlue: "removing historical tag, it is an information page that is still current, not out-of-date". "Historical", per the template (with grammar I just fixed), means instead "This Wikipedia page is currently inactive .... Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus has become unclear." But I objected to an unpigeonholed unique "other" status because such an exception should have consensus. So I'll try "supplement" (not on the list above) per WP:BRD instead.
2. Avoiding cryptic gibberish ... seems obvious. The only person to comment on this agreed with it. Since there was no consensus to retain the old name, I think Wikipedia:Origins of the core policies makes perfect sense. As to objections:
   • If cryptic gibberish is a true concern (as I believe), "move is not necessary" is falsified.
   • "Will add to confusion"? WP moves actually are net reducers of confusion. If you're confused by the short name, when you are redirected to the long name you will begin to understand what the short name refers to. If you're confused by the redirect having a different name, you would've been confused by any redirect anyway and the move will not change that.
   • "Will reduce access"? It increases the sphere of access to include an additional name, because redirects are transparent. People can still link to it by the familiar name, or any shortcuts we establish.
   • In sum, the objections seem to be boilerplate objections applicable to any move, already answered by MediaWiki software.
   • I suspect "leave the historical archive alone" refers to unstated fears of some form of destabilization. I submit that an uncategorized page is inherently unstable and my actions are stabilizing it by establishing consensus.

Incidentally, the side issue of a merge was very straightforward, so I went ahead with it. I'll wait a bit before listing this at requested moves again, but I think Kubanczyk has made the correct move target just as obvious as the need to move. JJB 14:58, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Yup. "Let sleeping dog lie" is perfect for paper documents or static www pages. Since this is an ever-evolving wiki environment, I see no sleeping dog here. I see a name that is: imprecise, misleading, and cryptic at the same time. Probably it was created in a hurry, and now there is time to fix the issue. --Kubanczyk (talk) 20:12, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with a move to WP:Origins of the core policies, though it's really only concerning the content policies. I also see little wrong with the title NPOV, V and OR (though NPOV, V, and NOR is actually better). I do have a problem with calling it an essay. It is a page that documents some of the background and development history of these policies. It is neither advice nor opinions of contributors; it is a supplemental information page. DoubleBlue (Talk) 20:59, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys. At some point I'll review the list of items currently tagged as "supplement" to see if stronger template wording makes sense. JJB 14:10, 11 June 2008 (UTC)