Jeff Raymond wrote:
Ken Arromdee wrote:
Well, a common, similar, case is popular culture articles in general, but most of them have a loophole: a movie, book, etc. is itself a source for its own content. Using a pinball machine in a similar way is, of course, original research, but it's also an excellent example of how Ignore All Rules applies to anything, even original research.
The difference is that a book/album/movie is published in a way that observing a machine isn't.
The answer, of course, is to adjust the original research policy to allow for such reasonable situations, not simply rely on IAR to muddle through.
Or better still allow more room for flexibility in the application of NOR. Simply adjusting the policy serves only to shift the battle lines. Inittially the policy dealt with some serious originality in the writing. Since then it has become almost as though to say that anything where the sourcing is not perfectly nailed down must be original research. Sometimes this leaves the impression that sourced falacy is preferable to unsourced facts.
There are some subject areas where stricter rules are needed, such as living persons, but generally we need to avoid having practice driven by the reckless minority.
Ec