----- Original Message ----- From: "Jimmy Wales" jwales@bomis.com To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 11:03 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Primary sources (was: Clearer policy on self-writtenand obscure biographies)
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
How can you say that Wikipedia is not a primary source?
[...]
I want Wikipedia to become MORE authoritative, not less.
The best way for Wikipedia to become more authoritative is to steadfastly refuse to be a primary source. A primary source isn't primary because it's authoritative, it's primary because it is the first or original source for something. Primary sources can be unreliable, reliable, biased, whatever.
There's no shame in being a secondary source, and secondary sources is where the authority business gets really strong and interesting. :-)
For us, as a social culture, avoiding the idea of being a primary source helps us to resolve some otherwise impossible dilemmas. Do we publish quack physics theories? No, because we are not a place for original research.
--Jimbo
One point of view (Ed's) could be seen as thesis, the other (Jimbo's et.al.) as antithesis.
We might be ready for the synthesis: Wikipedia (just like any printed encyclopaedia) is not the place to publish one's original research. But it certainly does not do any harm (rather the opposite I'd guess) if people who in real life carry out research themselves also contribute to Wikipedia about topics related to their own field: They are usually educated, principled, intellectual, and trying not to appear biased, and I think Wikipedia should try to attract them.
Kurt (aka KF)