[WikiEN-l] NOR contradicts NPOV

[WJhonson at aol.com]

<<n a message dated 1/6/2009 2:37:30 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
cbeckhorn at fastmail.fm writes:

* For  results that are sufficiently new that they are not yet covered by  
secondary literature. I can think of several research programs with  
numerous papers by numerous independent authors, with significant  
scientific interest, but no coverage outside of journals. These areas  
have no sources that on their face are accessible to a reader without  
specialized knowledge; the wikipedia article may be the most accesible  
writing on the subject. >>
-----------------------------------
I'm not comfortable with the idea that Wikipedia is going to be the  *source* 
for a new summary and synthesize of primary source material.
That is the very position that we strove to exclude in the policy  language.
 
Rather, we should be the source for a new summary and synthesize of  
secondary material, with balancing primary interjections where needed.
 
Once we begin to collect primary material as a new presentation, than we  are 
becoming the very textbooks that we are supposed to be citing as our  sources.
 
Encyclopedias are not textbooks, they summarize textbooks.  Authors of  
encyclopedia articles sometimes interject some primary material, but only in  
brief, sporadic, isolated cases, and perhaps in some cases where they themselves  
are editors of new material outside the work.
 
I think that the policy patrollers would agree with the essential  
understanding that primary source material should supplement articles.   Articles should 
not be essentially based upon it.  It's use should be  auxiliary.  *If* there 
is a specific situation where an article has no  secondary source citations, 
than a realistic question could be raised as to why  we have an article on it 
whatsoever.
 
Specifics would be helpful.
 
Will Johnson
 
 


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