Wikipedia talk:Identifying and using primary sources/Archive 1

Archive 1

Things to think about

I do like the idea of noting that "secondary is not always good"... but I think it more important to note that "primary is not always bad". Blueboar (talk) 19:39, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I have added something to that effect. Blueboar (talk) 19:58, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

What excellent work! One note: I'd recommend avoiding getting into the article deletion stuff. For starters, it's a different subject. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 10:50, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

If by "article deletion stuff" you mean "don't discuss how primary/secondary sources impact WP:Notability", I disagree. I think that is something this essay should discuss. To me, the focus/topic of this essay should be inclusive... "Primary/secondary sources - what they are used for and how to use them appropriately - also how they can be misused and how to avoid doing so". Blueboar (talk) 14:12, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that we need to address secondary-for-notability directly, because the odd, non-standard definition in play at AFD is where most editors get their first training on what a secondary source is. Then they wander out to the rest of the encyclopedia and get completely confused and often upset when someone points out that yesterday's 'eyewitness news' story actually isn't a secondary source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:35, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Notability

The major use of secondary sources in Wikipedia is to show something has been noticed. As it is currently written a yellow pages directory of companies would be considered a secondary source, do we really want to consider that as source of notability? I think a lot more has to be made of the noticing and evaluating function of a secondary source. Dmcq (talk) 12:00, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that the yellow pages would be considered a tertiary source, rather than a secondary source.

Also, the yellow pages are paid advertisements. As such, they are entirely non-WP:Independent sources and completely worthless for showing notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:11, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

The yellow pages is not a secondary or a tertiary source. A secondary sources builds on the material from primary sources. The secondary source material must be somehow transformed primary source material, and is consequently a product of the primary source material (the facts) and the creativity of the author of the secondary source. In a simple directory, there is no creative content deriving from the "author" of the directory. A logical ordering or sorting of data is not creative transformation. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:36, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

On a second look, I can't find any independent assertion (i.e., not directly or indirectly from the English Wikipedia) that claims a telephone directory is a tertiary source. I did find one that defined two other interesting axes: factual vs analytical sources and objective vs subjective sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:17, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Initial thoughts

I think there is a lot of related material found at Wikipedia_talk:Primary_Secondary_and_Tertiary_Sources. I personally recall writing "I’d suggest instead writing a new guideline “Interpreting WP:PSTS”"

On the section "Characteristics of a secondary source"...

RE: "A secondary source is based on primary sources" "is based on" is used a bit too much. A secondary source is not so much based on primary sources as it is a product of the mind of the author. A secondary source makes reference to at least one primary source, even if implicitly, sometimes using the assumption that the reader is familiar with the facts, or may even assume that the reader is a personal witness to an unnamed event making primary sources virtually untraceable. It is the commentary, analysis, criticism, etc, that defines a secondary source.

Secondary sources need not necessarily be significantly separated in time or space (although they usually are).

I find it easy and useful to tie the word "story" to secondary sources, and and "report" to primary sources. This works quite well with newspapers and other newsmedia. If it tells a story, the must be some transformation of the basic information. (Of course, if the subject is the story itself, then the news story is a primary source)

"A secondary source is usually based on more than one primary source" is debateable. How do you count secondary sources to establish "usualy"? Private commentary, such as your housemate talking to you, happens a lot and may use a single primary source. "Good" or "useful" secondary sources are usually based on more than one primary source. Reputably published secondary source material is usually based on more than one primary source.

On the section "Secondary sources for notability" RE: "One rough rule of thumb for identifying primary sources is this: if the source is noticeably closer to the event than you are, then it's a primary source." I don't think that is so correct. While usually true, it is often not. A discussion of the event of January 1, 1800, published the next day, was, and is, a secondary source with regards to the event. It may not be the most useful secondary source, but if it presents opinion and analysis and does not repeat the facts verbatum, it is a secondary source. The reason that it is likely treated as a primary source is because today's story probably goes beyond discussion of the event to include discussion of local reaction at the time. It thus comes down to "usage"

It may be best to ignore non-historiographical usages, but just to note that they exist: In the sciences, there is often a single capital P Primary source. It will be the first, the original, the most authorative source for some highly specific thing. It may well be the first account of an eyewitness. It may be the the technition's labbook. It may be the paper that first speculates the explanatory theory. This very narrow definition of a single Primary source seems to encourage people to think that all other sources are secondary. However, in the sciences, there is no concept of a "secondary source", and "Primary" simply means "first".

The above concept of a single Primary source applies readily to eyewitness accounts, and seems to be a familiar usage in journalism. In journalism, a "secondary account" is an account of what someone else said. The information is therefore "second hand". It is also less realiable, but it has some relationship to notability in that if something is worth repeating, then it is more notable than something not worth repeating. This use of secondary seems completely independent of the historiographical "secondary source".

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 15:10, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your useful comments. I've made some changes already based on them.

Since Wikipedia has decided to use PSTS for everything, I think we're stuck with trying to shoehorn the non-history fields into this framework. It's always going to be inelegant, but at least we'll can tell editors what Wikipedia they can realistically expect when they are working on (e.g.) medicine-related articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:14, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Secondary sources for notability

• One rough rule of thumb for identifying primary sources is this: if the source is noticeably closer to the event than you are, then it's a primary source. For example, if an event occurred on January 1, 1800, and a newspaper article appeared about it the next day, then Wikipedia (and all historians) considers the newspaper article a primary source.
• Typically, very recent newspaper articles are mis-labeled as a "secondary source" during AFDs, by way of trying to finesse the general notability guideline's requirement that secondary sources exist, when no true secondary sources actually exist.

An 1800 newspaper is an extreme example. I don't think that we'd consider a 1985 newspaper article or book to be a primary source. I'm not sure that calling all newspaper articles primary sources is accurate either.   Will Beback  talk  00:16, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I gave the extreme example on purpose, because it's a clear-cut example. An article from 20 years ago might go either way. A rough rule of thumb is not guaranteed to work well for borderline cases.

All newspaper articles are certainly not primary sources, and this page makes no such claim. However, all "eyewitness news" reports are primary sources (by definition), and basically all the newspaper articles that appear within hours of an event are primary sources (for purely practical reasons). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:36, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

That's not true. If a news report from hours after a political debate includes analysis from experts then that's clearly a secondary source. I think a lot of the text in this section is misleading and doesn't address the topic of the section.   Will Beback  talk  22:21, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I think that such a story is one that even experts would disagree on how to classify. The existence of some bit of analysis does not automagically make the source into a secondary one. If you presented a historian with a very old newspaper article, such as one describing a debate in the Continental Congress, s/he might very well tell you are calling "anaylsis from experts" was actually individual opinions issued by insiders rather than proper analysis, and that it is certainly a primary source for the initial reaction by contemporary experts. (Or s/he might not: it would depend on the details of the source and the historian's professional view of source classification.)

Even such a piece, however, is likely to be largely a primary source, because the first reports about a political debate have to provide basic descriptions, like who said what. All of that is unquestionably primary source material. The existence of a few sentences of on-the-spot analysis does not transform the whole piece into a secondary source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:05, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I think we're basing too much here on our own speculation. I'm going to trim some of the assertions out of that section and focus it more on the simple issue of how secondary sources are importawnt for establishing notability.   Will Beback  talk  03:23, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not basing any of this on speculation. This is what the sources actually say. See, for example, "Primary sources include original manuscripts, periodical articles reporting original research or thought, diaries, memoirs, letters, journals, photographs, drawings, posters, film footage, sheet music, songs, interviews, government documents, public records, eyewitness accounts, newspaper clippings, etc."[1] (emphasis added)

Someone's original thoughts about a political debate, as reported in a newspaper, falls into the standard definition of a primary source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:27, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Here are some more sources that say the same thing:

• "Primary sources are original records created at the time historical events occurred or well after events in the form of memoirs and oral histories. Primary sources may include letters, manuscripts, diaries, journals, newspapers, speeches, interviews, memoirs, documents produced by government agencies such as Congress or the Office of the President, photographs, audio recordings, moving pictures or video recordings, research data, and objects or artifacts such as works of art or ancient roads, buildings, tools, and weapons."[2]
• "Primary sources: These are contemporary accounts of an event, written by someone who experienced or witnessed the event in question. These original documents (i.e., they are not about another document or account) ... may also include published pieces such as newspaper or magazine articles (as long as they are written soon after the fact and not as historical accounts)" [3]
• "Periodicals - magazines, journals, and newspapers - written during the time period under study are excellent primary sources."[4]
• "Primary sources are original sources created at the time a historical event occurs"[5]; "newspapers" are listed as an example.
• "Primary sources: Published materials (books, magazine and journal articles, newspaper articles) written at the time about a particular event. While these are sometimes accounts by participants, in most cases they are written by journalists or other observers. The important thing is to distinguish between material written at the time of an event as a kind of report, and material written much later, as historical analysis."[6]
• "Primary sources are the historical documents used by historians as evidence. Examples of primary sources include diaries, personal journals, government records, court records, property records, newspaper articles, military reports, military rosters, and many other things…. The key to determining whether an item may be considered to be a primary source is to ask how soon after the event was the information recorded."[7]
• This names "news reports" twice as examples of primary sources in its list of what's considered a primary source by each discipline.

All of these are academic institutions. All of them agree: A newspaper story written immediately after a historical event is a primary source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:46, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

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.   Will Beback  talk  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. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:02, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

The implications of your proposed definition (for Wikipedia purposes) are far reaching. NOR says that articles should be based on secondary or tertiary sources. If we define newspapers as primary sources then thousands of articles on contemporary topics would become non-compliant, including scores of Featured Articles, such as 2010 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Final, Barack Obama, Richard Cordray, South Australian state election, 2006, Déjà Vu (Beyoncé Knowles song), Tropical Storm Nicole (2010), Brad Pitt, 300 (film), 200 (Stargate SG-1), J. K. Rowling, and Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. In some cases, this proposal would mean that those featured articles should be deleted outright. As such, it is at odds with usual practice on Wikipedia, which treats newspaper and news magazine reports as secondary sources.   Will Beback  talk  00:17, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

If you're talking about FAs from back when some of our policy geeks thought that "secondary" was a fancy way of spelling "independent", then you might be right that they could use some work.

But it's not all newspaper articles that are primary, and many of those articles cite non-primary media. For example, the LA Times report titled ""Occidental recalls 'Barry' Obama'" is a secondary source for the name of the college Obama attended, because it's writing about events that happened nearly three decades before. Three decades is significant separation.

This section is dealing with the notability problems of recent events: events that happen on Monday afternoon and turn up in Tuesday morning's newspaper. Those articles are (almost) always primary sources, and those articles are not considered proof of notability in the end. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:18, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Tropical Storm Nicole (2010) was passed as an FA in July 2011. Has the policy been changed since then? Please take a moment to review that article and see if it is based mainly on secondary sources, according to your definition of the term.

I don't doubt that there are any number of terms used on Wikipedia that have different definitions in academia. But this isn't academia. We create our own manual of style and we have our own functional definitions of "primary" and "secondary" too. It's the job of this essay to describe Wikipedia practice, not to change it to conform to academic practices. (That may be a valid goal, but this essay isn't the place to do it unless it's recast for that purpose).   Will Beback  talk  22:41, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, academic usage differs from what we do. I think the key issue is what the newspaper is reporting. A press release, in a newspaper, is a primary SPS. A news report featuring an interview with a reporter about what they saw would be a primary source. But I would argue that a news report filed by a reporter investigating a criminal matter would be secondary, regardless of how soon after the crime it occurred, since the reporter is not reporting what they say, but what the police and witnesses said. Separation need not be temporal. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:01, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Technically, nothing published as an article in a newspaper is self-published, even if the article is word-for-word the same as the self-published press release. What makes something self-published is if the author and the publisher are the same entity. "Big Marketing Company, Inc" is not the same as "Smallville Times' publisher". Therefore the newspaper's publication constitutes proper publication—even if the source is still essentially lousy for Wikipedia's purposes.

I agree that separation need not be temporal, although temporal separation is the simplest concept to explain, and the most relevant to notability issues (since what's wrongly touted as a "secondary source" in the weeks after an event will be derided as merely primary at the successful AFD years later). An investigative report can be a secondary report. A report about a crime may also be a primary report: merely repeating the statements made by involved parties is not sufficient separation. It's not just a matter of counting links in the chain. As someone else said recently, a secondary source is a work of the mind, not simple regurgitation of what you saw or what someone else told you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:58, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Tropical Storm Nicole (2010)?   Will Beback  talk  07:38, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Press releases are marked as such in news papers precisely because they are word for word what the company said and are thus primary sources regardless of where they appear. Newspapers are responsible to some degree for what they print, but they distinguish press releases to establish that what is said is something for which they are not responsible.

If a reporter is reporting what involved parties said, that report is still secondary--the statements are those of involved parties, and the reporter has the necessary degree of separation. Editors are responsible for vetting the content, if the newspaper is reliable, and thus we can take that report as a secondary source for what was said, as opposed to taking an involved party's later statement later about what they said--that's a key difference. Person X says Y. If a reporter reports that, it is a secondary report of what X said. Person X says they said Y, that's a primary source. Whether Y is true or not is a different matter. I agree that if a reporter is a witness to, say, a demonstration in the street in Syria, they are acting as a primary source, but if they are reporting what others have claimed, they are a secondary source for those claims. You've referenced Wikipedia:Identifying and using primary and secondary sources, but that is an essay, not a policy or guideline. What policy states is "Secondary sources are second-hand accounts, at least one step removed from an event. They rely on primary sources for their material, often making analytic or evaluative claims about them."

As for " a secondary source is a work of the mind", that's not always true, and a primary source is often a work of the mind as well. Research papers drawing conclusions about the results of an experiment, for example, as primary sources the way we look at it, while an analytical paper drawing conclusions across a number of research papers would be a secondary source, but equally a work of the mind.

In regard to temporal separation, it is not so simple as you make out. A report from 1901 about an event in 1601 we would generally take as a primary source for what people in the early 20th century held about that event, but not as a secondary source for the event in 1601. For that we would look for more recent historical works, as we assume that historians build upon one another's work.

Will, I don't have time to look at that article right now, but I'd be happy to later. If you'd like to identify the couple of sources you consider to be the most important for the article, that would save me some time.

Nuujinn, I have never seen an article (not a paid advertisement) marked "press release" in a printed newspaper. Have you? Note that I'm not talking about something merely appearing on a website: actual ink on newsprint.

Also, your claim that quoting someone else makes your paper secondary is simply wrong. Reprinting someone else's words does not magically transform your publication into a secondary source. (And if someone reprinted yours, would that be tertiary? And when I cite that third source, do you propose making up names for the classification?) The policy is trying to provide a simple overview. It says "second-hard" to indicate a significant degree of separation, not to imply that secondary is a fancy way to spell independent. If you post X on your blog, then your blog post is a primary source for your words. If I quote your post, my quotation is also a primary source for your words (but now an independent primary source).

Please: go read real sources about this subject. A number of them are linked above, but there are even more detailed sources available. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:05, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I have, and I'm not convinced, since, as Will notes, our goals are not the same as academic goals. I think your argument is counter to the intent of the policy, and that you are making gross generalizations about when and how analysis occurs in reporting in newspapers and magazine. A report in a newspaper that references what someone says and analyses it, especially if it does so in reference to what others have said about the same topic, is very definitely a secondary source as we use the term regardless if appears a day or two after the event. --Nuujinn (talk) 21:58, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Nuujinn, if you will look over your earlier comment, you will see that nothing like "and analyses it" is present there. Merely repeating the words that someone said to the journalist—what you originally described—does not constitute a secondary source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:14, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: My point with Tropical Storm Nicole (2010) is that you seem to be defining these terms differently than Wikipedia has done traditionally, even recently. It's up to you to show that you are using definitions that are consistent with actual practice on Wikipedia.

Regarding your revert of my edits, you wrote, " This isn't over-reach. It's supported by reliable sources, and the example is obvious".[8] Again, the only "reliable sources" for an issue like this would be Wikipedia discussions. Which discussion or other Wikipedia page are we using as the basis for this assertion: "Some editors—especially those with no training in historiography—incorrectly call these newspaper articles 'secondary sources'."?   Will Beback  talk  23:18, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Will, my point is that if you don't know what sources the article is primarily based on, then it's going to be hard to figure out whether those sources are, and are being used as, secondary sources. There are 60 sources, and we both know that the article is not 1/60th "based primarily" upon each one of them equally. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:14, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Which of those 60 sources would you consider to be genuine secondary sources?   Will Beback  talk  01:15, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

This question amounts to "please analyze every single source and every single sentence in this long article." Classification of a source depends on not only the inherent characteristics of the source, but also on how the source is used. A meta-analysis is normally called a secondary source, but you can turn it into a primary source by the way that you use it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:46, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

the point I'm trying to make with that featured article is that it would appear to be composed entirely or almost entirely of primary sources, according to your view. If so, either there is something very wrong with the FA process, or with your definition (for Wikipedia purposes). How can we resolve this question?   Will Beback  talk  21:52, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

The point I'm trying to make is that if you don't know which sources the article is "primarily based upon", then you definitely don't know that those mysterious, unidentified sources are not secondary sources. It is possible—easy, even—to base an article primarily upon one good source, and still cite a dozen others. It's not just a simple matter of counting up the number of sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:24, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

break

WhatamIdoing invited me back here to have a look. Will Beback doesn't seem to be saying anything disagreeable. I have trouble here finding the focus of the discussion. One question is: What is "SPS" in "A press release, in a newspaper, is a primary SPS."? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:43, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

primary SPS

I suspect that Will's concerns will be addressed by him reading the footnote in NOR that gives examples of primary sources:

"Further examples of primary sources include archeological artifacts, census results, video or transcripts of surveillance, public hearings, investigative reports, trials (including material — which relates to either the trial or to any of the parties involved in the trial — published by any involved party, before, during or after the trial), editorials, opinion pieces or interviews; tabulated results of surveys or questionnaires; original philosophical works; religious scripture; ancient works, even if they cite earlier lost writings; and artistic and fictional works such as poems, scripts, screenplays, novels, motion pictures, videos and television programs.

[....]

"Primary sources may include newspaper articles, letters, diaries, interviews, laws, reports of government commissions, and many other types of documents"."

Every single mention of how to classify news reports in NOR says that they are (normally) primary sources. Despite his belief that this page restricts these sources far more than the policy, we're actually doing the opposite and pointing out that some newspaper articles are secondary sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:43, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Scholarly papers

One problem I have encountered is the scholarly paper = primary source view of many editors (see Talk:Weston_Price/Archive_3#Planned_reworking_of_second_paragraph_of_introduction and Talk:Weston_Price/Archive_3#Price_and_FIT-inspired_.27holistic_dentistry.27 for two such examples). Certainly the actual words of the person the biography is about regarding one of the two subjects (focal infection theory-root canal) that has made him notable to the general populous would be worth mentioning--especially as all the current sources talk the man's 1923 work and act like he didn't say a word on the matter afterword.

Yet direct nearly entire paragraph quotes from the Journal American Medical Association and a book by Paul B. Hoeber, Inc; Medical Book Department of Harper & Brothers that show that Price's views on the matter were far more complicated then the more recent sources (based on a RS flawed interpretation of Price's 1923 work) show have been kept out simply because they are viewed as primary even though they are in fact a mixture of both primary and secondary.--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:21, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

It is true that "scholarly paper = primary source" is a common default assumption. I think it is generally a useful default assumption. Of course, it is not always true. The nature of a source, whether primary source or secondarary source, can depend on how it is used. The rule of thumb that I find most useful is that if it is a report, it is a primary source; if it is a review, a story, an analysis or a commentary, etc, then it is a secondary source. This works equally well of scholarly papers as for gossip magazines. Often, whether in a magazine or an article there is a sudden change from from primary source material to secondary source material across a single paragraph division. First, the facts are presented. Then, comment is made. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:53, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree that Bruce has found Wikipedia's approach to primary sources inconvenient for adding his beliefs about Price's work to that article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:49, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Here we see an example of editor hiding behind claims of belief to keep stuff out:

"The relationships between dental infections and degenerative diseases, if such exist, should be demonstrable by other means than the establishment of simply an association of the two in the same person, or the development of such lesions in experimental animals with cultures taken from focal infections."(Price, Weston A. (1925) "Dental Infection and related Degenerative Diseases" J Am Med Assoc 1925;84(4):254-261)

"In my search for the cause of degeneration of the human face and the dental organs I have been unable to find an approach to the problem through the study of affected individuals and diseased tissues. In my two volume work on "Dental Infections," Volume I, entitled "Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic," and Volume II, entitled "Dental Infections and the Degenerative Diseases," (PRICE, W. A. Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic. Cleveland, Penton, 1923) I reviewed at length the researches that I had conducted to throw light on this problem. The evidence seemed to indicate clearly that the forces that were at work were not to be found in the diseased tissues, but that the undesirable conditions were the result of the absence of something, rather than of the presence of something. This strongly indicated the need for finding groups of individuals so physically perfect that they could be used as controls. In order to discover them, I determined to search out primitive racial stocks that were free from the degenerative processes with which we are concerned in order to note what they have that we do not have." (Price, Weston (1939) Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects by Paul B. Hoeber, Inc; Medical Book Department of Harper & Brothers)

"It is very important that in the consideration of the dental caries problem it shall be kept in mind continually, that it is only one of a large group of symptoms of modern physical degeneration and when teeth are decaying other things are going wrong in the body. Fluorine treatment, like dental extractions, cannot be a panacea for dental caries." (Price, Weston (1939) Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects by Paul B. Hoeber, Inc; Medical Book Department of Harper & Brothers)

This NOT my belief as WhatamIdoing claims but three exact quotea that meet Verifiability and yet by playing the "oh they are primary sources" card editors insist on keeping them out even though they provide a more NPOV regarding Price's actual view rather than the distorted version that is largely the product of George E. Meinig.

In fact, if not for Gunnar Hasselgren's 1994 Annals of dentistry: Volumes 53-54 New York Academy of Dentistry pg 42-43 review we editors wouldn't even know just how distorted Meinig's presentation really is--Meinig uses only Price's self published 1923 work and makes some conclusions that have no basis in anything (least of all Price).

The consensus of the editors (Talk:Weston_Price/Archive_2#Weston_Price_cautious_about_focal_infection_theory.3F) was that there were serious problems with the modern sources as there was evidence that they were going on how Price's work was currently being used rather than what Price himself actually said and did. For example, it was shown using Price's own words that Stephen Barrett had no idea what he was talking about (Talk:Weston_Price/Archive_1#Weston_Price_and_Stephen_Barrett_in_their_own_words) and yet a reference to that nonsense is still in the article. We keep out peer reviewed papers but allow blogs. SAY WHAT?!!--BruceGrubb (talk) 21:25, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Dictionaries

There is some disagreement among scholars whether dictionaries are secondary or tertiary sources. Personally I don't see where the disagreement comes from as they are clearly secondary sources. The writers of dictionaries look at word usage across thousands of examples, and for their purposes each of those examples is a primary source. Some of those examples might be secondary or tertiary sources for other uses, but in the way dictionary writers use them they are primary. The only counter-example is when/if dictionary writers look to other dictionaries as a source. That's the only way in which dictionaries can be seen as tertiary. Anyway, as there is confusion about this we should not be stating flat out that dictionaries are tertiary sources. Mystylplx (talk) 05:13, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Here's your list:

• [9]—talking solely about a particular use (foreign language acquisition), not the general concept. Even a tertiary source can be made primary by the way you use it.
• [10]—The convention in a single field of study (law) that does not happen to use tertiary classification for anything.
• [11]—Ditto.
• [12]—Another guide for law students.
• [13]—Yet another source specific to the legal profession.
• [14]—Another website that doesn't admit that any source could be tertiary.
• [15]—Yet another website that doesn't believe in the existence of tertiary sources.

There were two other links that said that dictionaries could be secondary or tertiary, depending on the circumstances, which is not at all good support for your claim that they are secondary sources, especially compared to the many sources available that say they are exclusively tertiary. What you need to find—and haven't, apparently—is something that (1) deals in a three-part classification system and (2) defines dictionaries as being secondary (not maybe both secondary and tertiary). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:43, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Uh, actually sources that say they are both secondary and tertiary are quite sufficient to say they are both secondary and tertiary. And the rest of your objections are pretty strained. I could invent equally strained objections regarding the 3 sources you gave saying they are exclusively tertiary, but I'm not going to bother. Mystylplx (talk) 23:28, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

However, sources that say they are both secondary and tertiary are completely inadequate for your claim that dictionaries are always secondary, which is what you had written. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:27, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Affiliated sources

Are official published War Diaries of World War I (used by the British and Australian armies since 1907), and written by adjutants or intelligence officers, considered to be affiliated sources? This tag has been added to Sinai and Palestine Campaign and Battle of Magdhaba without any explanation by the editor and repeated cutting only invites its reappearance. As the war diaries are the only sources which have been contentious, although no longer so, I wonder if these may be the problem. --Rskp (talk) 02:02, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

We don't really use the phrase "affiliated sources" any more (were we ever using it much)? There are three distinct concepts to look at here: Independent sources, third-party sources, and primary/secondary/tertiary sources. WP:Party and person covers the distinctions. Quoting our article: "A war diary is a regularly updated official record kept by military units of their activities during wartime." So, that's clearly a primary source. All diary-type things are. As an official military record it's neither independent of nor third-party in relation to the army/government, if that's the question that's being asked in the dispute. Just because they're not primary and not independent (independent is a subset of third-party), doesn't mean they can't be used at all, just carefully per WP:PRIMARY.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:15, 28 May 2015 (UTC)