Andrew Gray wrote:
On 29/12/06, Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
Matthew Brown wrote:
On 12/19/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
All these things are sliding scales. It's easy to objectively say "all the victims were women". It's just *harder* to objectively say "all the papers supported notion X". Maybe it's ok. Maybe it isn't.
For one thing, if a source exhaustively lists all X, it's a definitive claim that can be sourced. Stating that all of them have something in common is simply a collation and editing function, IMO.
A database search like that described is different; it's not definitive and not a single source that can be cited. It's headed into original research to deem the results definitive and decisive; there is no guarantee whatsoever that the results have to be exhaustive and complete.
Funny you discuss this. At http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taylor_Allderdice_High_School&... I've got someone asserting in the article that "a search of WorldCat reveals that as of 2006 Taylor Allderdice remains one of fewer than sixty high schools in the world to have its newspaper archived on microfilm in a major library." I agree this is original research, but can't find anyone to back me up. Fancy popping your head in and discussing the point?
And here we hit the problem with limited original research - bad interpretation. He's shown that "fewer than sixty high schools in the world are known to have...", not that "fewer than sixty high schools in the world have..." It's based on a false premise - that WorldCat is some kind of "grand global catalogue", which it isn't; it doesn't claim to be comprehensive, just large.
Looking in further detail, he's also demonstrated it only for cases where the originating body is called (and catalogued as) "XYZ High School", and has made no attempt to figure out how many of the 56 hits are actually in "major libraries" rather than, say, a microfiche copy acquired by the local public library. It doesn't apply in cases where the journal is catalogued with the school as an author rather than a corporate author (technically wrong, but does happen, and if there's one thing you won't get in WorldCat it'll be consistent cataloguing). So it's not even automatically a comprehensive or accurate listing of what he intended to be looking for...
That's great, ta. I've used this onto the talk page but this is turning into a revert war now. There's a lot of subtle interpretation that I'm dealing with here and I am really out of my depth. The editor has uploaded scans of the paper to Berkley, is citing them, and wants to make the claim that the fact that the school publishes a page of the school newspaper on its web site indicates its non-benign attitude toward drugs in February 2005, since the page published contains an article entitled "Drugs' presence felt despite school effort." I mean, that's interpretation, surely?