Misplaced Pages

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For discussion of Hopkins' use of archival materials, this version shows the necessary level of use to confirm facts in the article. All use of the materials has been removed until an actual policy allows them.

The use of technically unpublished archival materials recovered from an official archivist has come up recently on Hopkins Schools' FAC. Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources' opening sentence states that "Misplaced Pages articles should use reliable published sources," but archival materials often aren't technically "published" as they are for the school/organization's own history and are most certainly reliable if recovered from the archivist him/herself. In addition, the definition of primary sources under Misplaced Pages:No original research includes historical documents (which I would think archival information is), and since the materials were researched by the archivist they are not OR. I believe that under Misplaced Pages:Interpret all rules one should be able to interpret WP:RS as including unpublished archival materials as a reliable source. Staxringold 14:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

• I think that unpublished references from official school, university, government, or other public archives are acceptable. As long as the archive is publically accessible (which doesn't mean the archive must be online, as many are not) then the archive's materials are okay for use as a reference. Of course, if there is a conflict between the unpublished archival reference and a published reference, then the published reference is prefered. But if needed information is only available in an unpublished archived manuscript or document, then that reference is acceptable.--Alabamaboy 17:17, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

• I concur with Alabamaboy. —Nightstallion (?) 18:23, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
• I voice that opinion too. Lincher 18:48, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
• I agree, except I believe that both a published source and an archive source should have their information accounted for in an article. ProfMoriarty 19:13, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
• Alamaboy's reasoning is good. Archival materials are acceptable sources, but in case of conflicts, a slight preference should be given to the published materials. --Jannex 19:36, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
• I agree with Alabamaboy as well. Having worked for sometime in archives, I know that in some cases there is information that is only available in unpublished formats. Limiting our sources to only those things that have been published could be devestating in quite a number of articles. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 19:44, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
• I agree that archival materials should definitely be considered as valid sources. Given that they are often what authors of published works use to write their published sources, they are arguable more "primary" than published works! Thus, there is a good argument that they should have primacy over books etc. Also, without these, many articles can never be properly referenced, as the only references are often from archives. I understand that Misplaced Pages should not tolerate OR, but doing your own research when writing an article is not OR as long as it is verifiable (this is not always true, but with an archive I think it is). Batmanand | Talk 19:57, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
• I also agree with this sentiment. Certainly we can't allow anything, but many unpublished sources have information that is both useful and reliable. --Danaman5 04:16, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• (This comment may not adequately contemplate some recent comments, as it was added after an edit conflict.) I don't disagree with this in principle, and certainly don't have a problem in the specific case of Hopkins School, but I think it is important to think about unintended consequences. What if someone were to add original research to an article, and footnote it with: "Unpublished manuscript by J.P. Slovenly, part of the J.P. Slovenly collection at the J.P. Slovenly Institute"? We don't know the pedigree of the author, the overall reliability of the document, or anything about the collecting institution. But could another editor challenge this, without finding the J.P. Slovenly Institute, gaining access to the collection (which sometimes requires various levels of permission from authorities), and finding the reference in question? I'll try to answer some of the hypothetical myself: if the so-called "Institute" did not exist, then that would (IMO) disqualify the reference. Also, if there lacked reliable evidence that the author actually exists/existed, then that would be disqualifying. If author has no seperately-sourced history of involvement with the subject at hand, I would argue that this, at a minimum, casts strong doubt on the sourcing and shifts the burden of proof.

But even if there were a consensus on these points, allowing reliance on unpublished documents for support of controversial points would seem to open the door to massive fraud and deception on Misplaced Pages. In the in-person world, we can vet the academic credentials and reputations of editors, but this is not the case on Misplaced Pages, and there would be no stigma associated with supplying a wholly fictional reference, or for misrepresenting a real-but-hard-to-find one. If I say source the actuality of Galileo's apocryphal "Eppur si mouve" in the "Compendio di Conoscenza da Studioso, 16c. manuscript at Basilico San Judea, Nessunni, Italy", how can it be challenged? Reliance on modern, secondary, and published sources would seem to be at the heart of a reliable Misplaced Pages.

Finally, there is an argument that non-controversial points may be sourced by such documents. This, I think, is the most plausible position. It is useful to annotate a WP article with any available sources, published or not, if they shed light. But I would argue that if the above-stated tests are not met, the sources cannot support a controversial position.

In summary, if we are to allow unpublished sources, I would propose the following tests:

1. The document must be readily available to the general public;
2. The document must be held at an institution with a well-established reputation for scholarship;
3. The document must be by an author whose existence can be verified;
4. The author must have a verifiable reputation for credibility on the topic;
5. Unpublished documents may not source positions which are controversial, in the absence of published sources :documenting the same position;
6. Unpublished sources, are always considered de facto primary sources.

Finally, I would think that this entire discussion belongs at Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources. -- Gnetwerker 20:13, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

• Verifiability is true for all sources, as is reliability (as mentioned in the original comment). Also, I did post this issue for discussion at WP:RS, but felt that a general community consensus should be obtained before proposing a change in policy. Staxringold 20:24, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, but here is the problem: the opening para here says "archival materials ... are most certainly reliable if recovered from the archivist him/herself". Nothing could be further from the truth! Reliable for what? is the question. The archives of many institutions contain myth, folklore, oral history, and unsubstantiated rumor. A good scholar, of course, knows the difference, and scholars with reputations seldom misrepresent one for the other. So the mere source of the material does not guarantee its reliability -- there is a good deal of room for editorializing in what documents are selected, what they are purported to source, etc. So as noted, as (at most) primary sources on uncontroversial topics, this might work, but a statement that "archival materials are deemed reliable sources" (and even if you add "about the institution were they are archived") would seem to be a mistake. Most institutions of notability have published secondary sources about them. -- Gnetwerker 20:37, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but even huge institutions have information that appears in archives but does not happen to appear in published materials. Any information from archival materials should of course comply with the standard requirements for any Misplaced Pages source, all I believe and am asserting is that archival materials should be given the same chance for verification, rather than just being 100% tossed aside merely because the way their are bound isn't correct (unpublished, that is). Staxringold 20:44, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with these points and agree with them:

1. The document must be readily available to the general public;
2. The document must be held at an institution with a well-established reputation for scholarship
3. Unpublished documents may not source positions which are controversial, in the absence of published sources;
4. Unpublished sources, are always considered de facto primary sources.

I do have an issue with the two issues raised about how the author must be verifiable and have a verifiable reputation. Unpublished archive material is rarely from authors who meet these two criteria (otherwise they would have been published already). I think having the other points, and especially the fact that on controversial subjects unpublished archived subjects can't trump published sources (in fact, this should be the case on any subject) will keep bad info from creeping in. As for someone making up an archive, the "general public" criteria covers that. If something about the archive or institution can't found using Google then obvioulsy the institute doesn't have a "well-established reputation for scholarship."--Alabamaboy 20:57, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I should add that I think the Hopkins School article is the perfect example of how archived unpublished material should be used. Basically, this is a subject that is too narrow and uncontroversial for there to be a ton of published material on.--Alabamaboy 21:11, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I do not believe that Misplaced Pages policies are ambiguous on this issue. Here are some excepts that may be useful:

• "Articles should contain only material that has been published by reputable sources." - WP:V
• "we only publish material that is verifiable with reference to reliable, published sources." - WP:V
• "Misplaced Pages articles should use reliable published sources." - WP:OR

Unpublished material, however reputable, does not meet the requirements of these policies. If you would like to use unpublished material, you will need to propose changes to the Misplaced Pages Verifiability and Original Research policies. Kaldari 22:12, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

This is why I suggested it here first. I believe that the statement "reputable/reliable published source" is unnecessarily binding, as so long as the reputation/reliability can be seen for the materials (again, school archivist with material that is in no way controversial or groundbreaking). I held this belief under Misplaced Pages:Interpret all rules, however, which is a personal policy, not a site-wide one, so I proposed this discussion here to see what others thought. Staxringold 22:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

The restriction to published works is an important cavaet. It basically means that Misplaced Pages should never be the first source to publish information. The reasoning behind this policy dates back to the early days of Misplaced Pages, when it was decided that Misplaced Pages should never be used as a primary source. Since this particular issue has already been debated ad nauseum, I will respectfully decline to rehash the arguments here, but it basically boils down to the idea that we cannot rely soley on the reputation and honesty of the editor. If Misplaced Pages gets something wrong, there needs to be a published source we can point to in order to explain the discrepancy. Public archives are simply not accessable enough to facilitate source verification. Obviously they are more accessible than private archives, but the line has to be drawn somewhere, so we choose to draw it at "published". This seems to be a more convenient line than the list of criteria given above. BTW, I had a similar situation come up with an article I was working on. A friend of mine was doing research on the anarchist publisher Ross Winn, mostly using sources from the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan (which is a huge archive of documents, letters, publications, and artifacts from radical political movements in the US). It was tempting to use Misplaced Pages to publish what he learned, but instead I waited until he had written up his research and got it published in a magazine. That way the magazine, not Misplaced Pages, was responsible for any errors. Kaldari 22:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the comments by Kaldari. But I also think there needs to be guidance on how to handle archives, and flexibility to handle things on a case by case basis. Archives differ in their accessibility, both in terms of permissions and in terms of paper/online access. One thought I had was whether archives have individual policies on how you can use their materials, or reference them. Online archives probably have a page describing what people should and shouldn't do, and how to reference them, or not. Vaguely related is a sign I saw at a zoo that said "Photography is allowed for personal use only and should not be published elsewhere". The ones where you have to get permission to look at the archives (even though it might call itself a public archive), they might ask people for the reason they want to look at the archive. If the reason was "to research a Misplaced Pages article", I wonder what the reaction of the archive would be? Carcharoth 13:14, 30 March 2006 (UTC)