On Thursday 23 February 2012 12:58 AM, Sarah wrote:
On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 3:53 PM, Achal Prabhala<aprabh...@gmail.com> wrote:
Thank you Tom, and Sarah, for your very helpful explanations - they are
extremely useful.
There's a discussion on at the reliable sources notice board, for instance,
which highlights some of the interpretive problems you raise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Oral_Citations
Can I ask you how you would analyse the work of the oral citations project
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Oral_Citations) in terms of our
policies on original research, and verifiability?
Hi Achal,
It's difficult to give an off-the-cuff reply to this, because there
are so many variables. But audio interviews published only by Wikinews
have already been used as sources on Wikipedia. For example, I added a
David Shankbone interview with Ingrid Newkirk to her bio.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ingrid_Newkirk&oldid=473905868#Early_life
And I have used that interview as a source for at least two other
articles that discussed Newkirk's views.
It's a primary source, but it's unproblematic, in terms of NOR,
because it's clearly Ingrid Newkirk (not an imposter), and she isn't
saying anything controversial (e.g. nothing defamatory or factually
contentious). And I wasn't using it in an interpretive way, but purely
descriptively. The only prohibition regarding primary sources is when
they are used interpretively, as though they are secondary sources --
that's where you get into NOR territory.
In terms of the Verifiability policy, that interview might count as
self-published or unpublished, I don't know. But remember -- that
policy requires reliable published sources for material that is
(reasonably) challenged or likely to be challenged. It would be
entirely contrary to the spirit of that policy to object to Ingrid
Newkirk talking about herself non-contentiously in the article about
her. That is, it would not be a reasonable challenge.
So, to answer your question more usefully perhaps, I do not see the
introduction of oral citations into Wikipedia as a major upheaval (so
long as they are recorded in some way and used appropriately), in
terms of the existing policies. And I think they would liven up our
articles considerably if done well.
Thanks Sarah - this is very interesting, and I too think that a mix of
traditional and non-traditional citations make for a very good package.
Andrew and Castelo Branco brought up the idea of using Wikinews as a
publisher for interviews that form the basis of oral citations rather
than Commons - taking advantage of its policy on OR. And Andrew further
suggested reinventing Wikinews into a Nat-Geo style feature news site on
an earlier thread.
Sarah
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
