[WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment

[Ray Saintonge]

JAY JG wrote:

>> From: Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com>
>
> ?
>
>> On 6/6/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>> > Sean Barrett wrote:
>> > > Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records
>> > > (NVR, DANFS, &c.) are okay?
>> >
>> > I'm not saying that they are, just that somebody is bound to try to 
>> make
>> > that point.
>>
>> It disturbs me that "No original research", originally intended to
>> prevent crackpot theories with no following being pushed on Wikipedia,
>> is starting to mutate into something quite different.
>
> It hasn't started to mutate into anything different, though some 
> people pretend it has.  What typically happens is this: An editor sees 
> a cited POV they strongly disagree with in some article, so they 
> construct a novel argument to counter that POV, often even citing 
> sources for the various facts used to construct the argument.  When 
> challenged on the grounds that they are doing Original Research, they 
> either counter by saying each of the facts used to create the argument 
> is properly cited, or (if they've been around Wikipedia for a while) 
> they grumble on Wikien-l that the arguments is obvious, and that the 
> NOR policy is being stretched to cover areas for which it was never 
> intended. When it is pointed out that obvious arguments will be cited 
> *somewhere*, the response is that some things are so obvious (e.g. 
> "like the fact that the sun rises in the east") that it would actually 
> be hard to find someone specifically stating them!  Then e-mails fly 
> back and forth on the list, eventually everything dies down for two 
> months, rinse and repeat. 

This argument sounds like its original research. :-)

Ec