On 2/28/06, slimvirgin@gmail.com slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/28/06, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Slim Virgin wrote
WP:V is supported by WP:NOR, a longstanding, established policy. The only way to show you're not doing OR is to produce a reliable source. If you can't produce one, your edit may be removed, because OR is never allowed.
Yes, but this doesn't override some other things, like trying to get consensus.
The editors on a page are not allowed to reach a consensus to include original research, just as they're not allowed to decide to ditch NPOV. NOR and NPOV do override consensus.
You're a bit of a hardliner. Any form of analysis or recombination of ideas, any reformulation of content is original research to some degree. If there were no original research allowed at all, then the work on Wikipedia would not be copyrightable, because copyright requires some kind of creativity.
The only way to truly forbid original research is to make everything bot-created.
As someone who's been following the development of Wikipedia policy from the beginning, the forbidding of original research is not axiomatic to Wikipedia. The ultimate reason that original research is not allowed is that it's death to consensus editing, which is axiomatic to Wikipedia (note "Wiki").
And to this note, the current Verifiability policy does not say "If you can't provide a source, your edit may be removed". It says "Editors adding new material to an article should cite a reputable source, or it may be removed by any editor."
There's no mention of asking for a source before removing content.
And this policy has only been in force for a month, and people are only now becoming aware of it (e.g. I just learned about it) -- so it's no surprised that it's not being abused yet.
Let's fix things before they become a problem.
I trust your goals, respect your perspective, and honor your opinions. I think we can work together on this.