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A real test case would be one where a person was politely and civilly putting a kooky point of view into an article, while cheerfully admitting that it was only one of the valid points of view that must be presented under NPOV, and happily citing sources -- all kooky as well. As long as it was not original research, and there were some sources for it, however laughable, such a dispute could not be resolved without a decision on the merits. At present, the only mechanism for that is weight of numbers: the side with the most editors wins.
Nah, the kooky view is too easy. A better case would be a passage in a scientific article written by one of our inhouse experts that correctly states the basic concept of a scientific field, but in a way that hasn't been "published" because it is trivial grad student exercise the derive it, and all published work is at the bleeding edge of the field. Imagine his/her frustration at being asked for a citation for something that is obvious, and not being able to provide one, even though he can explain it so well that even the arbitrators understand it.
Sorry, no original research, no insightful explanations and yes, a big hole in making the subject more accessible.
-- Silverback
actionforum@comcast.net stated for the record:
... all published work is at the bleeding edge of the field.
-- Silverback
I suspect that our salvation lies in that phrase. I doubt that the grad student exercise that you are suggesting would be hard to include can't be found somewhere in print -- in physics, frex, we have the Feynmann Lecture Series.
Sean Barrett wrote:
actionforum@comcast.net stated for the record:
... all published work is at the bleeding edge of the field.
I suspect that our salvation lies in that phrase. I doubt that the grad student exercise that you are suggesting would be hard to include can't be found somewhere in print -- in physics, frex, we have the Feynmann Lecture Series.
Yes. Or the expert can refer to the standard textbook they have several of ... or wrote. (If they want to avoid referring to their own work, they can note it on talk for another to put on the page.)
I remain utterly unconvinced of this alleged impossibility of reference.
- d.
David Gerard wrote
I remain utterly unconvinced of this alleged impossibility of reference.
OTOH - I thought I had a good argument by analogy with knowledge engineering. There it is common ground that so-called expert systems, that can justify arguments step-by-step from rules, do _not_ imitate real experts, but plodders without a real feel or mastery for a topic. That is, if you have a real expert, you distort the expertise by doing that to it.
Then I discovered that [[expert system]] is a POV piece of selling ...
Charles
actionforum@comcast.net wrote:
Nah, the kooky view is too easy. A better case would be a passage in a scientific article written by one of our inhouse experts that correctly states the basic concept of a scientific field, but in a way that hasn't been "published" because it is trivial grad student exercise the derive it, and all published work is at the bleeding edge of the field. Imagine his/her frustration at being asked for a citation for something that is obvious, and not being able to provide one, even though he can explain it so well that even the arbitrators understand it.
Sorry, no original research, no insightful explanations and yes, a big hole in making the subject more accessible.
Do you have real-life examples of this happening?
I think it's important that it always remain on-topic for someone to ask, at a given assertion or definition, for a reference for it.
As [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]] points out, it may be obvious to *you*. But if someone comes along in five years and asks, backup would be a very useful thing.
I've been spreading {{unreferenced}} tags with great (slightly restrained, after the TFD nomination ;-) glee, and I see others have taken to it too.
- d.
Nah, the kooky view is too easy. A better case would be a passage in a scientific article written by one of our inhouse experts that correctly states the basic concept of a scientific field, but in a way that hasn't been "published" because it is trivial grad student exercise the derive it, and all published work is at the bleeding edge of the field. Imagine his/her frustration at being asked for a citation for something that is obvious, and not being able to provide one, even though he can explain it so well that even the arbitrators understand it.
Sorry, no original research, no insightful explanations and yes, a big hole in making the subject more accessible.
Another strawman argument against the No original research rule. Basic concepts of scientific fields are stated basically and simply in all sorts of introductory texts. If they are not stated there, then they are not basic concepts at all.
Jay.