[WikiEN-l] History of "Verifiability, not truth"

[Carl Beckhorn]

On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 11:53:55AM -0600, Todd Allen wrote:
> You're asking to open up a huge can of worms with anything else. "Well
> I know the source says that, but you see, I know it's not actually
> true, so I can still edit war over putting it in the article even
> though I've got no sourcing that says otherwise." We're a tertiary
> source, we mirror sources, not second-guess them.

I disagree pretty strongly with that argument. We're a tertiary source, 
but we can and should exert editorial judgment about which sources are 
credible, which are not, and which have made mistakes. Of course this 
will be more touchy for controversial topics. 

Most of the time, when people claim to have found 'errors' they actually 
have only found a nuance in wording or a matter of differing opinions on 
the same subject. But occasionally an author will use a word 
incorrectly, or in a nonstandard way. Sometimes authors genuinely make 
errors, even in peer reviewed material. In such cases, we have to 
recognize it and work around it.

 - Carl