On Wed, 21 Mar 2007, Jimmy Wales wrote:
"In
2002 the owners of the Mega Society, a high IQ society, filed suit
against Langan and his wife, Gina LoSasso, for unauthorized use of the
society's trademarks and trade names.[29][30][31]"
This is original research?
Yes. To my knowledge, this has never been written up
in any newspaper,
magazine, or book. It was discovered by reading websites that I think
we would all agree are not themselves reliable sources and by
referencing official court documents. The case, what happened in it,
the outcome, are all matters of interpretation involving original
research
I do not agree that stating that A sued B, when you have a court document
stating that A sued B, is a "matter of interpretation involving original
research." In fact, I find this to be quite strange.
You can argue that it's a notability problem if the only source is the court
document, but poor notability is not original research.
It is, in a way; it implies the conclusion that the obscure material
we discuss and cite is significant, and when no secondary source
touches on this point, there may well be good reasons for that.
It's the problem with so many of our articles - someone comes along
and adds a "controversy" section on the one thing they care about, and
cites it and tidies it, and in the end you have a stub saying
"MegaCorp is a global multinational financial services industry with a
twelve billion dollar turnover. [Three pages on How Their Director Had
A Sexual Harrassment Lawsuit Filed]" All accurate and all, but giving
a very wrong impression when viewed holistically.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk