[WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[Matthew Brown]

On 4/2/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
> I chose the word "interpretation" for a reason. Sorry if I didn't make this
> clear earlier, but I'm not debating the Top Gear case at all - truth be
> told, I forgot that that was the original topic in the first place. I'm
> speaking in general terms about policy, because it seems to me that Phil is
> advocating a view of policy that permits primary sources even where
> secondary sources don't exist.

We have never, AFAIK, said that primary sources are forbidden when
secondary sources do not exist. It's possible that policy has been
rewritten to say that at points (maybe even right now) but I'd submit
that that does not reflect consensus (and is a symptom of the fact
that we erroneously allow policy to be rewritten outside of
consensus).

We do say that we are prohibited from drawing original conclusions
from primary sources; thus, if primary sources are all an article has,
there are many restrictions on what that article can say.  It's
possible that in many cases that means the article can never be beyond
a stub.  Sometimes, that may mean an article can't exist, but in many
cases, having a solid stub is a good thing.

-Matt