NEW IDEAS

Fragment of a discussion from Talk:May 2011 Update

Now, you have seen some of the answers. If one thing you should be more obvious than another, it is that the very concept of original research as in the term NOR, is incoherent, poorly defined, and meets with largely ineffectual, counter constructive response. I think I have pointed out somewhere else that in "real" (as in paper) encyclopedias, original research never really was anathema; invited articles often contained unverifiable assertions, which sometimes were wrong, and sometimes were advances in the field. In that connection I mentioned Maxwell's article on "wave theory of light" sometime in the late 19th century. It is all very well saying that such things belong in the technical journals, but we do not live in a universe split into technical journals and the rest of the world. Also, the sheer interest, excitement if you like, of finding material that may be novel, original, or creative in Wikipedia is likely to be more of an attraction than a basis for derogation.

Some of us have been saying that original research should be permitted as long as the perpetrator is a recognized authority. Nonsense, I say! In science, and ideally in other nontrivial disciplines, there is no such thing as a Pope. The criterion should be non-triviality, not infallibility. The nearest I have come to finding anything like a meaningful criterion for original research in Wikipedia so far, has been some vague idea that material is acceptable as long as the reader can look up the citations given, and find that someone somewhere, presumably someone reliable because what he said is in print, (HA HA!) Has said something of the type before. In fact, we are not supposed to cut and paste nontrivial source material into Wikipedia which implies that if we are to convey any sense into our articles, we have to do some creation, some synthesis, at least. I personally have already bad experiences with an admin who seemed to think that long words constituted original research.

What I strongly, passionately if you like, feel is that there should be no restriction on opinion or research at all, except for peer or reader challenge. The normal challenges of vandalism by bots or marshals should certainly be continued, perhaps with a more transparent, possibly faster, ombudsman facility, but that is all. The original research problem has very little to do with vermin of that variety. A slightly more difficult problem is the question of non notability, quackery and fringe science, inappropriate advertisement, etc.. For such things, other current mechanisms probably are more or less adequate, and possibly even satisfactory. Most such things after all are based on common sense and good will.

But what about matters of technical substance, where either I make an assertion as an expert in a field, possibly of something new, or possibly of a truism that happens not to be easily verifiable by citation, or as an intelligent layman, I recount an observation. Any such contribution might be valuable, whether at face value or in some other context.

There are a few possible consequences.

Firstly no one might challenge such a statement, simply because it looks good (and presumably In such a case it usually would in fact be good).

Secondly, someone might in fact challenge it. If the author retracts, which well he might, it might after all have been a simple error or even a typo, end of problem. Same as at present.

Thirdly, the author might admit that he could not produce verification, because what he had been describing was an unusual observation, not to be repeated on demand. This sort of thing happens all the time, and I could weary you with examples. And yet such examples could be of great value to intelligent readers, with a qualified or not. To suppose otherwise would be to exhibit a severe misunderstanding, both of the role and nature of observation, and of formal research. In fact in formal research, there are well established conventions for dealing with such observations (pers. ob.) etc. When such observations are properly observed, there is no difficulty about allegations of acceptability, or about contradiction, with proper observation of the civilities of course.

Naturally one gets cases, either where there is flat contradiction and rigid disagreement. When this happens they are a few possibilities, variously acceptable, partly depending on the circumstances.

One possibility is to ask the warring parties, plus any other participants with opinions, please to come to some agreement as soon as might be. More often than not, but should suffice. If it does not, then participants or Wikipedia authorities could have recourse to external opinions as appropriate. In such a matter there is no blame attached if they elect either to omit the entire body of material or to accept the prevailing view.


However there is yet another possibility, which I have not seen in Wikipedia yet, and which I think would be valuable. When we have a situation in which, to recall an old expression, doctors disagree, there would be a great deal to be said, either for having separate sections in the same article, or separate articles linking conspicuously to each other, each giving one view. If appropriate and both parties agree, there could be a shared, or independent, review of the prevailing status of the matter. Such material is out of sight more valuable than sterile restriction to established and incontrovertible doctrine. By way of example, consider the EPR/Bohr hidden variable controversy in its day; to wait for it to be resolved before publishing anything would be a great disservice to the user.

Well, of course, I could continue in this vein as long as most of us, but I do beg everyone wedded to the NOR policy in whatever form they understand it, to think and rethink before it leads to too much harm.

Cheers,

JonRichfield09:25, 17 May 2011

As to this last suggestion, also see this proposal.

BTW: the statement "Firstly no one might challenge such a statement, simply because it looks good (and presumably In such a case it usually would in fact be good)." looks counterintuitive. I have found time and again that an general and accurate statement will be attacked and replaced by a detailed, but wrong statement. On Wikipedia there is a general hatred for precision and a predilection for detail. If it looks detailed it must be true, even if very little checking shows it to be wrong. - Brya 10:24, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Brya10:24, 17 May 2011