This reminds me of an excellent quotation from *Raiders of the Lost Ark*which, slightly modified, seems apropos: "(Encyclopedia writing) is the search for *facts,* not *truth.*" (And then Indiana Jimbo goes and finds the Lost Encyclopedic Reference of the Pharaohs before the Nazis can, I don't know, speedy delete [[Allies of World War II]].)
On 3/2/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/2/06, slimvirgin@gmail.com < slimvirgin@gmail.com> wrote:
On 3/2/06, Jon thagudearbh@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
This is succinct, to the point, and absolutely correct. It doesn't
need
development (keep things simple!).
All you need now is to get rid of the nonsense in the first half of
the policy page referring to what the policy isn't, and stick to saying clearly what the policy is. At present the first third of the page just tells you WP's not looking for truth!!?!?!?!?!!!
But that's arguably the most important part of the policy, Jon. If people understand that the threshold for inclusion is verifiability, not truth, then they've grasped the essence of V and NOR. Unfortunately, lots of people just don't get it, which is why the point is made right at the top of the page.
And sometimes, when they do get it, they try to remove it from the policy? Why? Because they imagine that they (via Wikipedia) can actually disseminate the TRUTH, and if it so happens that the TRUTH is only found in their own head, or "everyone knows it", or (at best) it is found on some personal or blatantly propagandistic website, well, so be it.
There are plenty of websites out there that disseminate the TRUTH; e.g. The Truth about Hell (http://www.av1611.org/hell.html), The Truth about George W. Bush (http://www.thetruthaboutgeorge.com/ ), The Truth about Iraq ( http://www.thetruthaboutiraq.org/), The opposite Truth about Iraq ( http://www.truthaboutwar.org/home.shtml ), The Truth about Islam ( http://www.lamblion.com/New08.php), The opposite Truth about Islam ( http://www.twf.org/), oops, a different opposite Truth about Islam ( http://islamstrueface.blogspot.com/), The Truth about Black Helicopters ( http://zapatopi.net/blackhelicopters/), etc. - that last one is intentionally funny, by the way, unlike the others, which are only unintentionally so.
One of the brilliant things about Wikipedia is that it is not so arrogant as to presume it can or should present "the TRUTH"; instead it presents verifiable information from reliable sources, which is far more useful, and almost always more truthful, than "the TRUTH".
Jay. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l