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

Fri Dec 29 22:50:56 UTC 2006

Andrew Gray wrote:
> On 29/12/06, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>>
>> Funny you discuss this.  At
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taylor_Allderdice_High_School&oldid=96979271
>> I've got someone asserting in the article that "a search of WorldCat
>> reveals that as of 2006 Taylor Allderdice remains one of fewer than
>> sixty high schools in the world to have its newspaper archived on
>> microfilm in a major library."  I agree this is original research, but
>> can't find anyone to back me up. Fancy popping your head in and
>> discussing the point?
> 
> And here we hit the problem with limited original research - bad
> interpretation. He's shown that "fewer than sixty high schools in the
> world are known to have...", not that "fewer than sixty high schools
> in the world have..." It's based on a false premise - that WorldCat is
> some kind of "grand global catalogue", which it isn't; it doesn't
> claim to be comprehensive, just large.

Yes, I'd say the operative word here isn't so much "original" as 
"logically unsound".  You just can't get from here to there.

-- 
Ilmari Karonen