User talk:Reversetalk

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Happy editing! PhilKnight (talk) 15:57, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Original Research

You are engaging in what we call original research. It usually takes time to adjust to, but Wikipedia requires that secondary external resources make connections and statements and does not allow editors themselves to make those connections (even if they are "obvious"). In your case, you are editing on the article about honor killings and are trying to connect it to Islamic views. The Pew Research Center citation, for example, says nothing about honor killings per se. Rather, you are connecting its content about sharia law to honor killings. The AlQahtani et al. article does make explicit connections in the sentence "Many studies have attributed these cultures to be Islamic or of Middle Eastern descent, but unfortunately, honor crimes are growing into a universal pattern" but also in that same sentence hedges on that connection.

Please use the article's talk page to work with other editors on your proposed edits. There's certainly something to be said about the connection between Islam and honor killings, or the perception of that connection. Continuing to edit war over the content will not end with any improvement to the article. EvergreenFir (talk) 01:01, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

I don't think I'm engaging in original research, nor do I think that's an accurate description of Wikipedia's norms. Per Wikipedia:

"Articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources. Articles [e.g., editors] may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if it has been published by a reliable secondary source."

What have I said that is not furnished with hard evidence? I'm providing a brief background about the patriarchal culture of many Muslim countries, and I'm backing it up with statistics. Those connections are made by several of my sources.

Reversetalk (talk) 01:48, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

Moreover, the current version of the article is incredibly flawed. It's entirely one sided and needs to be deleted or substantially revised. Reversetalk (talk) 01:55, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

I am not arguing the current version is great. And hopefully it can be better.

I 100% understand what you're thinking as I've been there. If you think I'm not conveying Wikipedia's rules correctly, please feel free to ask around at WP:TEAHOUSE or Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard.

The issue as I see it is that you're approaching this like an essay from school where you need to present a coherent argument with citations to back up your claims, providing explanations for a conclusion. You make a claim (honor-based violence is largely associated with sharia law) and you provide context (examples of condoning violence in the Quran) and evidence that such violence is common in Muslim-majority countries. And that is perfectly appropriate for those kinds of papers.

But Wikipedia's content uses a "neutral point of view" in that we editors are not trying to present an argument or conclusion (with or without evidence). We are more like historians or anthropologists describing what the texts say about a topic. When the texts/sources describe a topic is varying or contradictory ways, we describe those variations and contradictions with due weight if they are notable (i.e., we won't include the one outlier text that claims all the other 999 are wrong since doing so would give it undue weight).

We are a tertiary source. We're concierges in that we direct people to information and describe what others say about local restaurants or businesses, but we don't write the reviews ourselves. If we hear only good things about that local taqueria, we'll tell others it's good. If some Karl Pilkington said it was the worst thing ever, we'd ignore that as an outlier. If Anthony Bourdain said it was bad, we'd likely mention that but ascribe that opinion to him as he's an expert. If, on the other hand, a fifth of people hated that taqueria, we'd give them due weight and mention that to those asking. All of this and yet we've never even eaten there.

Basically we do what AI does when you ask it about something. We describe the consensus views and note the important arguments. We don't create the info, we describe it. So, in your case, you need to ask "do reliable sources describe honor killings as a (largely) Muslim phenomenon"? And, if so, you'd need to show that reliable sources say that Islam is a major correlate or that sharia law is a key factor in this phenomenon. But you saying it is and presenting evidence would be "original research".

That ended up much longer than I intended. Hopefully it helped. EvergreenFir (talk) 00:51, 5 January 2026 (UTC)