[WikiEN-l] original research

Tue Dec 7 21:13:09 UTC 2004

On Tue, 7 Dec 2004, Sean Barrett wrote:

> I have recently noticed another form of what I consider to be "original
> research," and I'd like to see if the consensus agrees with me.
>
> The article [[The League of Distinguished Gentlemen]] purports to
> describe a secret society at Creighton University.  It clearly was
> written by the secret society himself and is currently listed for
> deletion.  A popular reason given in the votes for deletion is
> "unverifiable," the rebuttal to which is "you can't verify it because
> it's a /truly/ secret secret society!"
>
> All of which is only mildly amusing, but did lead me to contemplate the
> possibility of a /real/ truly secret secret society.  Even if such an
> Illuminatus really did exist, and someone really were able to penetrate
> it, it seems to me that the resulting exposé would be original research,
> and not appropriate for Wikipedia.
>
> Thus, it seems to me that all unverifiable claims about secret societies
> are logically either
> (A) untrue, in which case they should be deleted, or
> (2) true, in which case they are original research and should be deleted.
>
Actually, the reason we should have a "Quick delete" -- if not a delete on
sight -- ipolicy on any article about a secret society -- or anything
related to the Illuminati -- is very simple:

fnord

Geoff