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Revision as of 20:53, 2 October 2022

Welcome to the no original research noticeboard
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Include large RCT as primary research in text (RFC)

We have a discussion whether a large clinical trial should be mentioned in the flavan-3-ol text, even though it is primary research. Any comments to reach a consensus would be appreciated. There is no dispute whether the study is primary research - it is whether it meets the criteria specified in WP:MEDPRI to permit inclusion.

Lavender Oil Capsule Research

Lavender_oil#Uses current wording:

• A 2021 meta-analysis included five studies of people with anxiety disorders. All five studies were funded by the manufacturers of the lavender oil capsule used, four of them were conducted by one author of the meta-analysis, and blinding was not clear. In this analysis, an oral 80 mg dose of lavender oil per day was associated with reduced anxiety scores on the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale. Due to the limitations of these studies, the effectiveness of using oral lavender oil for treating anxiety remains undetermined.

Where is reference to (von Känel, 2021), is (Generoso, 2017), and is (NCCIH info page, 2020)

• Explanation of this wording choice by its author

• Arguments that this is not WP:OR

• Arguments that this is WP:OR

• Current talk-page section: Talk:Lavender_oil#Anti-anxiety_content_and_sources_-_revision

• Background talk-page discussion: Talk:Lavender_oil#RfC_on_adding_more_sources_for_anxiety_treatment_section_and_summarizing_their_findings

Thank you for helping out.

Is this a primary source or a secondary source?

Hello, there’s a disagreement at Talk:Coup_d'état#Large_deletion_of_material as to whether this is a primary source or a secondary source:

Marsteintredet, Leiv and Malamud, Andrés. “Coup with Adjectives: Conceptual Stretching or Innovation in Comparative Research”, Political Studies Vol. 68(4) 1014–1035 (2020).

This seems to me like scholarly material from a reputable secondary source. Of course, if people would like to find scholars who have a different position, any such scholars can be cited too, but I’m not aware of any. The authors of the deleted material are reputable scholars:

• Leiv Marsteintredet, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

• Andrés Malamud, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal

As for the journal, the lead of its Misplaced Pages article says this: "Political Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering all areas of political science, established in 1953 and published quarterly by SAGE Publications on behalf of the Political Studies Association." This particular article has already been cited many times by scholars in this field, even though this particular article was published relatively recently (2020), per Google scholar.

Thanks for advice. If parts of it are primary while parts of it are secondary, here’s how the source was used in the Misplaced Pages article. Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:55, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Why are we here? At the source dispute no one has questioned whether this is a primary source, have they? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 07:57, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

That’s incorrect. At the source dispute, I said “This is scholarly material from a reputable secondary source.” Another editor said, “The content seems undue as it is primary research, not secondary.” Per the Misplaced Pages article titled secondary source, “Secondary sources in history and humanities are usually books or scholarly journals, from the perspective of a later interpreter, especially by a later scholar. In the humanities, a peer reviewed article is always a secondary source.” Anythingyouwant (talk) 08:24, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

My mistake, I thought you were holding the "scholarly" work up as primary too. Thanks for focusing the question.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:19, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

It's UNDUE because it is a cherrypicked source that promote a POV under discussion on a different WP page and it has been stuck it on the Coup page where it is not central to mainstream narratives as to the topic of the article. SPECIFICO talk 11:20, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

I’m not aware of any source that contradicts it, but your solution in a case like this would be to find such sources instead of blanking what you don’t like. This reliable secondary source was cited twice by this Misplaced Pages article for other points, before I ever touched that Misplaced Pages article. Just because it goes against your POV is no reason to exclude it for some purposes and not others. You know that. Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:27, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Please see WP:ONUS and do not edit war this content back into the article without prior talk page consensus. SPECIFICO talk 13:51, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

@NewsAndEventsGuy: I've asserted at the article talk page, and here below, that how this paper was being used means that it is a primary source. It is a correlative analysis by the authors of three disparate datasets; a combined English/Spanish Google ngram search, and data of recorded coups from two other papers. Combining these sources in this way represents a novel idea of the authors, and the findings of that combination are new information, which is inherently a primary source per WP:PRIMARYINPART.

In addition, there are concerns, based upon one of two papers that actually cite the relevant findings of this analysis that it may be in part incorrect or inaccurate for coups in West Africa. As such, it is very difficult to assess the source for weight. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:31, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Any analytical papers are secondary sources for the facts they contain, including facts about the relative acceptance of opinions, and primary sources for the opinions of its authors. TFD (talk) 11:51, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Our article secondary source says, “In the humanities, a peer reviewed article is always a secondary source.” Maybe the job of peer review is to remove unsubstantiated opinion, leaving only substantiated facts and conclusions. Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:55, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Just want to remind everyone to read WP:VNOT. It may be relevant here. Blueboar (talk) 13:06, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Do you mean whether it is DUE or not? :) Selfstudier (talk) 14:11, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

I don’t think Misplaced Pages editors are supposed to reject content merely because they dislike it, which I see all the time. If something is well-sourced and a Misplaced Pages editor feels strongly about including it, the best path is to let it in, I do so all the time, while trying to make sure it’s presented with other viewpoints that may contradict it. Just blanking material you don’t like is the worst kind of censorship. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:09, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Policy allows reverting addition of material even for a crap reason although one would hope that if the reason was merely idontlikeit, then other editors would weigh in to readd. DUEness is a legitimate reason for keeping something out as long as it can be explained why something is undue. Again, editors need to arrive at a consensus on the point. Initially though, if one is trying to add something, then the so called WP:ONUS rests with the one trying to add and being well sourced (verifiable) is necessary but can be insufficient. Selfstudier (talk) 17:22, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

It seems like nothing is sufficient, no reason is sufficient, next to a greater number of editors who merely say there’s no consensus to include. WP:UNDUE insists that “pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints”, and this material at issue now is manifestly one of those viewpoints. It violates WP:UNDUE to exclude it. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:32, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

If the local consensus (on the article talk page) is against you, your only recourse, apart from just walking away, is to increase the eyes on the problem. This noticeboard is for OR problems, you might want to ask at the NPOV board whether the source is a sufficiently held viewpoint for inclusion but try and demonstrate that it is first. If you are out of arguments and still wish to press the issue, an RFC is an option (same idea, get more eyes on it). Selfstudier (talk) 17:40, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

It doesn’t matter how many eyes are on it, if the notion keeps spreading that people are entitled to reject whatever content they don’t like. And that notion certainly is getting very widespread in Misplaced Pages articles related to law and government. What special interest group wouldn’t want to dive into Misplaced Pages now to make sure that articles suit their fancy? Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:44, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

That is exactly why "more eyes" works, in general. It draws in editors with no axe to grind. In an RFC, the policy based arguments are more important, an editor whose view translates to idontlike it is not going to have that much attention paid to them. Whereas a "pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints" argument will carry some weight. As for sigs, well they are doing that all the time, eventually legit editors will catch up with them. Selfstudier (talk) 17:50, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

As I said at the article talk page, my objections to this are not based on WP:IDONTLIKEIT. They are based upon the NPOV policy. You are correct in saying that pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints, however it also says in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Based on the papers that cite Marsteintredet and Malamud, it is impossible to identify the prominence of this work, in relation to others published in the same area. The paper is not that well cited; it has only 14 citations that are not from undergraduate or masters theses, and only two of the English language citations actually cite and make commentary of the information we are interested in. This is why I have repeatedly stated that it is undue. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:36, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

I gave yesterday, what I thought was a pretty comprehensive rationale for why I think the content is undue (diffs; , , ). I'll go over the key points again here though for clarity.

The source was being used for this added section, where it is citing the findings of Marsteintredet and Malamud's original research. Breaking it down by paragraphs:

• As of 2019, coups were occurring less frequently than in previous decades. Yet, the term “coup” was occurring more frequently in both academic and non-academic contexts, especially in conjunction with an adjective like “soft” or “parliamentary” or “electoral” or “slow-motion”.

  This paragraph is citing a juxtaposition of a Google ngram search conducted by the researchers, using the 2012 English and 2012 Spanish corpora (per page 3, and note 2 on page 19 of the PDF), against the frequency of recorded coups as reported in two papers by Powell and Thyne (2011), and Przeworski et al (2013) (pdf page 7). That analysis by Marsteintredet and Malamud is inherently a primary source, because it represents their analysis and correlation between the three sources.

  This presents two issues; one is that the sentence is misleading, and the other is one of weight. We cannot say in Wikivoice that As of 2019, coups were occurring less frequently than in previous decades, because the research by Marsteintredet and Malamud only covers the period between circa 1800 and 2012, as the sources used by Marsteintredet and Malamud only cover that period. At best we could say "As of 2012, coups were occurring...".

  However we also have the issue of how much weight do we assign this source. Because it is a primary source for this correlation, we cannot assess from this source how well regarded these findings are. The paper itself has been cited 18 times, six of which are noted on Sagepub, and the remainder from Google Scholar. Of those 18 citations, 4 are unreliable per WP:SCHOLARSHIP, 4 I was unable to assess due to a language barrier (I don't speak Spanish, Portuguese, or Romanian), 2 I was unable to access, leaving 7 sources which I read to see how they use the work. Of those seven sources, only two cite it in a way that is relevant to this sentence, one of which has a brief positive analysis, and the other which contests the findings in relation to coups in West Africa. As such, based on the sources that cite this source, I would assign it low to zero weight for this sentence.

• This development has been linked to a more general linguistic phenomenon: when instances of a concept become less frequent, the understanding of that concept expands to cover more cases.

  Here we have a problem of causation versus correlation. The work by Marsteintredet and Malamud is pretty explicit that they are reporting on a correlation only. We also have the issue of weight from the previous paragraph, because this part of the paper is not widely cited by others, and when it is it is contested.

• Political scientists Leiv Marsteintredet and Andrés Malamud, who have studied this general phenomenon as it applies to the particular word “coup”, caution that, “labeling an event as a coup may generate political actions of grave consequences such as the withholding of aid, the suspension from international organizations, the triggering of international sanctions, and even foreign military intervention.” They assert that the constitutive elements of a “coup” are summarized in the definition provided by Powell and Thyne who wrote in 2011 that a coup occurs when “the military or other elites within the state apparatus…unseat the sitting executive.”

  Notwithstanding the issues of weight, this paragraph is more reasonable, because it attributes it to the respective authors.

For me, the big issue here is one of weight. How much weight do we assign this paper? Is the findings of it representative of the mainstream view in this field? Based on how others have cited the findings with respect to the correlation, it is impossible to tell because we have only two datapoints; one of which is positive and the other negative. However this is only representative of the citations in English, and it is possible that the 4 other papers I cannot read due to a language barrier may offer some more clarity on this. Nonetheless, in lieu of that extra analysis I'm pretty confident in saying that this paper, in the way it has been proposed for use, is undue. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:19, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

First things first

You've objected to three separate parts of the material you deleted. Let's just focus on the first one for now, because I think it illustrates the basic problem throughout, which is that you are trying very hard to dismiss the article by Marstentreidet without proper grounds. You deleted this, for example: As of 2019, coups were occurring less frequently than in previous decades. Yet, the term “coup” was occurring more frequently in both academic and non-academic contexts, especially in conjunction with an adjective like “soft” or “parliamentary” or “electoral” or “slow-motion”. You say, "That analysis by Marsteintredet and Malamud is inherently a primary source, because it represents their analysis and correlation between the three sources." This is a fundamental misunderstanding about what a secondary source is, and what a primary source is. This peer-reviewed article is a secondary source, and you acknowledge it is using "three sources" having earlier dates; primary sources do not assess or summarize earlier sources. You say that we cannot say in wikivoice that "As of 2019, coups were occurring less frequently than in previous decades", because (you say) the sources used by Marsteintredet and Malamud only cover up to 2012, but that's your original research, not based on what any experts have said or written, and you're just wrong; Martsentreidet explicitly say this matter is uncontroversial (emphasis added):

There is absolutely no ambiguity here about what this peer-reviewed secondary source is saying, but you somehow think it's our job to question its correctness even though no published authors have questioned it. If you would look at what published authors have written in reliable sources, you would see that Martsentreidet is correct. If you don't have access to the sources he cites, you can simply use google and find stuff like this: Desilver, Drew. “Despite apparent coup in Zimbabwe, armed takeovers have become less common worldwide”, Pew Research Center (17 Nov. 2017). You claim to have found a source that "contests the findings in relation to coups in West Africa" but that is simply false; the article by Heyl says, "Complete regime collapse through coups d’état has become a much rarer event than in the pre-third wave decades – even though the latest coups that took place in 2020 and 2021 in Chad, Guinea and Mali call into question whether this trend still holds for West Africa." Those latest coups in West Africa took place after 2019 (the material you deleted specifically said "as of 2019"), and Martsentreidet made no claim whatsoever about what would happen in the future, nor relied upon what might happen in the future. It really strikes me as profoundly wrong to simply blank this material based on flimsy reasoning, without even being willing to accept in-text attribution. If you want, I can address the other two pieces that you objected to, but if we cannot even agree about this first part then it would be a waste of both your time and mine. Anythingyouwant (talk) 09:48, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

@Anythingyouwant: Ok, one more attempt with regards to why the relevant part of Marstentreidet, with respect to the proposed added content, is a primary and not secondary source, per WP:PRIMARYINPART. The relevant section of Marstentreidet is a combination of three sources; a Google ngram search conducted by the researchers, using the 2012 English and 2012 Spanish corpora, and the frequency of recorded coups as reported in two papers by Powell and Thyne (2011), and Przeworski et al (2013).

With regards to the Powell and Przeworski papers, Marstentreidet is a secondary source as it is using and reporting on their findings. With regards to the Google ngram search, Google is the primary source for the underlying ngram data, however Marstentreidet's specific search is in kinda a grey area. Google host the dataset, however it is Marstentreidet who has chosen what specific terms to search against that data. As such, the search has elements of it being both a primary and secondary source.

However with regards to the combination of the three sources, and the analysis of that combination, Marstentreidet is unquestionably the primary source. As far as has been demonstrated, no other authors have combined these three sources; Google ngram, Powell, and Przeworski, in this manner. As such the correlation that is reported in Marstentreidet, that there has been a downward swing in coup attempts but an upward swing in the term appearing in literature, which is based on the combination of these three sources, is inherently primary. Marstentreidet is the original source for this assertion, which makes it a primary source.

It is therefore not incorrect nor controversial to say that the part of Marstentreidet upon which you rely on is a primary source. Per WP:PRIMARYINPART A peer-reviewed journal article may begin by summarizing a careful selection of previously published works to place the new work in context (which is secondary material) before proceeding into a description of a novel idea (which is primary material), which very clearly applies to Marstentreidet. PDF pages 2 and 3 have a brief literature review laying out the context of this work, which is inherently secondary. However the combination of the three sources of Google ngram, Powell, and Przeworski, on pages 3-8, are a "novel idea" from Marstentreidet's authors, and as such are inherently primary material.

This is idea of a research paper or journal article being both a primary and secondary source is de facto in most, if not all scientific fields. Though I do recognise that if you are a historian it may seem odd, because primary and secondary sources have different meanings in that context, and perhaps that is maybe where this confusion is arising from?

There is absolutely no ambiguity here about what this peer-reviewed secondary source is saying, but you somehow think it's our job to question its correctness even though no published authors have questioned it. That is not what I've been saying. Our job is to figure out how much WP:WEIGHT do we assign the source. How do we contextualise the primary findings of this source; the inverse correlation between recorded coup attempts and use of coups in academic and non-academic literature, against other findings in this field? Does it represent the mainstream view? Is it a fringe view? None of those are questions we can answer from the Marstentreidet paper alone, because to answer them we need to see what other sources say about this source.

You say that we cannot say in wikivoice that "As of 2019, coups were occurring less frequently than in previous decades", because (you say) the sources used by Marsteintredet and Malamud only cover up to 2012 That is roughly correct, though I need to make a slight correction; 2008 not 2012. Marsteintredet is pretty clear in their text that their specific findings only cover the period between 1800 and 2008, per the caption on figure 2, PDF page 4, and footnote 2 on page 19. It is not WP:OR, because this is what Marsteintredet clearly and plainly state.

Where Marsteintredet is discussing the findings of Belkin and Schofer, Derpanopoulos et al., Djuve et al., Marinov and Goemans, Marshall and Marshall, and Singh, on PDF page 3, it is with respect to only the downward trend of coups since the 1950s. Those six papers do not form part of Marsteintredet's previously mentioned combination. It is also entirely improper to use the publication years of those six papers to imply that coup attempts are still trending downwards at the publication year of either those specific sources or Marsteintredet. When looking at the two most recent of those papers; Marshall and Marshall, and Djuve, Marshall and Marshall was published in 2018 however its last reported coup was is in 2017, meanwhile Djuve was published in 2019 but it only covers regime breakdowns between the years 1789 and 2016.

It really strikes me as profoundly wrong to simply blank this material based on flimsy reasoning, without even being willing to accept in-text attribution. It is not "flimsy reasoning" to say that the WP:DUEness of Marsteintredet has not yet been demonstrated by yourself. This is a perfectly germane question to ask of any new text that is being added to an article, and is strongly suggested by both Misplaced Pages policy and guidelines. Because you are the author who wishes to include this text, per WP:ONUS it is your responsibility to demonstrate why this content is due for inclusion. To date, you have not done so. Despite ONUS being a shortcut to the WP:VERIFIABILITY, this is quite clearly not a verifiability issue, as we can easily verify that Marsteintredet has said these things via the links provided. The problem is actually based in the WP:NPOV policy, which is why my arguments are predicated on WP:WEIGHT, and why we need to determine whether Marsteintredet represents the mainstream view or a fringe view.

To do that, we need sources, which are secondary of Marsteintredet, and which either directly discuss the findings of Marsteintredet, or through some other means present the mainstream point of view in this topic. However despite the very long discussion both at this noticeboard and the article talk page, you still have not demonstrated this. At the article talk page, I've attempted to do so based on other papers that have cited Marsteintredet, however in doing so I only found two papers that actually cite the findings in a way that are relevant to the text you wish to insert into the article, and from those two papers it seems impossible to ascertain whether or not this is the mainstream perspective. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:33, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

This is just profoundly wrong. You haven't even mentioned the Pew paper that I linked which confirms that this point is completely “uncontroversial” (as Marsteintredet says) that coups were far less common in the 2010s than in previous decades. You haven’t cited any source whatsoever that says otherwise. You say, "As far as has been demonstrated, no other authors have combined these three sources; Google ngram, Powell, and Przeworski, in this manner." Almost every single article on Misplaced Pages has a list of references that is unique to that article, but that doesn't somehow turn the Misplaced Pages article into original research. You say, “Where Marsteintredet is discussing the findings of Belkin and Schofer, Derpanopoulos et al., Djuve et al., Marinov and Goemans, Marshall and Marshall, and Singh, on PDF page 3, it is with respect to only the downward trend of coups since the 1950s.” Well that’s exactly the point you want to omit from this Misplaced Pages article (among others). You say, “Those six papers do not form part of Marsteintredet's previously mentioned combination.” Right, they’re in addition. You say, “It is also entirely improper to use the publication years of those six papers to imply that coup attempts are still trending downwards at the publication year of either those specific sources or Marsteintredet.” That’s your opinion, and you haven’t substantiated it, you’re quibbling that those papers were published a year or two before Martsteintredet so they can’t support anything Marsteintredet asserts about any prior decades if that year or two is included in the assertion. And yet you haven’t shown any reliable source that remotely suggests Martsteintredet is wrong about that year or two. Even if I were to offer that we say “up to 2017” instead of “up to 2019” you have still claimed that the sources in my blockquote are irrelevant, so I’m not going to make that offer only to have you shoot it down for some other insupportable reason. Feel free to restore the material you blanked and make corrections as you think necessary, as you’re required to do per WP:Preserve. I give up discussing this for now. If other editors would like to weigh in, that would be great. At article talk, I’ve shown you dozens of papers that cite Marsteintredet, and you haven’t pointed to a single one that contradicts or criticizes any statement by Marsteintredet that I’ve relied upon (or even anything else said by Marsteintredet), yet for some mysterious reason you think Marsteintredet is not mainstream and cannot even be used with inline attribution. Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:47, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

The only point I'm going to address is on WP:PRESERVE, as we have seemingly talked exhaustively on the other points and I see no reason to address the strawmen arguments presented. Per WP:CANTFIX, PRESERVE is beholden to other policies including WP:NPOV and WP:V. The arguments I have presented stem from the WP:UNDUE part of NPOV, and to date you have not been able to demonstrate why the proposed addition is DUE. As such I am not required to do anything.

I'd also remind you that I am not the only editor who has objected to this content, nor was I the first. @SPECIFICO: was the first to remove the then recent addition which was expanded and refactored over the next few edits. SPECIFICO also stated that this new content was in violation of NPOV as it was UNDUE, both in her edit summary and on the talk page. I agree with her on this point. As this was recently added content, PRESERVE is also beholden to WP:ONUS, and it is on you to demonstrate why the content is due and to seek a consensus for it. Again, this is something that has not been done. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:31, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE says, “Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources.” You could comply with both this and WP:PRESERVE by adding other viewpoints that differ from Marsteintredet. Since you cannot, you simply delete. Anythingyouwant (talk) 08:26, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Should the article 2019–2021 Persian Gulf crisis exist?

This article has a number of problems. It strikes me as a violation of our policies on WP:OR. The content is not the main issue, though there are significant WP:PROSELINE issues. But the article's existence takes many separate incidents, almost all of which already have independent Misplaced Pages page, and amalgamates them into one big crisis that doesn't seem to exist in reliable sources. This is a type of synthesis/original research.

The article was originally split off from Iran–United States relations due to size, but it has just become a dumping ground for every little thing that happens in the Gulf or between the US and Iran, violating our WP:NOTNEWS policy as well. The article's content is already adequately covered at the many linked articles on specific incidents (May 2019 Gulf of Oman incident, June 2019 Gulf of Oman incident, 2019 Iranian shoot-down of American drone, 2019 K-1 Air Base attack, Attack on the United States embassy in Baghdad, Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, July 2021 Gulf of Oman incident, Assassination of Qasem Soleimani and several others). The article's content is also covered at Iran–United States relations, Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict, Iran–Israel proxy conflict, Iranian intervention in Iraq (2014–present), Assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, and several others. This article's existence is redundant. Its content is either better covered elsewhere or too trivial for inclusion at all.

I'm not convinced that this noticeboard is the right place to bring this up, but I couldn't think of a better place; if there is one, please let me know and I'll move it there. Starting an AfD would be the next step, but I wanted to discuss the issue in broader context first before going straight to deletion. —Ganesha811 (talk) 14:10, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

According to the BBC there is/was(?) a crisis Iran and the crisis in the Gulf explained so it wouldn't seem to be OR on the face of it, at least originally. So the issue then would appear to be the scope, the original material that was split out must as well have had a scope at the time. If the article now contains material outside the scope (a "dumping ground") then maybe the simplest thing is to trim it. I haven't looked in detail but even if all those individual articles cover specific events in more detail, the "parent" article may still be good as overview depending on what sourcing is available. Selfstudier (talk) 14:56, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

• I found this, let's say, news feed some months ago and tried to raise some similar sort of awareness (like here). At the time, there were also attempts aimed at updating the title to 2022, which I strongly believed was not in accordance with WP:OR. I am still unable to find reliable sources showing the GNG criteria, those which directly say there is a crisis out there which specificly belongs to the modern history of the PG. Needless to say that Persian Gulf had been stormy throughout its history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mhhossein (talk • contribs) 11:43, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Ganesha811:, are you willing to keep up with discussion? --Mhhossein 10:40, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

What do you mean? —Ganesha811 (talk) 11:30, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

• Note: given the lack of response here (except for Selfstudier and Mhhossein - thank you!) I have nominated the article for deletion at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/2019–2021 Persian Gulf crisis. —Ganesha811 (talk) 16:15, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

LGBT rights in Texas

Did a Texas law passed in 2019 nullify federal anti-discrimination employment law? It is currently stated so at LGBT rights in Texas#Summary table. Four citations are provided for the statement—two links to Texas law and two to news media coverage—and there is a dispute about whether the sources support the analysis.

There's some active discussion at Talk:LGBT rights in Texas#Fresh start and protracted prior discussion in sections above. There are other related issues, but I wanted to bring up one of the central issues. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 12:28, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Any takers? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:41, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Is there anything useful I might be able to do to spark wider discussion, @Firefangledfeathers? (Purposely haven't weighed in here, as I assumed the idea is to get views of other, uninvolved editors.) Where do we go from here? AukusRuckus (talk) 08:20, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Discussion of content provided that does not exist in cited sources

Hello, in the article BMW G 310 R, we are discussing the possible use of original research. The editor who added it states that information not found in a source, is true because it isn't found in a source. I'm pretty new so I may be wrong but I believe this is original research based on Misplaced Pages's core content policy. The discussion can be found here and additional expert input would be appreciated. Talk:BMW G 310 R#Not Feature Lists containing original research. A third opinion was obtained and they are in agreement that it is original research but the original poster is adamant it is not. Advice would be appreciated if this is original research.

Two Indian caste/tribe topics

That is about the articles Tribal casteism and Tribal multiculturalism. Please join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Noticeboard_for_India-related_topics#Opinion_on_Tribal_casteism_and_Tribal_multiculturalism?. Tigraan 15:35, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Singularity (system theory)

• Singularity (system theory) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This article is a pretty severe mess of OR. It seems to have been translated from dewiki in 2016, with very little substantive change since then. It reads like a personal essay with unclear scope/topic, attempting to bring loosely related ideas under the same umbrella. I can't really access most of these sources (some are in German, too), and I'm not sure what should be done here...AFD? Can anything be salvaged. Some eyes would be welcome. Thanks! 35.139.154.158 (talk) 05:46, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, the article is a mess.... AFD could be a option here, or possibly splitting up some of the topics into there own articles. I would like to lend a hand once we agree on what is to be done. Melancholyhelper (talk) 13:58, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

I prefer improvement to deletion. The content is fine; it's not featured-level (or Good-level) of course, but it covers a notable topic, has a very basic outline of the subject, and cited good sources. DFlhb (talk) 09:47, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Eyes needed on 2021-2022 inflation surge

Could editors please have a look at that page, and in particular the recent edits referenced in these talk page threads: here and here. An editor has reinstated some dubious content. SPECIFICO talk 17:17, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Possible OR on Lavender Oil

An editor removed the following statement, saying it wasn't found in the source:

If ingested, lavender oil is poisonous in amounts as small as 5 millilitres (0.18 imp fl oz; 0.17 US fl oz) due to its constituents linalyl acetate and linalool.

It was restored, and so I looked into the source and found the editor who removed it was correct, and reverted the restoration. It's now being contested.

the 5ml statement was in fact not referring to lavender oil. It's mentioned in the second paragraph of this article, and says "the risk depending on the oil used; the onset of toxicity can be rapid, and small quantities (as little as 5 mL) can cause life-threatening toxicity in children.3" My bolding. The study cited in that article's paragraph, regarding the 5ml statement in particular, did not study lavender oil. A brief back-and-forth happened, before I brought it to the Talk Page here.

There is no dispute about lavender oil's toxicity, only the "5ml" statement, which is not referring to lavender oil.

The Talk Page discussion is not going anywhere, so I thought I'd bring it here. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 17:56, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

• The two sources currnetly cited state for all essential oils they discuss (which include lavender oil), that 5ml is enough to be seriously toxic. So where's the OR? The OR is, rather, your reinterpretation of the source: you are in effect saying that the authors should not have generalized, but have written something different based on your reading of the underlying literature. Bon courage (talk) 18:13, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

  I read it as essential oils can be toxic as low as 5ml, with the additional knowledge provided by paragraph 2, which states "depending on the oil," to which someone might wonder "which oil?" to which they can see the study cited, which lists those oils, and lavender is not one of them. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 18:26, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with this reading. It's incorrect to infer from "5mL of some essential oils are toxic" that "5mL of lavender oil is toxic". pburka (talk) 19:28, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Sámi Parliament of Norway election results

I have been working on the articles relating to the Sámi Parliament of Norway for about a year, and have struggled to find results for elections from 19899, 1993 and 1997 (which are on the Norwegian Misplaced Pages but are not complete).

I contacted the Parliament themselves, who are willing to send me physical, undigitised "booklets" from their library which contain them. I have sent back some questions about how they've been published, but how can I ensure that these do not violate the original research policy? JackWilfred (talk) 14:43, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

If the books are available in a library, then everyone else has access to them, too, even if they also have to e-mail the parliament or travel to Norway. They may be WP:PRIMARY, but using primary sources is acceptable for statements of fact, so I think you're probably clear. (See also WP:OFFLINE.) pburka (talk) 14:49, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. JackWilfred (talk) 14:54, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Category:Continuous pitch instruments has been nominated for discussion

Category:Continuous pitch instruments has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 08:44, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

List of sovereign states

Page: List of sovereign states (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
This article is a list of places that meet the criteria of sovereign state as defined by Misplaced Pages editors. Predictably, the editors cannot agree on the criteria or which states fit it, other than UN member states. So there are to date 15 pages of archived discussions.

To me, this is clear original research and the article should be deleted. Does anyone have any other views?

TFD (talk) 15:13, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Yeah should either be a recognized criterion (e.g. UN recognized), or else deleted. Can't have Misplaced Pages editors deciding what a sovereign State is! Bon courage (talk) 15:16, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

There is a recognized criterion, and both the 'deciding what a sovereign state is' criteria and reliable sources about that criteria are external, not decided by Misplaced Pages editors. CMD (talk) 15:25, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

I'd agree with CMD, but would also note that the article is 21 years old, very high-profile, and involves several of Misplaced Pages's most intractable nationalist editing disputes. In context, 15 pages of archives is remarkably little, and certainly not evidence of OR. Kahastok talk 15:29, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

There are actually two recognized competing criteria, as noted in the article, the constitutive theory of statehood and the declarative theory of statehood. The article synthesizes the two, in violation of Synthesis of published material, which is explained in detail in List of sovereign states#Criteria for inclusion.

But even if there was a source for the criterion for inclusion, there's still synthesis because Misplaced Pages editors are applying the criterion to the facts and presenting their own conclusions. Synthesis of published material says, "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source."

TFD (talk) 17:59, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Which sovereign states in the list are identified as such by way of a synthesis as described? Selfstudier (talk) 18:21, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

<nowiki>Vatican City, Palestine, Cook Islands, Niue, Kosovo, Abkhazia, Artsakh, Donetsk, Luhansk, Northern Cyprus, Western Sahara, Somaliland, South Ossetia, Transnistria, and Taiwan. But names continue to be added and removed from the list as consensus changes about the criteria and which places meet it. TFD (talk) 20:46, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

• Let's include only UN member states (including former UN members). This is the only simple and clear criterion for inclusion. Otherwise, there will be disputes to infinity. Nothing precludes from creating another separate list of entities whose statehood is disputable. Let's keep apples and oranges separately. My very best wishes (talk) 20:49, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

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