[WikiEN-l] History of "Verifiability, not truth"

[David Gerard]

On 07/04/2008, SlimVirgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:

>  We don't try to impose "the truth" on people, and we don't expect that
>  they should trust anything just because they read it in Wikipedia. All
>  we do is provide what we hope are the best and most appropriate
>  sources, and a surrounding text that sums up what good sources are
>  saying, in a way that we hope is readable and that makes readers want
>  to know more. We enable them to inform themselves.
>  That's the difference between us and, say, the Encyclopaedia
>  Britannica. We empower readers. We don't ask for their blind trust.


Uh, the history of [[WP:RS]] is *precisely* an attempt to impose such
upon the reader. Canonicalising given sources is training wheels for
sourcing at best - it's a limited rule to teach beginners right at the
introduction to the subject. Not a basis for going on.


- d.