On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 4:46 PM, Gregory Maxwell <[email protected]> wrote:
> If the you've understood a rule as some formality that > you must comply with when it clearly does not help you've > misunderstood something. (Either the rule, the applicability of the > rule, or that it helps; Even a poorly drafted rule can't bind you to > pointless mechanisations: thats part of the core purpose of WP:IAR) > I'm not sure about that. The rule against original research is a good example of a rule to which IAR can't really apply - at least not in all situations. The rule is there to protect the encyclopedia from crackpots. But no one thinks they're a crackpot. So if you have an exception for original research which improves the encyclopedia, you might as well not have the rule in the first place. If a secondary source isn't a synthesis and analysis of primary source > material, then it's not really a secondary source. > [snip] Part of your confusion probably stems from that fact that wikipedians > often treat news reports like secondary sources. Good reporting is a > kind of scolarship, but good reporting is rare. More often news > reporting is just a lossy regurgitation of primary source material (or > wikipedia!) or even just barely informed speculation. But thats a > problem with Wikipedia's misunderstanding the general worthlessness of > news-media, not a problem with preferring secondary sources over > primary sources. The whole notion of distinct classes of "primary > source" and "secondary source" doesn't map especially well. Right on. Very well put. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
