Rich Holton wrote:
On Feb 5, 2008 10:03 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
<cimonavaro(a)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