[WikiEN-l] Original research

Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales jwales at wikia.com
Mon Dec 6 18:35:38 UTC 2004


Delirium wrote:
> Well, I'd expand the ban on "original research" slightly further than 
> just that.  An article that makes no new low-level claims, but 
> nonethless synthesizes work in a non-standard way, is effectively 
> original research that I think we ought not to publish.  This comes up 
> most often in history, where there is a tendency by some Wikipedians to 
> produce novel narratives and historical interpretations with citation to 
> primary sources to back up their interpretation of events.  Even if 
> their citations are accurate, Wikipedia's poorly equipped to judge 
> whether their particular synthesis of the available information is a 
> reasonable one.

I agree completely.

I think in part this is just a symptom of an unfortunate tendency of
disrespect for history as a professional discipline.  Some who
completely understand why Wikipedia ought not create novel theories of
physics by citing the results of experiments and so on and
synthesizing them into something new, may fail to see how the same
thing applies to history.

--Jimbo



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