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.
Herman Kahn, an influential strategist on how to "win" a nuclear war, used to offer a Yiddish folk tale, from Russia, as a cautionary tale against outsmarting one's self when reaching for hidden meanings. Paraphrasing the key passage from memory, a suspicious individual confronts a traveller, he mistrusts, and says something like:
"You can't fool me! I know where you are really going.
"However, I am not fooled, because I already knew you were going to Minsk!
Here on the wikipedia I have encountered a number of individuals who argue that our WP:RS should be interpreted in some other way than their flat, apparent, surface meanings. And every time I see someone make that argument, over what the WP:RSreally means, I am reminded of Herman Khan's account of the folk tale.
Struggling to parse a real meaning from an WP:RS generally lapses from WP:VER, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. The surface meaning does not require interpretation, does not require other references for verification. Convoluted parsing of a real meaning, that differs from the surface meaning, generally should be accompanied by an WP:RS who makes that re-interpretation. Failure to supply additional references could well be seen by one's fellow contributors as original research, and a lapse from the neutral point of view.
