[WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

[Ray Saintonge]

darthvader1219 at gmail.com wrote:

>On 3/21/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>  
>
>>With regards to Carmen's age I'm assuming that the question of her
>>editing her own article is not a factor, and that here _claim_ to be 19
>>is properly documented to be a claim.  I'm also assuming that there is
>>no direct statement that she lied about her age, and all that is really
>>said is that her birth certificate establishes her age as 26.
>>
>>It strikes me as unethical to retain information which we know to be
>>wrong simply because the document which establishes the correct
>>information is not in an acceptable format.  If we are to remove the
>>information about her correct age we must also remove the information
>>about the age which we know to be false.
>>    
>>
>Would the information really be wrong though? We're stating that she claims
>she's 19. Our having direct knowledge of the fact that she's 26 does not
>alter the fact that she claims that she is 19, so I don't see how the
>inclusion of the statement is any more unethical than it was before it was
>verified false, so long as it is phrased "Carmen is 19 according to <insert
>link to interview or some other source>" and not "Carmen is 19". People lie
>all the time; if we quote anyone what we're quoting is only as reliable as
>the you would consider the person to be.
>
As long as we need to engawge in circumlocutions to express doubt about 
some fundamental fact we can't consider ourselves reliable.  As much as 
I agree in the principle of verifiable facts, there still comes a point 
where a strict literal interpretation of rules leaves us hoisted on our 
own absurdity.

Ec