[WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR

Thu Dec 21 19:52:34 UTC 2006

Andrew Gray wrote:

>On 18/12/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>Steve Bennett wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>On 12/17/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>      
>>>
>>>>OR is when you go out and test the evidence yourself. Finding sources to
>>>>corroborate a point is called research, not original research.
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>No. In Wikipedia, OR is when you do the interpretation of evidence
>>>yourself. We should simplify the OR rule to make this clearer:
>>>"Wikipedians are dumb. We cannot interpret, only repeat."
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>So, in theory every entry could be written by a bot, eh?
>>
>>/me imagines RamBot adding articles on every court decision and piece of
>>legislation...
>>    
>>
>
>I'm manually writing articles on pieces of legislation - sadly the
>data isn't available to make it bot-generable, otherwise I'd set that
>going and tidy the results up.
>
>Which neatly brings out another aspect of pushing-OR. I open my copy
>of "Tudor Constituional Documents", and proceed to write something
>like:
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridges_Act_1530
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highways_Act_1555
>
>The problem is, all that the source contains is (a translation of?)
>the original text; I've recast it in a more modern style and converted
>from long and tedious legalese to a fairly comprehensible precis, but
>I've done it solely working from the original and not from any
>secondary synopsis of the Act.
>
>Is this original research? If not, why not - where does "rewriting"
>end and "interpreting" begin? Does it depend on the complexity of the
>source document?
>
>I think I'm in the clear - but I'm curious to know where we would draw
>a line on this sort of thing.
>
You can't possibly draw a clear line on this sort of thing.  
Nevertheless there is a clear parallel between what you have done with 
these statutes and writing a synopsis of a novel based on nothing other 
than reading it.  In doing so one does not add interpretive commentary, 
though there is no prohibition against translation.

What would make this more interesting would be to add a copy of the 
referenced acts to Wikisource.  A preferred source would be the oldest 
one findable in the original language of the time.  Joseph Robson Tanner 
died in 1931 so his version would be in the public domain.  The edition 
that you cite was a reprint of the 1930 second edition.

Ec