On 4/7/08, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
An article that provides that for people is a really useful resource. An article that offers a Wikpedian's original research isn't, even if happens to be accurate.
Well, it's still useful. The problem with an article that offers accurate original research is that it's not presenting a NPOV perspective. Our articles shouldn't say what "is" about the world - they should provide attributed accounts of the important accounts of the world. Which, to say again (and hopefully this time it will stick and people will stop responding to claims I'm not making), we strive to provide accurate information, but the only information we strive to provide is accounts of what other people think.
It's not just a question of failing NPOV. An article full of OR fails on every level.
We were discussing Kant's [[Critique of Pure Reason]] on WT:NOT. It's pure OR. Only one secondary source cited for one small point. Otherwise, it's a Wikipedian's (or several Wikipedians') understanding of Kant, apparently based only on their reading of the Critique itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Pure_Reason
Most of it is probably right, but because it's OR, it's close to useless. Someone knowing nothing about Kant will be mystified, and there's no attempt to make it even a little clear for someone at that level. Someone knowing a little about Kant is left not knowing how to find out more, or how to find out whether the WP article is an accepted interpretation. Someone who knows a lot will have no interest, because there's no complexity.
There's no context, no history, no understanding shown of why Kant felt the need to write it, no information about its reception or its influence. No information about what the key points are, and how different people have interpreted them, and why those are the key points, and who the key people are.
As accurate as it might be, it fails in its mission to be educative.
Sarah