User talk:C4A6

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Hello, C4A6! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! ▪◦▪≡ЅiREX≡Talk 00:43, 5 December 2007 (UTC) Getting started A tutorial • Our five pillars • Getting mentored How to: edit a page • upload and use images Getting help Frequently asked questions • Tips Where to ask questions or make comments Request administrator attention Policies and guidelines Neutral point of view • No original research Verifiability • Reliable sources • Citing sources What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons Manual of Style • Three-revert rule • Sock puppetry Copyrights • Policy for non-free content • Image use policy External links • Spam • Vandalism Deletion policy • Conflict of interest • Notability The community Build consensus • Resolve disputes Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • No legal threats Community Portal • Village pump Signpost • IRC channels • Mailing lists Writing articles Be bold in editing • Develop an article The perfect article • Manual of style Stubs • Categories • Disambiguation Pages needing attention • Peer review Miscellaneous User name • User pages • Talk pages Clean up: General - Spam - Vandalism Join a WikiProject • Translation Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

Original reseach: a difficult issue.

I noticed your question on the talk page. You are asking all the right questions, and the answers are not easy.

Some background, which your helpdesk question shows that you understand already: We must depend on a fairly bizarre notion of reliable sources because we let anybody edit and we do not have our own professional paid department of reliable source checkers. We prohibit original research because otherwise any nutcase whacko could publish anything here. This prohibition extends to citing "unreliable" original research published in non-reliable sources for obvious reasons.

In your case, I think we can perhaps meet the spirit of the OR rules, but we will unfortunately break the letter of the rules. This means that we might still get some hostile reversions of your edits. Here is how I would proceed: First, establish a non-wikipedia venue on the net to publish the police reports. If you do not have your own web site, you can probably find an appropriate host. Next, publish the police reports at that site, and publish a factual summary, with NO "synthesis." Then, you can edit the Wikipedia article and cite the external web site.

This violates the letter of the "Original research" stricture against citing your own work, but it satisfies the spirit, because you have not performed a synthesis. If the Wikipedia article is not contentious, I doubt that anyone will revert your edit.

If this is really important for you and you expect problems at Wikipedia, your alternative is a bit harder. After creating the web site, send a letter to the editor to each of the publications that published incorrect information. Cite the web site and request a retraction of the original published story. On Wikipedia, you can then cite the published retraction in a reliable source, which satisfies the letter of the policy. -Arch dude (talk) 01:49, 6 December 2007 (UTC)