Forum:Guidelines for original research
Unlike places like Wikipedia, The Sims Wiki relies on original research[note 1] to fill in information about The Sims series. While fansites like SimsVIP, BeyondSims, Carl's Sims Guide, and others can provide information about content and serve as good references (especially for unreleased games where such reference citations are required) they cannot be relied upon to give extensive information about every facet of the games, especially older titles. As well, using information from those sources is tricky, as it is important that we do not plagiarize original works written on those sites. Therefore, The Sims Wiki does tend to rely on original research to fill in the gaps and to build complete and comprehensive articles.
While OR does have its place on The Sims Wiki, I feel that it may be time to write down some guidelines for how it is obtained, and how it is recorded here. Specifically, we should have some guiding principles regarding how this information is obtained, how it is recorded on the wiki, how it can be verified by other users if needed, how we can correct information that may be incorrect, and how we can resolve disagreements over information added to the wiki that is subjective (e.g. disagreements over a particular Sim's hairstyle, hair color, skin tone, or other physical attributes that cannot be objectively measured).
I can write up a guideline that we can then work to implement, but I'd like to get input first and foremost regarding how we should handle the issues I've mentioned, whether there are other issues that need to be addressed, and how we can make any agreed-upon process as user-friendly as possible.
-- LiR talk • blog • contribs 19:56, November 4, 2015 (UTC)
- Note
- ↑ Wikipedia defines original research as "material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist. This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources."
Discussion[edit source]
I like the idea. The one place where I think we need some guidelines around are the colors of hair, eyes, and skin tones for Sims. My blue can be your red. Other information, such as biographies, in-game descriptions, and behaviors, are also largely based on "original research". I had thoughts of requiring information in an article be verified by a number of editors, although that can be inconvenient and annoying, as we'd have to scrutinize every new editor's additions to leave it for God-knows-how-long before a more experienced editor (or multiple editors) confirm it. (This decision may also be weakened by the fact that few of our experienced editors play The Sims 4) There are a number of guides for all games in the main series elsewhere on the web, though, and I think that, if that information can be found in and supported by those guides, they should be cited in our articles to remove the doubt. --I am k6ka Talk to me! See what I have done 23:10, November 13, 2015 (UTC)