Strategic Planning

Proposal:Add or redesign tab for original research

Status (see valid statuses)

The status of this proposal is:
Request for Discussion / Sign-Ups


by user: Shoteh

Summary

If we want to know what would be successful in the future, we must see what was in the past. As we take a look on the variety of Wiki projects, we can see that very little enjoy to contribute to dictionary and similar department that require cited input, but most would rather participate in Wikipedia, where they can share some of their own thoughts and creativity, if they provide verifiable sources.

However, one have asked at the question section, "Why Wikipedia is not cited in scholarly articles as a source?" I am certainly sure that many scholarly articles are based on knowledge they found in a Wiki article, but they can only find in here something that's sourced, so an author would just cite the source, and not Wikipedia self.

Another question asked "How can Wikipedia attract high educated people to participate in Wikipedia?" My opinion is that high educate people would participate, if they could have the opportunity to share their own experience and research, even when they cannot cite any previous source, without worry for it to be deleted.

Proposal

I propose that a tab should be placed in every article, for original research that cannot be included in the regular article. People should be asked to put in their own research and findings, without the worry of being deleted. This tab should be protected from deletion, but only amendments should be made. Discussion should be continued until most conflicts resolved, and than they should be cited in the actual article.

The talk page might be redesigned to fulfill those achievements, but the templates placed at bottom of the page, and the contents protected from deletion. Also a tag should be placed on the regular article, that there might be crucial information in the talk page. Participants will be encouraged to edit the talk pages, as it being a original source for information, rather than the regular articles.

Motivation

As explained in the summary, the opportunity that people would get to place their original research, and not being deleted, would instigate motivation. Besides, many fields, has very few books or articles to cite - but many people can offer their personal experience, so Wikipedia will become an original source for information.

Key Questions

This proposal answers the following question:

  1. How would people be encouraged to contribute while worrying from it being deleted?
  2. How can Wikipedia be considered as a source for scholarly articles?
  3. Why should Wikipedia be considered as a source for scholarly articles?
  4. How could we find people to share their experience and thoughts?
  5. How can we make Wikipedia supplying information which was not previously known?
  6. How can we get professionals to participate and elevate the level of content?
  7. How can we get information in areas that little or no sources are found?
  8. Why should we get rid of our "No original research" pillar?
  9. How can we get rid of our "content is disputed" tag?

A key question against this proposal is as follows:

  1. How do we avoid this being used to create attack pages on people and discredit us by having us host all sorts of unsourced smears and allegations against people and organisations?

This is a very good question, but we can make regulations restricting original research only to scientific areas and not to personal areas, violators may be blocked and content deleted by supervisors. To ensure quality on scientific controversies, this proposal have already suggested that the information shall not be cited on the article page (or elsewhere) unless the discussion ends with convincing evidence that is not disputed, we can create an automatic warning template on that tab. In such a manner we will get the real scientific discussions on our pages rather than on private papers, and the information will be even more credible being open for adequate criticism and a host for a huge amount of qualified evidence. Over time we hope to find here actual names of world known experts and Wikipedia will be the number 1 source of scientific data. Experts will also enjoy the free help of untitled contributers of over the world.

References

Potential Costs

This proposal would probably (?) not add to much extra costs for Wikipedia, since it requires very little modification of design. However, it is assumed that companies finding information that can help them in real life, would be more vulnerable to donate money. Likewise, it would be easier for government and foundations to be recognize the importance of Wikipedia.


Community Discussion

Do you have a thought about this proposal? A suggestion? Discuss this proposal by going to Proposal talk:Add or redesign tab for original research.

Want to work on this proposal?

  1. .. Sign your name here!
  2. User:Malach
  3. Vibhijain 10:46, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
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