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When a Primary Source Isn't Good Enough: Wikipedia
unixluv writes "Evidently, Wikipedia doesn't believe an author on his own motivations when trying to correct an article on his own book. A Wikipedia administrator claimed they need 'secondary sources.' I'm not sure where you would go to get a secondary source when you are the only author of a work. Thus, in a lengthy blog post for The New Yorker, Roth created his own secondary source. He wrote, 'My novel The Human Stain was described in the entry as "allegedly inspired by the life of the writer Anatole Broyard." ... This alleged allegation is in no way substantiated by fact. The Human Stain was inspired, rather, by an unhappy event in the life of my late friend Melvin Tumin, professor of sociology at Princeton for some thirty years.' The Wikipedia page has now been corrected."
I had a similar exchange with an English teacher about Huckleberry Finn. In the book, he and Jim choose to go south down the Mississippi river before heading north to Ohio. We were told to write a paper about why Mr. Twain would have them go south. I talked about how the Mississippi river was almost impossible to navigate north at the time (even for steam ships) due to the swift currents and huge amount of water during that part of the year. I cited several scholarly works, and quoted Mr. Clemens himself as to why he made that decision. Got it back with a "D" because, while the mechanics and citations and the rest were all correct, I missed the "symbolism" of that choice and blah blah blah. It took a meeting with the principle for the grade to be set straight.
Then you revert the Edits back into the article with a note: "It is a violation of wikirules to remove properly cited material. If you think it should be removed, goto Talk page and justify your case."
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Who decides who these official arbiters are? Does it have to be an established, traditional publishing house? What if it's a self-published e-book?
The "who decides" is those who give a damn enough to help write the article and help to determine what counts as a reliable source. That is sort of the point of the article talk pages, where things like this is actively discussed. Sometimes it may simply be a blog that is accepted, other times it may need to come from a published scientific journal which has been cited by other publications a number of times.
Hopefully those who are active on the talk page of a given article are sufficiently interested in the topic to also be knowledgeable about most of the available sources which can discuss the topic in the first place, so they are after a fashion "subject matter experts" who can properly evaluate what is a reliable source and what isn't. Discussions about what counts specifically as a reliable source are extremely common debates on article talk pages, including where there are multiple opinions as to what counts and what doesn't.
I fall into the camp that thinks primary sources are just fine... within reason and as long as they don't dominate the article. But the funny thing about Wikipedia is that it depends on those who are active and willing to join into the discussions about such things. It isn't really some hierarchical authority but rather simply those who care to chime in can, and if for some reason you disagree with the decision being made you can also "appeal" to the greater Wikipedia community... particularly when a group of people are acting against general Wikipedia policies.
If somebody is being a real asshat and doing constant edit wars, ignoring discussions or group consensus on what works, they can be "moderated" by wiki admins. There is even a formal judicial procedure called "ArbCom" (the "Arbitration Committee") where you can lay your disputes out before a group of very experienced users who can make a final determination and take action if necessary including imposing a user ban or editorial restrictions like "User X can't edit or participate in Comic Book discussions and articles for the next six months". BTW, the ArbCom is an elected office determined by the Wikipedia community and needs to be re-elected in order to maintain the position. Generally Arbcom doesn't get into disputes about individual sources though but rather dealing with users who don't care about what is happening on Wikipedia but know enough of the rules to stay on the fringe and not get immediately banned.