Wikipedia talk:Identifying and using primary sources: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 04:18, 18 September 2011

Revision as of 23:02, 19 September 2011

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:::The question of whether particular sources, like newspaper articles, are primary or secondary is separate from the issue of the need for secondary sources for notability purposes. So I've split the section. Also, I'm concerned that you keep adding assertions implying bad faith on the part of people who are not historians. That's really not helpful to a would-be guideline like this.

:::Getting back to the issue of whether contemporary newspapers and magazines are primary or secondary sources, we have to remember that Wikipedia's standards and definitions are not necessarily the same followed by academic historians. Guidelines and even policies are descriptive of how Wikipedia ''actually'' works, not how it ''should'' work. I think it'd be hard to show that Wikipedia editors routinely regard newspaper articles as primary sources. We shouldn't use this guideline to try to change Wikipedia behavior, just to help editors follow community standards. &nbsp; <b>[[User:Will Beback|<font color="#595454">Will Beback</font>]]&nbsp; [[User talk:Will Beback|<font color="#C0C0C0">talk</font>]]&nbsp; </b> 04:18, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

::::That's exactly why these belong in the same section: We have a weird definition that makes old newspaper articles be routinely (and correctly, according to the academic standard) considered primary sources, but brand-new ones (except sometimes breaking news and eyewitness reports) be considered secondary sources—but ''only'' for notability purposes. If you're in a dispute over what's DUE, most types of recent newspaper reports (but not most types of magazine articles and not certain special types of newspaper articles, like stories on the 50 year anniversary of WWII) are going to be handled as primary sources.

::::We need to tell people what the academic standard is (thus the example from the 1800s), and how notability differs from it for recent events (thus the description of the "couple of years" grace period). Both of these are about notability, not just about newspapers. [[User:WhatamIdoing|WhatamIdoing]] ([[User talk:WhatamIdoing|talk]]) 23:02, 19 September 2011 (UTC)