Talk:William D. Gregory

Primary sourcing
I wonder based on this edit summary whether there is some confusion about the concern here. The issue is not doubt as to whether Gregory described the event as such, but rather that his eyewitness account of the event is indisputably a primary source. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:54, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
 * , you may be correct to describe it as a "primary source", according to Wikipedia's ever-shifting current interpretation of the term. My objection is to the tag. Tags of this kind exist to alert the reader to text that may be unreliable. There is zero value in causing the reader to doubt that Gregory said this; he unquestionably said it, there are stacks of contemporaneous newspaper reports on the sinking of this vessel that confirm it. Your other two tags I have accepted as reasonable because there must be a degree of doubt about the first (though not much IMO) while the second could admittedly be better sourced (I may have some additional sources to add there at some point). BTW, I may not be able to follow up on this discussion immediately as I am about to log off for the day. Gatoclass (talk) 22:10, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
 * This tag exists to alert the reader that the text relies heavily on primary sources, which it does. To my knowledge even outside of Wikipedia things like genealogical records and eyewitness accounts are considered to be primary sources. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:21, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
 * , I agree that certain geneological records, and eyewitness accounts, are primary sources. However, the question is in what circumstances one should apply primary source tags. One can of course take the maximalist view and tag everything that fits the definition of "primary source". But let's look at what our guidelines have to say on the topic:


 * "Primary" does not mean "bad"


 * "Primary" is not, and should not be, a bit of jargon used by Wikipedians to mean "bad" or "unreliable" or "unusable". While some primary sources are not fully independent, they can be authoritative, high-quality, accurate, fact-checked, expert-approved, subject to editorial control, and published by a reputable publisher.


 * Primary sources can be reliable, and they can be used. Sometimes, a primary source is even the best possible source, such as when you are supporting a direct quotation. In such cases, the original document is the best source because the original document will be free of any errors or misquotations introduced by subsequent sources.


 * If primary sources are permissible, even the best sources to use in some circumstances, then what is the point of tagging such material with a template that expands to non-primary source needed? Apart from defacing the article, all it can achieve is to cast doubt on the article text in the reader's mind and make him think the article is unreliable when it isn't. That doesn't help anybody. Gatoclass (talk) 22:58, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Because in this particular case much of the article is based on primary sources, whereas as an encyclopedia Wikipedia should be based largely on secondary sources. I've got no problem with you sourcing some direct quotes from the subject to a primary source; my concern here is the extent. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:08, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
 * What sources are you referring to exactly? Gatoclass (talk) 23:30, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Are you asking which sources are primary? All the Ancestry.com stuff, several of the contemporary newspaper records, the marine register, parts of the Naval Chronology. Possibly Lindsey - you seem to be referencing two different versions of it in the citations vs bibliography? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:23, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Which of the contemporary newspaper sources do you consider to be primary? I just want to be sure we are on the same page here. Gatoclass (talk) 00:38, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Roads is not, not sure about footnote 14, others are primary. That doesn't mean that all of those are problematic - for example FN11 is used only for a short direct quote. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:28, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Apologies for not getting back to this sooner. My first comment is that I am quite frankly astonished that you would consider the Naval Chronology as a primary source. It was published in 1965 - 100 years after the events in question - and is an official chronology of the US Navy history department. How on earth can that be described as a primary source? With regard to Lindsey, he was writing 50 years after the events in question, and again, can therefore hardly be described as a primary source. BTW, I did not link to two different editions of Lindsey, they are scans of the same edition, but one includes an addendum that I thought would be useful to include while the other is a better reproduction.

Now, with regard to the rest, I think I can agree that most of the contemporaneous newspaper sources, and the marine register, fit the definition of primary sources per the guideline. However, as the guideline states, primary sources are not necessarily "bad", indeed sometimes they are the best sources to use, so whether or not to use tags hinges on whether or not their use is appropriate. Marine registers, for example, are considered pretty much the definitive source for basic ship details like tonnages etc., so they are the best sources to use for this kind of information. Newspaper sources are likewise the best sources for contemporaneous opinions and so on.

Other than that, I did meticulous research for this article, as I usually do for my articles, and I just don't believe there are any more secondary sources out there about Gregory - certainly, I've included virtually everything I found. This means that there is no choice but to rely on primary sources for the rest - and again, this is not a case of misuse of primary sources in inappropriate ways, but just for plain facts as reported in reputable journals of the day. Adding tags which state that the article "relies too much on secondary sources" can therefore only leave readers with the impression that the article is unreliably sourced, when it is not. Gatoclass (talk) 21:52, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * True, unfortunately sometimes reliable secondary sources don't exist - however that does not leave you with "no choice", because we always have the option to leave out details that can't be supported. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:59, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay, but it isn't actually necessary to have everything supported by secondary sources. If that wasn't the case, the use of primary sources on Wikipedia would simply be prohibited. Secondary sources are generally necessary to establish notability, and to interpret primary source material, but that doesn't mean you can't use primary sources to establish basic facts.


 * And certainly, where there are no secondary sources, primary sources are clearly better than nothing, providing they are reliable and used in an appropriate manner, ie, for factual statements or for contemporaneous opinions, for example. Where one has to be careful with primary sources, as I said, is in trying to use them to reach interpretative conclusions; for interpretation, one needs secondary sources. A classic example which comes to mind are the people who claim that Nazism was a form of socialism because the Nazi platform states as much. Yes, you can find plenty of primary documents in Nazi archives which identify the party as socialist, but one needs a secondary source, ie an historian, to interpret such documents, because what a political party claims to be and what it actually is can be very different things. But where there is no interpretation involved, where a primary source is just being used to establish basic facts, it's fine to use them, and they are used in this way on Wikipedia all the time. Gatoclass (talk) 03:27, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't say it was necessary to have everything supported by secondary sources; for example as you mention above tonnage can be sourced to a marine register. But what's happening here goes well beyond that. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:17, 16 May 2020 (UTC)