On 12/20/06, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
- Sarah points out the following text from WP:NOR : "anyone--without specialist knowledge--who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source."
That seems to be broken. Examples of specialist knowledge which might be required are the ability to read a foreign language and the ability to understand mathematical notation.
Someone who can read music should be able to report from a musical score that it is in E-flat, even though that requires specialist knowledge. What the policy *should* require (somehow) is that anyone who can read music will agree that the score is in E-flat. The fundamental skills of the field should be assumed, and the policy should reflect that, imo.
In all seriousness, I think the policy should be that any special knowledge needed to understand the article should be included somewhere in Wikipedia. For example, the above knowledge is included at [[key signature]] and at [[E-flat major]].
Thus if the example article read
"The [[key (music)|key]] of the score is [[E-flat major]]<ref>[link to score]</ref>..."
Any person with the knowledge contained at those links would be able to understand the reference.