[WikiEN-l] WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR and WP:ATT

[Guy Chapman aka JzG]

On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 05:46:39 +0900, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>
wrote:

>The reason, though, that I think this is a bad idea is quite simple. 
>WP:RS (which has never been fully fleshed out as I think it could be) 
>and WP:V and WP:NOR are separate ideas, not the same idea.  They need 
>separate policy pages so they can be explained separately, even when 
>there is overlap.  A combined page will tend to cause confusion as 
>editors being to think that "attribution" (the word) is more important 
>than verifiability, avoiding original research, etc.

I agree, and I'd further note that I thought this had died months back
and was amazed to see it had not just resurfaced but replaced two of
our main policies.  Of course, I am notoriously inactive on Wikipedia
and the mailing list, right?

As far as I can tell, merging RS and the *examples* from NOR and V
into an attribution policy would have real merit, but merging OR
dilutes NOR by implying that we can perform original research as long
as we cite the primary sources properly - it dilutes the prohibition
on original syntheses and on having articles for which no secondary
sources exist.  Under the attribution policy we would, I think, have
much less of a defence against a lot of pseudoscience pushers.

Guy (JzG)
-- 
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG