As I have already said on these boards, a while back, I discovered coincidences involving the four presidents’ names on Mount Rushmore. As I’ve said, I don’t know what is responsible for coincidences in the world, if anything. But I think I have found some that are noteworthy. So a couple of days ago, I submit the Mount Rushmore story to wikipedia, and they reject it!
Here is where the rejected article is still found. And do they reject it for content? No. They claim:
How am I to find a third-party source for something I discovered myself? FYI, for my sources, I simply wrote:
Alright, I admit I could have phrased it all better. But now I find out I can resubmit my story, if (again) I have the right sources. How do I do this? (I.e., where do I find these third-party sources?)
Well, the reason for it being rejected is stupid and flat-out wrong. However, IMHO, the coincidences are pretty mundane and not at all interesting. No attempt at offense here, I just don’t get what’s so particularly noteworthy about them.
One of the principles of Wikipedia seems to be that you can’t use it to publish your own research. But, IMHO, that’s not the real problem. This stuff about coincidences which may have no statistical significance does not belong in an encyclopedia, full stop.
Check out Wikipedia’s No Original Research policy. The purpose of an encyclopaedia is to collect and summarize the existing body of knowledge, not to publish new ideas. So anything you want to include in a Wikipedia article needs to have been published in at least one notable publication already (note the ‘notable’ part: a personal blog or a message board post doesn’t count, unless it’s a very well-known and widely referenced one). The fact that your discoveries can be objectively verified is irrelevant: if you’re the first one to notice them (or at least to make a big deal out of them) then it’s still original research, hence forbidden.
An yes, I agree with the other posters that the coincidences you discovered are not particularly interesting. However, that’s not the main criterium. If you discovered a cure for cancer, it would not be accepted into Wikipedia unless you can first get it published somewhere else.
On the other hand, if you manage to spread the word about your discoveries to the point where it becomes part of the established body of lore about Mt Rushmore, then the Wikipedia editors would probably grudgingly allow it to be included.
They aren’t deleting those, because they fall inside the scope of the Wikipedia, and contain information that users might find useful or of interest, but they are marking them as articles that need improvement.
Those tags tend to get added after uncited information is edited into an existing article - what they won’t do (apparently) is start a whole new article on that basis.
Giles, Mangetout, fair enough. But what Walton Firm said was “anything you want to include in a Wikipedia article needs to have been published in at least one notable publication already”. Instead of saying “citation needed”, shouldn’t the information be removed?
Information tagged as needing a cite can be removed at any time. Rather than instantly remove it, tagging it gives editors the opportunity to research the information and find a source. When I tag something for a cite I try to remember to check back in a few weeks to see if it’s been sourced and if it hasn’t been I take it out.
If you were going to “build” on the number of our original colonies, wouldn’t it be more coincidental if the 14-15-16-17 names went in chronological order, as Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt? As it is, they’re out of order.
I too don’t see what’s particularly astounding, sorry.
Actually, one person I shared the story with did find some logic to the order of names. I’m sorry, I don’t remember what it was though. Well, alright, I admit the story isn’t unexplainable, or necessarily noteworthy. Still you have to admit it is better than the 9-11 Coincidences .
This aspect escaped my attention completely. So what we have here is essentially the astounding fact that when you explicitly sort numbers into ascending order, they appear in ascending order. Incredible.
Well, if you look at “Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Rushmore”, you can see that–astoundingly! --the second letters of their names go in perfect “A-E-I-O-U” vowel order.
Which of course has nothing to do with Mt. Rushmore, since they’re up there as Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln, and since Charles E. Rushmore, mining claims lawyer extraordinaire, isn’t up there at all, except in spirit.
--the second letters of their names go in perfect “A-E-I-O-U” vowel order.