[WikiEN-l] Original research

[Steve Bennett]

On 3/24/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Well, I'm going by ''Original research is a term used on Wikipedia to
> refer to material added to articles by Wikipedia editors that has not
> been published already by a reputable source. In this context it means
> unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, and ideas;
> or any new interpretation, analysis, or synthesis of published data,
> statements, concepts, or arguments that, in the words of Wikipedia's
> co-founder Jimbo Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical
> interpretation".''
>
> So creating a narrative which doesn't exist elsewhere, for example
> citing blog entries to create a story, that's clearly original research,
> yes?

Imagine you have three blogs which refer to a sequence of events. One
blog has events A and B, and the other two have C, and D and E
respectively. You simple sequence those events in chronological order,
referring copiously. I don't believe it's a "novel" narrative to
create an article which simply documents that the sequence of events
A, E, B, C, D took place.

If you start saying B took place because of E (although no blog
specifically said that), or start drawing parallels between events A/E
and C/D, then you start heading into dangerous territory.

These rules were drawn up to ward off kooks, historical revisionists
etc. Not good faith attempts are documenting uncontroversial, but
little documented facts. IMHO.

Steve