I've been working on figuring out the history of this bit of wording,
since it's, on the surface, transparently untrue (we, in fact, do want
to provide truth as well - not necessarily big-T absolute truth, but
certainly the little-t truth that is a synonym for "accuracy" - i.e.
the word as normal people use it).
Originally, WP: V explicitly called for accuracy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Verifiability&oldid…
. The term was removed in a language tweak in 2005. The phrase
"verifiability, not truth" came from a draft revision of WP:NOR in
December of 2004.
As far as I can tell, there has *never* been a consensus discussion of
the phrasing "verifiability, not truth," nor was there a discussion
about removing the statement that Wikipedia strives to be accurate
from WP:V. These changes were inserted, albeit years ago, without
discussion, and long-standing principles were pushed to the side and
minimized in favor of increasingly context-free restatements of the
changes. But I cannot find *any* evidence that the position "accuracy
is not a primary goal of Wikipedia" has ever garnered consensus.
Is anyone aware of a discussion to this end that I am not? Is there
actually a point where we clearly and deliberately decided that the
goal of Wikipedia is not accuracy?
-Phil