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

Wed Jul 27 19:19:08 UTC 2011

So you wish to claim that you can make factual statements, based on oral interviews which are primary sources.

I find that position troubling.
I would suggest, should you actually present such a theory at our policy pages, you'd find strong opposition to this unique perspective.

Our policy does not mimic the policy of a print journal.  Wikipedia is not a secondary source in that sense.
It has rather been described as a "tertiary" source.
Encyclopedias in a general sense summarize and interpret multiple secondary sources with some primary source as well.

However this appears to be a leap that we should not make, IMHO.
I don't think requiring the use of quotations when you are quoting is much of a leap.
I do think, presenting facts, conclusions and positions based on a few data points only is irregular.

-----Original Message-----
From: Achal Prabhala <aprabhala at gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Wed, Jul 27, 2011 12:09 pm
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Oral Citations project: People are Knowledge

Hallo, (responses inline)
On Thursday 28 July 2011 12:27 AM, Wjhonson wrote:
 Achal I was responding to Thomas not to you.
 However yes, if you are quoting what an interviewee is saying, you should use 
uotation marks to offset their statements.
 Or even use the blockquote markup for a lengthy quotation.
My own understanding is that this is not a requirement of a print 
rticle (say, a journal essay or a NYTimes report).
> If you do something like decide that because three people said "King Makambo 
uled from 800 to 840" that you can simply state this in an article and cite the 
ideo, I would suggest that is a decision not well-founded on our editing 
rinciples.
t is therefore not clear why on the oral citations we make (linked to 
he audio interview source) we should therefore do that. Two quick 
larifications again, because I fear that these are causing some confusion:
1) We don't have any video citations, only oral citations, linked to 
udio interviews.
2) None of the articles created (or in creation) are about things 
elated to fictional Kings & Queens in the 9th century AD. In short: 
e're not wading into the murky territory of rewriting events that 
appened 13 centuries ago. I think the distinction is important because 
here is an underlying feeling one gets here - and from a few other 
osts - that somehow this experiment with oral citations opens up the 
pportunity to write fictionalised accounts of the history of the world, 
hich would make for good science fiction, which is in itself a good 
hing - but also far above our pay grade. :)

 Citations to primary sources should, in my opinion, always use quotation 
arks.  And never fail to do so.

hile this is a possibility, there is no policy on citation of primary 
ources on Wikipedia. In academia, field work and interviews are often 
araphrased; they definitely do not have to be reported inside quotes, 
hough of course, they may be.

 -----Original Message-----
 From: Achal Prabhala<aprabhala at gmail.com>
 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List<foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
 Sent: Wed, Jul 27, 2011 11:53 am
 Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Oral Citations project: People are Knowledge

 Hallo, (responses inline)
 On Wednesday 27 July 2011 11:57 PM, Wjhonson wrote:
   For actual quotations from sources, you should quote the source exactly.
   Then you will never be using original research.
 I don't actually understand what this means. If you look at the articles
 reated:
 ttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Oral_Citations#Articles.2F_Discussions_.28in_development.29
 you can see exactly how the citations are used. In the articles, each
 tatement that can be attributed to a particular audio interview is
 ited to that audio interview. Do you mean also using quotes for actual
 ords in the text of the article itself?
> You are going the next step and summarizing and interpreting.  Don't do that.
 Actually, no. We are not summarizing or interpreting, merely reporting
 he content of the cited audio interviews (and the accumulated reports,
 ometimes conflicting, gathered in the course of several audio
 nterviews) in exactly the same way one would do if the sources were
 ournal articles instead.
 But if I haven't understood your questions correctly, please elaborate
 nd explain further.
 Thanks,
 chal

   -----Original Message-----
   From: Thomas Morton<morton.thomas at googlemail.com>
   To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List<foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
   Sent: Wed, Jul 27, 2011 11:19 am
   Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Oral Citations project: People are Knowledge

     All sources can be cited without falling afoul of "original research"
     Original research only covers claims without sources at all, or claims 
ade
     from yourself as the source.
     Any source, including citing to a video interviews, is never original
     research.

     Ideally of course, yes. However it is quite hard to work with primary
   ources of this nature (i.e. ones that are not summarising a subject) and
   void interpretation (which is at the core of OR). It is perfectly possible
   o cite an iron clad reliable source and still end up doing original
   esearch :) It's just that the risk is greater with these forms of sources.

     I don't really get by the way, why this is considered revolutionary.
     These aren't "oral citations" in the standard sense, these are citations 
o
     a published video.

   eliability depends on a number of factors; for a video it depends on things
   ike the identity of the person speaking, the publishing body, etc.
   Raw footage of this sort is very much primary sourcing
   ith potential reliability problems.
   The key thing for reliable sources is the idea of *fact checking or peer
   eview*. This is why the very best sorts of sources are those published in
   espected scientific journals - because they have been reviewed for
   istakes, bias, etc.
   Ideally these videos would be published as a primary resource, interested
   arties would synthesise material and write papers (or give lectures, or
   ublish a book) - secondary sources - which could then be cited by tertiary
   ources, such as us :)
   Currently you would have to treat these videos with a modicum of care, under
   he usual guidelines for primary source material.
   Tom
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