[WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

Fri Dec 22 01:01:28 UTC 2006

On 12/21/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> > From: "Steve Bennett" <stevagewp at gmail.com>
> >
> > On 12/21/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> A while back I wrote about a self-publicising vanity author. One of
> >>> the details I'd liked to have note was the complete (or near-
> >>> complete)
> >>> absence of his books in public library catalogues, but it's almost
> >>> impossible to actually find a way to cite a "negative search" much
> >>> less a positive result...
> >>
> >> Indeed, that would end up being OR - quite simple OR, but OR all the
> >> same. It's annoying when you know something that apparently no-one
> >> has
> >> published, but there isn't much we can do about it. (Unless you
> >> happen
> >> to be an expert on the subject and can publish it yourself)
> >
> > If that is OR then WP:NOR is a broken rule.
>
> A citation is essentially a very simple piece of research that can
> easily be reproduced by anyone without specialist knowledge.
>
> I don't see what that can't be broadened just a bit. For example,
> let's suppose a library has an online catalog... let's say an online
> catalog that's accessible to anyone. (Two that come to mind are the
> Cornell University Library, and the 16,000-volume public library of
> Bergen-op-Zoom in the Netherlands... well actually it seems to be
> offline but it was available a few years ago).
>
> You can't prove a negative, but you can certainly say "his book is
> not in the Cornell University Library" or whatever, and cite a link
> to the search or a description of how to do the search. This doesn't
> seem very different to me from a citation.

No, you absolutely cannot do that, for reasons eloquently stated
elsewhere. The claim that it is not in the Cornell University Library
is a novel conclusion based on your own original research; this seems
so trivially obvious to me that it astonishes me that others would
claim otherwise. You might as well promote a novel claim in physics,
and point people to the calculations you have made to prove your
theory. If a reliable source says "the book is not found in the
Cornell University Library", then quote them. Otherwise, move on.

Jay.