[WikiEN-l] Using Wikipedia to out pseudonymous Erwin James, Guardian writ...

[Oldak Quill]

2009/4/24  <WJhonson at aol.com>:
>
> In a message dated 4/23/2009 7:14:17 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> oldakquill at gmail.com writes:
>
> At the  time, the basis of identifying
> him was putting known facts about the  pseudonymous author (date of
> imprisonment, French Foreign Legion  membership), against an old
> newspaper article containing similar details  about a named man who had
> committed a crime. Since no independent  connection had been made
> between the pseudonym and his legal name, it did  constitute original
> research. It is only now that Erwin James has  identified himself in a
> national newspaper that it no longer constitutes  original research.>>
>
>
>
> --------------------------
>
> Using sources to establish things of this sort, is not the creation of a
> source.
> Original research involves the creation of a source, not already  present.
>
> Connecting the dots, using sources, *can be* but is not necessarily
> original research.
> From the way you described this so far, I do not see how this could be
> considered original research.  He has already opened the door by  establishing
> facts about himself in a secondary source, and therefore, we can  use
> primary sources to back up or clarify those secondary mentions.
>
> That is the nature of source-based research using primary sources.  If  we
> were to establish something like this as original research, that would
> essentially prevent the use of primary sources entirely.  We deliberately
> crafted the OR policy to allow the use of observation in primary sources.
>
> There is no analysis being done here.  Merely placing two known facts
> side-by-side and stating that they are the same fact.  That is not  analysis.
>
> We do not need a source to say the Sun is hot.  Everybody can observe  that
> for themselves.  Just as anyone can read an old newspaper themselves
> without the need for something to explain the connection to them.

I generally agree with your point, in this case. In this case,
however, two self-identified facts about the pseudonymous author were
used to discover his identity: his year of imprisonment and his
membership of the French Foreign Legion. Using these two facts,
newspaper articles for that year were looked at for someone who had
been imprisoned and who was a member of the French Foreign Legion. On
the basis of an article which did match these terms, the pseudonymous
author was identified as the person detailed in an old newspaper
article. What if there had been more than one person imprisoned that
year who had been a member of the French Foreign Legion? This is not
inconceivable, since many people are imprisoned every year, and it is
possible that they may have been members of the Legion. If so, what if
the person identified was the wrong person? If the wrong person had
been identified, what you claim to be valid research would have
produced incorrect claims.

-- 
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)