Wikipedia:Counting and sorting are not original research
This is an essay on Wikipedia:Deletion policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
This page in a nutshell: This essay provides a slightly broader interpretation of WP:CALC providing allowances for counting, sorting, and ranking data. The essay then provides reasoning behind that interpretation. |
Wikipedia maintains a policy against publication of
When working on an article with a large amount of data, it may be advantageous to group, sort, count, and rank data that has been reported in other
You don't need to find a source that says "December 31, 1994 minus January 1, 1983 is 12 years" because the number of years can be counted.
Reasoning
Why counting is okay
Counting is a simple and widely accepted operation. Certainly sources exist to provide that information, but such sourcing would become clumsy and would detract from the article rather than add to it. Therefore, counting the number of items in a simple list or group of data is acceptable. It is not original research.
However, reporting the number of items in a large group (such as the population of the United States) is different because no one person actually counted them. Many people collaborate for such data and then a group (in this example, the U.S. Census Bureau) reports the results. Such cases would indeed warrant a reference.
Why sorting is okay
Wikipedia tables have the ability to sort. With that function built in, one can put the data in a table and then sort it using Wikipedia tools. We do not need a reference to say that "2 > 1" or "A comes before B" in an article.
Classification | Mass (kg) | cost ($) |
---|---|---|
Group A | 34 | 17 |
Group B | 16 | 21 |
Group C | 25 | 8 |
Why ranking is okay
Ranking and rank order of data is acceptable because "ranking" is really nothing more than "sorting" data and then counting the data. It therefore stands to reason that ranking results is also acceptable.
This applies to any mathematical ranking. An arbitrary ranking such as "My Favorite Comic Books, in Order" would clearly be original research.
Disputes
If the counting, ranking, and/or sorting can be reasonably disputable then it likely at that point would be considered original research. For example, counting the number of fictional children in The Brady Bunch is simple and cannot be reasonably disputed. However, counting the number of grains of sand on a beach is a different story. It is correct that the number of grains of sand on the beach is a finite number, but how can someone be sure that they have counted correctly? Disputes of this nature are best left to discussion among Wikipedia editors and handled by consensus.
The same would be true for disputable ranking and sorting. Therefore, it could be that disputed counting, sorting, and ranking would fall under original research.
When in doubt
When in doubt, let consensus prevail.