Gregory Maxwell (gmaxwell@gmail.com) [050519 14:43]:
On 5/18/05, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
In my experience, it is far more often ignored because an editor wants to draw some original conclusions about something, and is unaware of the policy, unable to comprehend it, or simply doesn't care. Currently the risk that Wikipedia will be damaged by "blindly following" the NOR policy is far less than the risk that it will be damaged by *not* following it.
We have entire areas of study which would be exceptionally difficult to document if we were strictly adhering to a no original research policy. For example our articles on Free Software related subject often contain information sourced from mailing lists and form the editors experience, sources which would not normally be acceptable under the normal application of the original research standard.
For the subject, mailing list posts are probably entirely appropriate reference material. Check [[X Window System]], particularly the "X.Org and XFree86" section - you can be sure I'd have had lynch mobs after me if I hadn't referenced clause by clause.
Deciding what may be accepted as research is as difficult a problem as determine what is notable.
That's why we use a thing called "editorial judgement." Not everything can be Taylorised.
I really don't see any reason to let people get away with "referencing is haaaaard." It's work - I've written three-paragraph articles then had to hunt around for references so people can immediately see I'm not just making it up off the top of my head - but so are a lot of worthwhile things.
As [[WP:CITE]] puts it: "This applies even when the information is currently undisputed - even if there is no dispute right now, someone might come along in five years and want to dispute, verify, or learn more about a topic."
As [[Wikipedia:Verifiability]] (that thing I keep citing on VFD) puts it: "Fact checking is time consuming, economically costly, and not particularly rewarding. It is unfair to make later editors dig for sources."
When people come onto IRC saying "my article was deleted!" my standard advice is: write three decent paragraphs with two references and it'll stay. In fact, three paras, two refs and standard formatting will gladden the heart of whatever pool soul encounters it on Special:Newpages patrol.
Doing it right is *not that hard*, and I find all arguments I've seen to the contrary utterly unconvincing.
- d.