* Delirium wrote:
I strongly disagree with that, and think this comes out of an unfortunately widespread view that non-scientific research isn't "really" research.
You apparently weren't understanding me... because I don't think that at all. Research is research... in any field.
If you discover some new primary sources relating to his life that have not been mentioned in the existing secondary sources, that constitutes original historical research, and you should publish it in a history journal or book, or at the very least convince someone to write a newspaper article about it, before it should go into Wikipedia.
I made precisely the same argument in the post which you "strongly disagree" with. Wikipedia should not be promoting information that has not already been widely distributed in professional commentary.
The distinction I was drawing is that if a primary source is NOT 'newly discovered' and HAS been 'mentioned in the existing secondary sources' then we should not be banning citation of it. To take your Jefferson example... if we are quoting the contents of the Declaration of Independence we should CITE the Declaration of Independence... even though it is a 'primary source'. It isn't 'new' information and it has definitely been established as 'notable' by secondary sources. Any interpretation of meaning or intent should be left to secondary sources, but if we are simply quoting content then it should go directly to the original.
Citing primary sources is not, by itself, 'original research'... it only becomes such when the primary sources haven't previously been deemed noteworthy and Wikipedia would thus be putting itself in the position of 'arbiter of truth and relevance' rather than 'recorder of things deemed notable by neutral observers in the field'.