Rich Holton wrote:
On Feb 5, 2008 10:03 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
My point is that we don't intentionally include erroneous information. We do include information about errors. We do include controversial claims with references.
But we also include depictions of historical figures that we *know* are false, that we *know* cannot possibly be true. But we include them on the article about the person they erroneously depict, as though they accurately depict them. And at least some people find this "useful".
We don't use them "as though they accurately depict them", though. The first image caption on [[Jesus]] explicitly points out that "though depictions of Jesus are culturally important, no undisputed record of Jesus' appearance exists." Though repeating that verbiage over and over would get tiresome, it might still be possible to improve the other captions if that's your issue, such as by making sure to use something phrases like "traditional depiction" and "Renaissance depiction" and so on.
This is hardly limited to religious figures in any case, but covers most famous historical figures prior to sitting portraits becoming commonplace. We have several depictions of [[Nebuchadrezzar II]], for example, only one of which is even possibly accurate, but we point this out as well. I don't see how the article would be improved by removing, say, the William Blake drawing.
-Mark