wjhon...@aol.com wrote: > I just want to address this one quote. > > <<You also don't have an article if you have a lot of primary > and tertiary sources, but very few secondary sources.>> > > Let's say that you have the "tertiary" (shudder) source EB 1911, > "Cleopatra". You are aware that an enormous number of our articles > were created *solely* from the 1911 EB are you not? > You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension this is "my" argument, rather than just one argument that I have heard put forwards. I'm not going to waste time defending it, since it isn't my argument to start with. You'd be better off looking at [[WP:NOR]] and working out how to amend it to reflect what you believe is consensus. I am well aware of the provenance of many of our articles. > So in conclusion, I don't think we have any policy language that would > say that tertiary sources without secondary ones would make an article > subject to attack, except possibly a "make this better please" tag. > I kind of like the idea that people will tag an article for clean up rather than nominate it for deletion. It makes me kind of warm and fuzzy and nostalgic. The thrust of the argument against tertiary sources is this: "Third party sources don't provide any evidence of notability unless they contain some sort of commentary on their subject matter, othewise they are classed as tertiary sources." What's at issue is that there are good faith misunderstandings of policy and guidance out there, which it seems it is hard to correct. We seem to have created language which doesn't solve any problems at all. Look at this fragment from WP:NOR: "Tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources. Some tertiary sources may be more reliable than others...". That's a tremendous weapon to charge any tertiary source not to taste as "not as reliable as these other ones that I like". Look at this fragment: "Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are more suitable on any given occasion is a matter of common sense and good editorial judgment, and should be discussed on article talk pages." That leaves the whole issue to argument, with no onus on either side to budge from their position. We've probably entrenched the idea that it's better to stick to your guns than seek compromise. After all, why wouldn;t "your" opinion be the one that is common sense and good judgment. Who is going to admit having bad judgment. Add to this that arb-com won't touch content disputes, and you are left with an atmosphere where both sides try to act as nice as possible whilst trying to goad the other party into a mistake for which they can get blocked. Is it any wonder disputes can fester across Wikipedia?
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