Steve Block wrote:
Stan Shebs wrote:
Steve Block wrote:
Isn't that the very definition of a primary
source. Something we seem
loathe to allow. We can't state that "these words were used in this
document on this date". We can't state that this thing existed at this
web address on this date. Sorry, but this is the same thing as
providing a citation for a factual claim made in an article. The OED
make the claim of a specific usage or first usage, and use web sources
to provide the citation.
The difference is that OED editors are experts exercising professional
judgement and putting their reputations on the line when they make their
assertions.
I thought Wikipedia was an attempt to write an encyclopedia without
worrying about professional judgement, that we could add anything and as
long as it was written from a neutral point of view and was verifiable
it didn't matter.
Well then, how do you verify? How do you know a primary source isn't
flat-out lying? Experts write whole monographs on the massive extent of
falsification and error in the primary sources for Roman history, for
instance; other experts then use that analysis in constructing a
plausible narrative of what happened. Our role is as glorified
stenographers for all these experts; we summarize their results and
withhold judgement on which version is "correct".
WP *really*
doesn't want much to do with primary sources;
No, that's your opinion of what Wikipedia does and doesn't want. We
have the occasional featured article built on primary source, so the
community may not agree.
That's why I didn't say "never use primaries"; I've used
them myself.
But they are tricky to use correctly, and if a large fraction of the
community doesn't have a clue about scholarship, I'm not going to take
that as a reason to give up and let WP turn into everything2 or fark or
whatever. If a WP editor is opposed to the idea of doing scholarship,
they should find a different website more amenable to their tastes;
there are lots of popular wikis to choose from these days.
very few
amateurs even know how to evaluate the
trustworthiness of a primary, or
how to reconcile multiple contradictory primaries, and we just embarass
ourselves when we play at that. Unfortunately many WP editors are
unaware of how much they don't know.
No, that applies to Wikipedia across the board. Not many people know on
what topic to start an encyclopedic article, if we look at the speedy
category. That doesn't stop us creating new articles. And that's
ignoring the logical flaw in your argument; that the people telling us
we can't use primary sources may actually be the wikipedians who are
"unaware of how much they don't know". Swings and roundabouts. We used
to judge info on a case by case basis. Now we have hoops we can all
jump through and strange and varying criteria we have to meet. Welcome
to Wikipedia, not a bureaucracy in name only.
I've been working on WP steadily for almost four years now, and if you
look at my oldest edits, you'll see many of them (though not all!)
including reputable secondary sources, and I did that because I read it
on a policy page. So this isn't some kind of new thing.
If all this really is "strange and varying criteria" to you, you really
need to stop and consider whether WP is the project you want to be
involved with.
Stan