[Foundation-l] Oral Citations project: People are Knowledge

[David Richfield]

On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 9:16 PM, whothis <whothith at gmail.com> wrote:
> Looks like an excellent waste of effort.
>
> Maybe the problem of publishing non-publishable oral sources occurred to
> someone on the team. Anyway the english wikipedia seems to be the
> appropriate place for your original research. I can't wait to read all about
> it.
>
> I still think a research project in emesis in the global south or something
> would have suited english wikipedia better but that's just me.
>
> Your fan
>
> Elizabeth

This was obviously just a puerile troll posting, and doesn't deserve a
response on its own merit, but I still think it's worthwhile to give
an ordinary Wikipedian's view of the general uncertainty about oral
sources in terms of notability and original research.

One of the most frequent complaints about Wikipedia, which I have seen
in contexts such as the Wikipedia overview of World History and on
websites that are critical of Wikipedia, is that it has an endemic
bias towards Western, English-language information.  As long as
Wikipedia is completely reliant on paper sources, this is unlikely to
change.  The Oral Citations project is a brave attempt to light a
candle instead of just cursing the darkness.

Lots of ethnographic work is very strongly based on interviews with
people who have an oral tradition.  This is then published and, quite
correctly, cited in Wikipedia: the view is that it is then a secondary
source, and hence appropriate.  When we directly source oral
interviews and host them on a sister project, the complaint is that
this is a primary source: prone to small sample sizes, unscientific
data gathering, and hidden biases on the part of the interviewers.

The key response to this objection in my opinion is that we have to be
clear about the kind of claim that can be supported by these
interviews, and the strength of the evidence.

Where there is no written discussion of a specific cultural practice,
endemic knowledge, minor language or whatever, an oral citation is
better than nothing.  As long as it's given in context, I don't see
the problem.  Something like "Interviews with members of the Sk8r
tribe in 2011 indicated that they have a deep animosity towards the
neighbouring Emos,<ref name=Interview36 /> <ref name=interview38 />
and have several tribal songs in this regard <ref name=Interview44>."

When the oral citations disagree with written sources, the authority
of the interviewee becomes relevant.  If a recognized elder of a
specific cultural group (whose identity can be verified) is on video
making a specific claim, that's notable and verifiable in itself, and
can be discussed as such in a Wikipedia article.

An example of such a claim might be "Although Ringo's Ethnography of
Eastern River-dwellers mentions their ritual use of torpedoes<ref
name="Ringo83" />, Chief Tom of the Wilbury tribe has claimed in an
interview that none of the tribes ever had access to such weapons, and
believes this belief to be due to a confusion with the local
militia.<ref name="Petty2011" />"

This way, no reader can be misled about the source and weight of the claim.

Of course, that's just, like, my opinion, man.{{cn}}

-- 
David Richfield
e^(πi)+1=0