[Foundation-l] On Wikinews

[Ray Saintonge]

On 09/14/11 1:44 PM, Sarah wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 14:28, Theo10011<de10011 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> I doubt that would be enough to satisfy the no original research
>> requirement. The idea linking back to a Wikimedia project as a source is not
>> a new one, it has been tried many times and doesn't work.
> The no original research policy was never intended to keep out
> material like this. Its purpose is to stop editors adding their own
> opinions to the text of articles. But we have always had original
> research in the form of images; indeed, we encourage it. We just have
> to be careful that images on a contentious article don't unfairly push
> the reader in a certain direction, but we normally take a very liberal
> view of what that means.

NOR began as a way of dealing with physics cranks, but by trying to 
define such policies mare accurately we too easily pervert its 
intention. A fashionable criticism is that someone introducing a 
different perspective is engaging in original research.  That can lead 
to acrimonious and futile debates about the nature of original research 
and opinion. Yes, we want original photos as a way of avoiding copyright 
problems, but at the same time people complain about primary textual 
sources.
> Adding video-taped interviews is the next step. Imagine articles about
> the Second World War containing video interviews by Wikipedians of
> people who lived through certain parts of it. There is no inherent POV
> issue there, so long as we observe NPOV, just as we do with text.
> Primary sources are already allowed, so long as used descriptively and
> not interpreted.
>
Any inherent POV is in the selection process.  The choice needs to be 
short enough to avoid overwhelming the article, but if it's too short we 
risk the complaint of being out of context.  The full interview needs to 
be readily available somewhere to enable verification not only of 
accuracy but also of context.

Ray