From: jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@wikipedia.org Message-ID: 6a8d9d700612180823s701590f2pcfe4bd97a2938ac6@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
On 12/17/06, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/17/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/17/06, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
Of course that's ok. Original research in that scenario would
be to
say "the consensus among legal scholars is A, but they haven't considered C, and therefore D is the correct position."
Original research is about posing new theories, or making new inferences, or drawing new conclusions that are your own
opinions and
involve some element of analysis or synthesis. Fundamentally,
original
research is introducing your own original thought into
articles.
And, of course, drawing your own conclusions and stating that
there is
a "legal consensus" on this matter, based on your own research
into
what various legal scholars have said, is a prime example of
original
research. Quote the scholars, list their names, state that there
are a
number of them, but don't introduce your own original thought
that
these selected sources have created a "legal consensus".
I was speaking to the particular example given, where there are two popular positions on the subject held by lay people, while all
expert
accounts support only one of those positions. In this context,
where
all experts who have written on the subject have agreed with the
same
position, surely it is not original research to say so.
On the contrary, it surely is. All of the people that this particular investigator has found, and consider to be legal experts, have one view, so it's fine to state something like "Legal experts have stated Y", with a series of footnotes. However, one cannot go from that step to stating "All legal experts believe that Y", since we have no idea what *all* legal experts believe, only the statements of the ones we happen to have surveyed. Even worse would be an insistence that we must conclude that "the law is Y", since the law is complicated, malleable, and context specific, and one often has no idea which way a judge, panel of judges, or jury will rule.
I'm happy that my question provoked some useful discussion.
"All legal experts believe that Y" would clearly be wrong, as it isn't even verifiable.
On the other hand, even though "Legal experts have stated that Y [cite][cite]" is clearly valid, it doesn't properly convey what the sources indicate. There ought to be some way to record that a standard legal database did not provide ANY contrary opinions. Given how much lawyers love to argue with each other, this is a highly unusual situation.
Perhaps there is another useful way to look at it: consider the legal database to be "the" source, rather than a collection of sources. Can I say something like "Legal opinions found in the LawIsUs database uniformly favor Y"? (The wording may need tweaking.)
Zero.
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On 12/19/06, zero 0000 nought_0000@yahoo.com wrote:
On the other hand, even though "Legal experts have stated that Y [cite][cite]" is clearly valid, it doesn't properly convey what the sources indicate. There ought to be some way to record that a standard legal database did not provide ANY contrary opinions. Given how much lawyers love to argue with each other, this is a highly unusual situation.
I think a better way to handle some of these issues is to accept that straying into the grey area of OR is unavoidable, so let's come up with good ways to do it. "The consensus of academic opinion in X database appears to indicate that" is better than "The consensus of academic opinion in X database is that", for example.
"Appears that", "is probably" etc are key words that indicate to the reader that the interpreter is us, and therefore not very reliable. We have a similar situation when we need to indicate that *we* (the nameless, voiceless writer) don't actually know something: "Whether there are other species with these characteristics is not known" can be a bit ambiguous (who doesn't know it - scientists, or us, the laypeople).
Steve
On 12/18/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/19/06, zero 0000 nought_0000@yahoo.com wrote:
On the other hand, even though "Legal experts have stated that Y [cite][cite]" is clearly valid, it doesn't properly convey what the sources indicate. There ought to be some way to record that a standard legal database did not provide ANY contrary opinions. Given how much lawyers love to argue with each other, this is a highly unusual situation.
I think a better way to handle some of these issues is to accept that straying into the grey area of OR is unavoidable, so let's come up with good ways to do it. "The consensus of academic opinion in X database appears to indicate that" is better than "The consensus of academic opinion in X database is that", for example.
"Appears that", "is probably" etc are key words that indicate to the reader that the interpreter is us, and therefore not very reliable. We have a similar situation when we need to indicate that *we* (the nameless, voiceless writer) don't actually know something: "Whether there are other species with these characteristics is not known" can be a bit ambiguous (who doesn't know it - scientists, or us, the laypeople).
Actually, that's making things worse; we're now using weasel words ("appears that", "probably is") to cover our original research ("the consensus is"). If we only have primary sources, then we say what the primary sources say. If we have a secondary source that says "the consensus of legal opinion is", then great. If not, then *we* cannot become that secondary source that draws that conclusion, partly because we're not experts in this field, but mostly because it's original research. Remember, the second you say "the consensus is", you need to be able to state exactly who considers there to be a "consensus". Otherwise you are "introducing an analysis or synthesis of established facts, ideas, opinions, or arguments in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing that analysis or synthesis to a reputable source."
Jay.
On 12/18/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
If we only have primary sources, then we say what the primary sources say. If we have a secondary source that says "the consensus of legal opinion is", then great. If not, then *we* cannot become that secondary source that draws that conclusion ..."
That's exactly right. Wikipedia cannot become the secondary source.
Sarah
On 12/19/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, that's making things worse; we're now using weasel words ("appears that", "probably is") to cover our original research ("the consensus is"). If we only have primary sources, then we say what the primary sources say. If we have a secondary source that says "the consensus of legal opinion is", then great. If not, then *we* cannot become that secondary source that draws that conclusion, partly because we're not experts in this field, but mostly because it's original research. Remember, the second you say "the consensus is", you need to be able to state exactly who considers there to be a "consensus". Otherwise you are "introducing an analysis or synthesis of established facts, ideas, opinions, or arguments in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing that analysis or synthesis to a reputable source."
Are you trying to define the pinnacle of perfection that every article should strive for but ultimately very few will achieve? I'm trying to find a workable compromise that will reduce the worst problems of OR and alert the reader to weaknesses in the article.
There's a hard line and a soft line on a lot of this stuff. Pick a random article on Wikipedia. Does it meet WP:V? Probably not. Do you rip it to shreds, moving all material to the talk page pending sources? Or do you use common sense and only remove material for which lack of sources is going to be harmful to someone?
If we actually have the tertiary source that tells us that there is consensus among secondary sources, then great, we'll obviously cite it. But if we don't, we're doing our readers a disservice by avoiding any mention of the general trend that we've found in our research. By contrast, we help our readers if we can convey "It looks to us that most researchers agree with X, but don't take our word for it".
Steve
On 12/19/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/19/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, that's making things worse; we're now using weasel words ("appears that", "probably is") to cover our original research ("the consensus is"). If we only have primary sources, then we say what the primary sources say. If we have a secondary source that says "the consensus of legal opinion is", then great. If not, then *we* cannot become that secondary source that draws that conclusion, partly because we're not experts in this field, but mostly because it's original research. Remember, the second you say "the consensus is", you need to be able to state exactly who considers there to be a "consensus". Otherwise you are "introducing an analysis or synthesis of established facts, ideas, opinions, or arguments in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing that analysis or synthesis to a reputable source."
Are you trying to define the pinnacle of perfection that every article should strive for but ultimately very few will achieve? I'm trying to find a workable compromise that will reduce the worst problems of OR and alert the reader to weaknesses in the article.
If we actually have the tertiary source that tells us that there is consensus among secondary sources, then great, we'll obviously cite it. But if we don't, we're doing our readers a disservice by avoiding any mention of the general trend that we've found in our research. By contrast, we help our readers if we can convey "It looks to us that most researchers agree with X, but don't take our word for it".
Steve, it's not a question of reaching for the "pinnacle of perfection." It isn't difficult to write articles that conform to the content policies. The articles are better for it too, and of more use to the reader, who can check whether we've used decent sources and whether we've been true to them. That's of more use than an anonymous Wikipedian adding his own opinion based on his own studies that may be correct or may be nonsense. Even very occasional editors are coming to see the importance of using good sources correctly and every day I see articles improving because of it. We're getting there.
Sarah
On 12/20/06, Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
We're getting there.
Can you quantify that at all? Crap articles are being created far faster than old articles are being improved. That much seems obvious.
Steve
On 12/20/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/20/06, Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
We're getting there.
Can you quantify that at all? Crap articles are being created far faster than old articles are being improved. That much seems obvious.
I can't quantify it in any checkable way, Steve, but it's my strong impression. Every day I see editors producing good sources without being asked to, and that wasn't so common this time last year. When I click on "random article," I'm seeing a significantly higher percentage of better written, better sourced pages. When I look at new pages, more of them seem to have sources than used to be the case; usually only one source, but it's a start.
On 12/18/06, zero 0000 nought_0000@yahoo.com wrote:
Perhaps there is another useful way to look at it: consider the legal database to be "the" source, rather than a collection of sources. Can I say something like "Legal opinions found in the LawIsUs database uniformly favor Y"? (The wording may need tweaking.)
The problem is that material we use as sources must be available to the general public, and it's not clear that we can expect the public to have access to a legal database. Also, we have to depend on you having conducted the search correctly, which you may not have done if you have no legal education; and we have to depend on you correctly describing the opinion that you say is uniformly favored, which you may also not have done.
If it's as unusual as you say it is to find no legal opinion against, then someone else is likely to have written about that, so you can look for a secondary source and quote it. If no one has written about it, perhaps it's not so unusual, or perhaps it's of little interest, or perhaps it's not accurate. It's for these reasons that secondary sources are preferred to a Wikipedian's interpretation of primary sources in any area that's disputed.
Sarah
Sarah wrote:
The problem is that material we use as sources must be available to the general public,...
Which I understand to include such things as legal databases. In theory at least, anyone in the general public can do what is necessary to acquire access to such a database. We certainly don't require that sources are immediately available to anyone.
-Rich
On 12/18/06, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
Sarah wrote:
The problem is that material we use as sources must be available to the general public,...
Which I understand to include such things as legal databases. In theory at least, anyone in the general public can do what is necessary to acquire access to such a database. We certainly don't require that sources are immediately available to anyone.
Any member of the public must be able to access the source and also see what the source says. So Zero's search would have to be very straightforward, one that no one could argue with or interpret differently, and it would have to be a search of a database that a member of the public could reasonably be expected to gain access to. And arguably his conclusion, that no legal scholar holds a different opinion (or whatever words he used), would have to be notable and relevant in a way that didn't invoke OR, otherwise it would be like saying no mathematician believes 2 plus 2 equals 5.
The NOR policy is clear that "anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source."
Sarah
On 12/18/06, Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/18/06, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
Sarah wrote:
The problem is that material we use as sources must be available to the general public,...
Which I understand to include such things as legal databases. In theory at least, anyone in the general public can do what is necessary to acquire access to such a database. We certainly don't require that sources are immediately available to anyone.
Any member of the public must be able to access the source and also see what the source says. So Zero's search would have to be very straightforward, one that no one could argue with or interpret differently, and it would have to be a search of a database that a member of the public could reasonably be expected to gain access to. And arguably his conclusion, that no legal scholar holds a different opinion (or whatever words he used), would have to be notable and relevant in a way that didn't invoke OR, otherwise it would be like saying no mathematician believes 2 plus 2 equals 5.
The NOR policy is clear that "anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source."
Sarah
To reiterate, there are two entirely separate issues in this thread: 1) whether you can draw a fair conclusion from the results presented by a database search, for the purposes of encyclopedic referencing and verification. 2) whether members of the general public (whoever they might be) should be able to easily (whatever that means) access any source cited in the encyclopedia for verification purposes.
My take on these questions: 1) No. Databases, in general, change and update their contents regularly; do not necessarily cover everything published in a given field (especially not a field as enormous as law); and cannot be trusted to properly index their holdings (and if something isn't indexed, you aren't finding it). On top of that, as has been pointed out the original poster's search may be incomplete or otherwise faulty. I wouldn't trust myself to do an absolutely comprehensive database search for these purposes, and I'm what passes for a trained professional these days; unless Zero's a fabulous legal researcher of some sort I'm not inclined to take his word for it. It's more than a barrier of having access to the database -- to recreate the search you also have to know *how* to search, which is not simple or easy in most legal databases. For all of these reasons, I wouldn't cite a database search in any context, except perhaps in a very specific type of academic writing that was focussed on research technique -- otherwise, it's like saying "because google said so" (which granted we use to determine lots of things around here, but hopefully not as an actual fact in an article). The search results would be a fine note to put on the talk page and should be taken as such.
2) As others have pointed out, expecting the public at large around the world to have access to all of our sources is pretty silly. There's the language barrier, for one thing; I am sure there are great sources in most all of the world's languages that I'll never be able to read, which shouldn't stop people from citing them in the relevant articles and relevant Wikipedias. There's also the expense of most major reference works and journals, the rarity of certain older and academic materials, the incomprehensiblity of certain academic topics to those who don't know the field (like Charles' math example, where I'm just going to have to take his word for it), etc. This is why libraries exist in the first place: to collect together things that may be hard to come by otherwise.
Now, if you have a CHOICE between an obscure work and a better known and better accessible one, and otherwise they're the same, then by all means cite the better accessible one. Better yet, cite both. Cite the ISO Standard and the easily-available IEEE paper that summarizes it. In other words: sure, I've personally handled a 1728 [[Cyclopaedia]] and can happily tell you that the long subtitle is correct, but it's only because the work is digitized and discussed in other sources like Britannica that I expect most people in the world to ever be able to verify that.
-- phoebe (brassratgirl)
On 19/12/06, Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/18/06, zero 0000 nought_0000@yahoo.com wrote:
Perhaps there is another useful way to look at it: consider the legal database to be "the" source, rather than a collection of sources. Can I say something like "Legal opinions found in the LawIsUs database uniformly favor Y"? (The wording may need tweaking.)
The problem is that material we use as sources must be available to the general public, and it's not clear that we can expect the public to have access to a legal database.
Er, what on earth? No, rubbish. It's the source, it's checkable.
Also, we have to depend on you having conducted the search correctly, which you may not have done if you have no legal education; and we have to depend on you correctly describing the opinion that you say is uniformly favored, which you may also not have done.
That's a separate issue.
- d.
On 12/19/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 19/12/06, Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/18/06, zero 0000 nought_0000@yahoo.com wrote:
Perhaps there is another useful way to look at it: consider the legal database to be "the" source, rather than a collection of sources. Can I say something like "Legal opinions found in the LawIsUs database uniformly favor Y"? (The wording may need tweaking.)
The problem is that material we use as sources must be available to the general public, and it's not clear that we can expect the public to have access to a legal database.
Er, what on earth? No, rubbish. It's the source, it's checkable.
We use writers as sources, not databases and libraries. If Zero wants to say that all legal opinion says X, he should find a secondary source who confirms that, rather than relying on his own, possibly faulty, search of a database, and then calling the database the source (even though there are no documents in the database that say "all legal opinion says X"). What he means, in fact, is that HE is the source, and that he used the database to do his research, and that's what makes it OR.
Also, we have to depend on you having conducted the search correctly, which you may not have done if you have no legal education; and we have to depend on you correctly describing the opinion that you say is uniformly favored, which you may also not have done.
That's a separate issue.
It's a separable issue, but it boils down to the same thing, viz. that we publish the published views of third parties (what they believe is in the database, for example), and not the views of Wikipedians.
Sarah