On 02/23/12 11:41 AM, Sarah wrote:
If the oral citations (audio and video) were used as an adjunct to
more traditional sources, I think there would be no problem at all.
On the Holocaust page, we used to highlight a quote (now removed) from
a witness who talked to the BBC at the time of the British liberation
of one of the concentration camps, Bergen Belsen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Holocaust&oldid=358632356#Liberation
"We heard a loud voice repeating the same words in English and in
German: 'Hello, hello. You are free. We are British soldiers and have
come to liberate you.' These words still resound in my ears."
This kind of personal memory is very moving and compelling. Imagine if
we could link to an audio or video interview of an eyewitness by an
editor. WP is lagging behind with this because we are so afraid of OR
by anonymous interviewers. But if we make sure there is nothing
contentious said -- no attempts to rewrite history, as it were -- I
think it would be almost entirely unproblematic -- people talking
about "this is how I felt when X happened; this is how it was for me
...".
The Foundation could set up a wiki dedicated to eyewitness accounts
that people could upload themselves, then Wikipedia could incorporate
them as appropriate, using the current restrictions on primary sources
(i.e. using them purely descriptively in articles about that subject).
Yes, I know, potential problems with libel and nonsense, but no more
so than we have already, and we deal with them.
Why would the quote have been removed?
Ultimately most historical events resolve themselves into a series of
narratives. Some, like personal diaries are unofficial; others like
testimony in a court are official. All can be subject to error. What
the narratives say is what they say, nothing more nor less.
We are indeed so afraid of OR, to the point where we trust nobody. When
we apply a strict true-or-false test to a statement we lose our ability
to recognize truths that lie at the intersection of multiple absurdities.
Ray
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