[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's two kinds of material: "derivative/compiled" and "original/group-authored."

[Daniel P. B. Smith]

Wikipedia currently contains two different kinds of material.

a) "Derivative/compiled." (Accurate and verifiable, but... boring).  
The developers of these articles act as editors, not as authors. This  
is material that is produced by synthesisizing, paraphrasing, and  
organizing published material from reliable sources. Ideally, those  
sources are cited. When they are, the articles are accurate and  
reliable. Editors play some creative role in synthesis, presentation,  
and deciding which facts are important.

Some of the best examples of this kind of article--not the only ones,  
but reasonably pure illustrations of what I mean--are those that are  
produced by continously following unfolding news stories; for  
example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-invasion_Iraq%2C_2003–2006.

In theory, according to the verifiability policy, these are the only  
articles Wikipedia should contain.

b) "Original/group-authored." The developers of these articles act as  
authors, not as editors. The result is an article that is _mostly_  
written off-the-top-of-the-head from the personal knowledge of  
editors. When the process works, the community of editors is able to  
establish a meritocratic social pecking order in which the most  
knowledgeable manage to convince the less knowledgeable to respect  
their authority, and material that can muster group consensus is  
likely to be quite reliable _though unsourced_. (Valid _material_  
does not "float to the top." In a social group, the most  
knowledgeable editors _may_ "float to the top.")

In theory, Wikipedia should not contain any "original/group-authored"  
articles. They do not meet the verifiability policy, and no reader  
can be sure about the facts in them.

On the other hand category "B" is where you find some of the material  
that can be found "only in Wikipedia," covering subject areas that  
aren't covered by other encyclopedias; you find some of the freshest  
and most interesting material, and some authoritative-SOUNDING and  
plausible answers to questions that are hard to answer elsewhere.

Should we create a formal distinction between these two kinds of  
material? Label them separately? Have different policies coverning them?