On Sat, Jan 03, 2009 at 07:07:37PM -0500, WJhonson(a)aol.com wrote:
Our policy was fashioned in a deliberate way to
prevent the use of primary
sources where there is no secondary source mention.
That was deliberate.
We have always permitted the use of academic research articles published
in peer-reviewed journals. These are crucial both for the results they
contain and for their link to the historical record. The difficulty is
that these sources have to be considered "secondary sources" in order to
mesh our best practices with the literal wording of NOR. But many people
like to consider them "primary sources".
The idea that these sources should be avoided entirely would simply be
silly. The idea that it's better to avoid primary sources entirely is more
applicable when "primary source" means "blog post".
But as long as we try to treat
* Inventiones Mathematicae
* Being and Time
*
drudgereport.com
as the same type of "primary source", we're doomed to an incoherent policy.
- Carl