[WikiEN-l] The real consensus on synthesis

[Thomas Dalton]

> My first thought upon reading WP:SYNTH was "What a stupid policy".
> Read literally, it forbids using more than one source per article.
> Experience hasn't changed my opinion.  Every single time I've seen it
> invoked, it has been by a POV warrior trying to keep the other side
> out of an article or an autistic killbot that was blindly applying
> policy and just screwing up a perfectly good article.

It doesn't forbid using multiple sources, it forbids using multiple
sources to advance a position that neither source actually states.

> Take the article on [[Baby Gender Monitor]], a Featured Article we
> recently frontpaged.  Check out the second paragraph of 'Accuracy of
> test disputed' - It's a textbook example of synthesis.
>
> Source A says the test is inaccurate due to vanishing twins.
> Source B says the test can predict mixed twins.
> Conclusion from article writer: Therefore, it should not be inaccurate.

That last bit is OR, pure and simple. The article should state the two
sides, it shouldn't draw its own conclusions from that.