After seeing this vandalism here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=151317070

I visited the Urinal article at wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urinal

Here's a quote. "Each urinal is equipped with a button or short lever to activate the flush, with users expected to operate it as they leave. Such a directly-controlled system is the most efficient provided that patrons remember to use it. This is far from certain, however, often because of fear of touching the handle which is located too high to kick."

This is so true from my personal experience. I never want to touch urinal flush handles and sometimes bathrooms are out of soap so my hand will get AIDS on it until washed and then I'll have to touch things which will get AIDS, herpes, whatever all over my possessions, clothes, items, keyboard (when at an office), mouse, papers, food, etc. everything.

I noticed that there was a [1] by it. I thought. Wow, I'm glad someone proved this with a study. I must read it. Well here's the reference:

"In the case of toilets, users often kick the flush lever to avoid the perceived or real possibility of infection from touching the lever. "

That's it. Their whole reference. Just somebody's original research. Sure it's all true and etc. But still, that's pretty messed up for Wikipedia to have.

Basically the entire article is based entirely on this unsourced premise that guys don't like to flush urinals (example: "Electronic automatic flushes solve the problems of both previous approaches") That's all it talks about, all based on something unsourced (however true).

If I posted this to Wikipedia nobody'd care, so it's being posted here.

The thing is that "original research" (which in itself is a term made up by Wikipedia, and makes no sense to the outside world) can be quite a good thing.

Say that I personally know something to be true. I might be confused, I might have a bad memory, but I personally remember it. I add that. Now, in some cases, someone else will remember something different, so they get rid of it. Other times, everyone will agree with me and hey presto it is accepted as fact. Original research can be good.

For an example, the original version of Wikipedia Review is gone forever, so I wrote my personal recollections of some of the things that happened. These were agreed with by others, and accepted as fact. That is, however, original research, because we can't prove any of it. But it is still the best that we have, and were there to be an article on WR, it would be based on things like that, because we don't have the original.