Ray Saintonge wrote:
Ray - Jay is correct in his description of original research. His point is simply that deduction (that is, drawing a conclusion from a set of premises) should not be used by editors to make a point not already made in a credible publication.
This sounds like an argument for the commandment, "Thou shalt not think."
When it comes to Wikipedia, that's a pretty good commandment. Original thinking on matters of content is beyond the scope of the encyclopedia---we're here just to summarize the thinking that's already been done. We're also particularly ill-equipped to judge novel thinking. If you make a novel historical argument, citing dozens of sources in the process, you should submit it to a history journal to be peer-reviewed, not to us.
-Mark