Original Research versus Point of View, was Re: [WikiEN-l] The 3RR policy should not always be blindly followed

[Fred Bauder]

The reason for differentiating original research from POV material is that
original research may be removed entirely while to satisfy the Neutral Point
Of View policy POV material must be included and attributed if there are
reliable references which take that point of view or comment on it. It is
never of question of cleverly "neutering" POV material, that would be a POV
violation itself.

I realize this viewpoint is at considerable divergance with the way some
folks interpret NPOV, but if you go back and read the policy, it provides
for inclusion in articles of all points of view which can be established by
reliable references.

Fred

> From: "Charles Matthews" <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 08:12:52 -0000
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The 3RR policy should not always be blindly followed
> 
> JAY JG wrote
> 
>> However,
>> most of the original research inserted in these articles is more on the
>> order of "George Bush knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in
>> Iraq, but he lied to the American public and invaded anyway, in order to
>> finish the job his father started, and to restore his family honor".
> 
> When something is already unverifiable, highly partisan POV, I wonder why it
> needs to be labelled 'original research' as well.  That's not what OR was
> initially about, really, i.e. personal speculations/crank theories.  The
> cited instance is more naturally treated just as POV; it can be 'neutered'
> by a specific citation of someone writing the thought (which we've all read
> 100 times) somewhere.
> 
> In any case, concentrating on contentious politics/contemporary history in
> the making is not necessarily going to produce a good set of general
> encyclopedia-building principles. NPOV rules; otherwise one is back to
> source-criticism and imputing motives.
> 
> Charles