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Comment by vanderZwan

20 hours ago

Ok so then we could technically edit it back in since he's a primary source, right?

It's been a few years since I edited Wikipedia seriously, but the criterion for inclusion on Wikipedia is/was “verifiability, not truth” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability,_not_t...) – what matters is not whether something is true, but whether it has been published in a reliable source (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources). Accordingly, Wikipedia tries to be based on secondary sources (rather than primary and tertiary ones). The relevant section (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research...) says, among other things:

> Primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care

and I imagine a Wikipedia edit summary does not count as a reliable source. (For one thing, despite it being very plausible that the Wikipedia user Scarlsen who signed himself as Stephen E Carlsen is indeed that person—I believe it completely!—it cannot be guaranteed that it wasn't an impostor, for example.)

That would be what Wikipedia calls "original research". A big no-no on wikipedia. At a minimum he would have to tweet or blog about it and link the tweet or blog. And even then that's a primary source, which wikipedia considers less valuable. Ideally he would get someone else to report on his tweet/blog and use that as source. Then the wikipedia gods are happy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

  • So can we use this conversation on HN as a secondary source, and edit the deletion back in citing Hacker News?

Technically yes, but I'm fairly sure Wikipedia wants cited sources, not "I'm the guy, I said so" anecdotal sources.

Of course, if he was still alive he could have written a blog post or something like that and use that as a source, much like how it's likely this blog post will be used as a source for things surrounding the format and person.