A problem with "No Original Research"

[libertango]

Wikipedia has a policy: No original research. The upshot of that policy is:

This means that all material added to articles must be attributable to a reliable published source, even if not actually attributed. The sourcing policy, Verifiability, says a source must be provided for all quotations, and for anything challenged or likely to be challenged—but a source must exist even for material that is never challenged.

What's wrong with this policy? Well... Let's say there's a story about a person, how they were involved in a covert op in the late 1960's. According to this story, the person was waiting in Country A, planning a coup in Country B, expecting help in the form of air support from Country C. One way to check that story would be to call the person's publicly known employer from the time, and ask if the person took a leave of absence during the relevant timeframe. While I could make such a call, I couldn't put the results into a Wikipedia article -- because it would be "original research." (I might yet do it, though, for my own curiosity.)

Running this through the rock tumbler of my mind, it all reminds me of some passages from Foundation by Isaac Asimov, 1951:

"(W)hy rely on him (for an archeological question)? Why not go to Arcturus and study the remains for yourself?"

Lord Dorwin raised his eyebrows and took a pinch of snuff hurriedly. "Why, whatever for, my dear fellow?"

"To get the information firsthand, of course."

"But where's the necessity? It seems an uncommonly roundabout and hopelessly rigamarolish method of getting anywhere. Look here, now, I've got the works of all the old masters -- the great archeologists of the past. I weigh them against each other -- balance the disagreements -- analyze the conflicting statements -- decide which is probably correct -- and come to a conclusion. That is the scientific method. At least" -- patronizingly -- "as I see it. How insufferably crude it would be to go to Arcturus, or to Sol, for instance, and blunder about, when the old masters have covered the ground so much more effectually than we could possibly hope to do." (pg. 65)

*^*^*

"It isn't just you. It's the whole Galaxy. Pirenne heard Lord Dorwin's idea of scientific research. Lord Dorwin thought the way to be a good archeologist was to read all the books on the subject -- written by men who were dead for centuries. He thought that the way to solve archeological puzzles was to weigh the opposing authorities. And Pirenne listened and made no objections. Don't you see there's something wrong with that?"

Again the note of near pleading in his voice.

Again no answer. He went on: "And you men and half of Terminus as well are just as bad. We sit here, considering the Encyclopedia the all-in-all. We consider the greatest end of science is the classification of past data. It is important, but is there no further work to be done? We're receding and forgetting, don't you see?" (pg. 74)

I admire Wikipedia. I contribute to it, and will continue to do so.

The culture of it is still remarkably blockheaded sometimes.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I've taken it as a bit of CYA ethics to dissuade people from putting unreviewed and unverifiable self-citation side-by-side with conventional sources. But as a practical matter, plenty of articles cite private citizen's webpages and usenet postings that provide the referenced information without particular provenance. Some of Tolkien's stuff is referenced to a fan's defunct Geocities page; the hosted recording of an interview is long gone, but I found archive.org's copy of what they say is an accurate transcript, though not entirely without editorial content.

[(Anonymous)]

I (notthebuddha) didn't notice I was banned; sorry for whatever I said.

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

"I've taken it as a bit of CYA ethics to dissuade people from putting unreviewed and unverifiable self-citation side-by-side with conventional sources."

That was my original hypothesis, especially with an eye towards vanity pages.

However, when one looks at mailing list posts by Jimbo Wales, one learns, "The phrase orginated primarily as a practical means to deal with physics cranks, of which of course there are a number on the web."

Which makes complete sense to me, coming from a fannish background. {cough}

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

You're probably aware of the criticisms (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25) of Wikipedia by cofounder Larry Sanger? “The root problem: anti-elitism, or lack of respect for expertise.”

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

Yes. Mr. Sanger appears to be doing a false syllogism here.

* He considers himself an expert.
* He personally doesn't get as much respect as he'd like.
* Therefore, WP's problem is it doesn't give appropriate respect to experts.

The idea the WP culture is responding to his personal, individual, idiosyncratic personality quirks doesn't appear to occur to him.

I would argue that because of the {no original research/everything must have a citation} approach, WP shows nothing but deference to published, "conventional wisdom" experts.

I've said before that every criticism of WP can be leveled at every other encyclopedia. In this case, I'm reminded of the voluminous criticism that's appeared about Mortimer Adler's time at Britannica. The difference is, WP airs all its laundry in public, while Britannica took decades to come to light.

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

I agree that for many subjects, Wikipedia is at least as good as any conventional encyclopedia, and the epistemological questions about authority it raises are not fundamentally different. But I've seen comments by other folks who are experts in their fields with similar frustrations, saying that they've walked away from editing WP pages because they were drowned out by other editors with contributions strange enough that they not only weren't right, they weren't even a kind of wrong that they could engage with ...

[reannon.livejournal.com]

I actually don't have a problem with no original research, because the nature of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit it. So it's really easy for someone to say, "I called this guy's employer and he really did what he said he did," but they can be lying through their teeth or one of those asshats who think it's funny to vandalize Arthur Miller's bio over and over and over again (why Arthur Miller? IDEK.)

So the nature of Wikipedia means they need a verifiable source they themselves can check. I get that. Using your example, simply verifying his absence from his work only makes it possible that he did what he said he did, it does not confirm it. Assuming he has other truths to back up what he did, it seems the smarter thing for him to do would be to take his story to a newspaper. Then Wikipedia has a credible source it can attach to add his information to its databanks.

Given how much criticism (much of it unjustified) Wiki takes on the subject of credibility, I don't think it would help them to remove its core standard.

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

Using your example, simply verifying his absence from his work only makes it possible that he did what he said he did, it does not confirm it.

My suspicion is, it would confirm the person didn't have the opportunity to do the things it is claimed they did.

Assuming he has other truths to back up what he did, it seems the smarter thing for him to do would be to take his story to a newspaper. Then Wikipedia has a credible source it can attach to add his information to its databanks.

This raises a great point, in a way. My own version of this has been, if you're the kind of person who can both a) afford it, and b) cares about one's WP article about oneself, the obvious answer to the choice, "authorized biography" or autobiography, is the authorized bio. Because that puts a veneer of secondary source impartiality on the tale being told.

[reannon.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. As a journalist, I don't know about the latter. I tend to think of "authorized biography" as being tantamount to an autobiography, because presumably they're working together. But then an unauthorized biography is also something I take with a grain of salt, because it can just be an attack ad disguised as a book.

As with all things, "consider the source" is great advice. Wikipedia requires a legitimate outside source, which is fine by me - there are newspaper articles about me that are referenced in my WP page, and I guess that confirms for them that I'm a real person and I really won those awards and whatever else people put on the thing. (Mental note: check Wiki page.) I wouldn't want people tossing stuff on the page that isn't true, even if it was positive, because then people might assume I approved it? Does that make sense? I need more coffee.

On the same level, I could reference Fox News for an ongoing story, but I won't, because I know their standard for fact-checking and it doesn't meet my personal standards. It would for Wikipedia, I suppose. :/

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

Well, "consider the source" and standards for fact-checking are the reasons I just got the 8 DVD set of the complete New Yorker. (At a deep, deep discount, because they're discontinuing it in favor of an online archive.)

Here's an example of contortions: Because I remembered this article by James Fallows on his time at Microsoft, I was able to figure out one of the features in MS Word that he designed. I was able to get confirmation directly from him that my surmise was true (which has led to a correspondence over the years I enjoy, and I hope he does, too.)

But can I put this tidbit into the WP article about him? Nope. "Original research." (Also known as, "Hal's a privileged bastard who tends to write to sources when he has questions." Here's another example, this time about "privilege" itself.) Now, if I can find a journo willing to put it into an article that I can then cite, lovely.

"Authorized"... Probably a poor choice of words on my part. Again, I suspect it depends on the amount of money (and one's devil-may-care attitude) one is willing to throw at the project. Access to documents and paper trail? Sure. Actively working with the biographer? Hey, who has time for that?

The point is, WP has an institutional aversion to primary sources. Citing a biography that quotes an autobiography is regarded as better than citing the autobiography itself, presumably because of an assumption of review by the secondary writer.

Which all works back to the Asimov quotes. :)

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Before WP became hardline on this, I spent some time picking up seriously crap articles on things I knew a lot about, reorganising them and correcting them, to their general benefit. I don't think any of my stuff was seriously retracted. 98% of articles on Wikipedia would benefit from knowledgable people doing this (most of the other 2% already have quite a lot of attention, and this includes all the ones where posting garbage is a serious issue). But because I am completely, 100% Can't Be Arsed to go and find citations for all the important stuff there is to say on a subject, I'm not doing that any more, and I think a lot of other people have reached the same conclusion.

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

"But because I am completely, 100% Can't Be Arsed to go and find citations for all the important stuff there is to say on a subject, I'm not doing that any more, and I think a lot of other people have reached the same conclusion."

As long as you don't go through articles adding "Citation Needed" footnotes and/or badges/templates, I have no problem with that.

But I hate hate hate with a fiery passion 90+% of Citation Needed notes, because I find it so passive-aggressive.

* Given the policy on sources, all articles (or as close as doesn't matter) need further citations.
* If you have time to put in the footnote, you have time to find it yourself.
* To paraphrase Mr. Obama, the footnoter is the person they're waiting for.
* It subtracts from readability without adding any actual information.

Again, I find it an odd deference to authority/experts. "Hey, this thing needs to be updated -- not by me, of course, but by somebody who's assigned to do it." The thing is, on a wiki (any wiki, not just WP), everyone's "assigned."

I ran into this problem a lot on an internal wiki for a former employer.

"This part of the wiki is wrong -- it needs to be updated."
"Do you know how it should be?"
"Yes."
"Then go ahead and update it."
{long look of bogglement -- "Who, me?"}