Primary vs. Secondary vs. Tertiary sources Options

[Herschelkrustofsky]

There is a potentially meaningful discussion going on at the "Identifying reliable sources" talk page. Like I said, "potentially." It comes back to the perennial question of whether the News 'n' Entertainment Media are universally applicable as sources for a putative encyclopedia. Specifically, the issue is whether "opinion pieces" are to be considered primary sources, but as User:Wilfione opines, "I sometimes wonder whether the distinction primary/ secondary/ tertiary is not in itself something a bit fuzzy." As well he might -- much of what is presented as straight news coverage is actually veiled "opinion pieces." Will Beback, who is always concerned about what impact such policy discussions may have on the POV pushers, expresses his concern that "no clear distinction between opinion (primary) and analysis (secondary or tertiary)." I believe he means "in the policy discussion", because in practice, we all know that it's "analysis" if it is congenial to the POV you are pushing. Or, in the words of User:kmhkmh, "It is indeed an often misleading approach that invites for wikilawyering."

[communicat]

Ambiguation from Left vs Right:

Even discounting the Wikileaks landslide, there are many, many English language primary sources currently available, such as scientific studies by UN specialist agencies, government and NGO agencies etc etc, relating to just about every aspect of life in every corner of the globe. Their use is prohibited / excluded by the WP:OR rule, which is a ridiculous rule and should be abandoned if WP ever wants to consider itself truly encyclopedia, which it is not. A possible explanation for this particular aspect of WP's politics of exclusion is that WP simply does not trust voluntary "editors" to conduct reliable OR, and so WP prefers instead to rely on the received wisdom of secondary and tertiary sources, which in a sense is just one step removed from open plagiarism.

Re Roe's contribution above

encyclopedias (as tertiary sources) are more or less ruled non-reliable or undesirable sources.

Nonsense. Show me that rule. You can't.

[Milton Roe]

Re Roe's contribution above

encyclopedias (as tertiary sources) are more or less ruled non-reliable or undesirable sources.

Nonsense. Show me that rule. You can't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:RS#...ertiary_sources

This policy on tertiarys was changed in the fall of 2008. Encyclopedias other than WP are now allowed only as sources for for "broad overview" info, but discouraged for specific stuff. Interestingly, for a long time after WP:IRS began to speak of primary, secondary and tertiary sources, with secondary sources preferred, the lede/lead continued to encourage WP to use only tertiary sources! Finally in 2009 somebody noticed the disparity between the WP:IRS lede and the rest of the article, and fixed it.