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

[George Herbert]

On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 11:59 AM, SlimVirgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 4/7/08, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 07/04/2008, Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  > 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).
> >
> >
> > How can we know if something is true or not? (With or without a
> >  capital 't') You're into the realms of philosophy there. The best we
> >  can do is show that something is verifiable. It's impossible to show
> >  that it is true.
> >
> >
> >  >  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.
> >  >
> >
> > The fact that it hasn't been changed is implicit evidence of a
> >  consensus. That's how consensus decision making works in the majority
> >  of cases on Wikipedia - someone does something and if no-one objects,
> >  it sticks.
>
> There's a strong consensus that Wikipedia should publish only what
> reliable sources have already published on a topic, so that readers
> can check material for themselves. That is the key idea of the
> encyclopedia.
>
> Wikipedia is most useful as a resource in allowing readers to follow
> its leads. Readers don't swallow wholesale what it says. They look up
> what the Wikipedian has looked up, then they make up their own minds
> about the accuracy of it.
>
> We don't try to impose "the truth" on people, and we don't expect that
> they should trust anything just because they read it in Wikipedia. All
> we do is provide what we hope are the best and most appropriate
> sources, and a surrounding text that sums up what good sources are
> saying, in a way that we hope is readable and that makes readers want
> to know more. We enable them to inform themselves.
>
> That's the difference between us and, say, the Encyclopaedia
> Britannica. We empower readers. We don't ask for their blind trust.
>


It's also part of the contract between the project and the readers.  As a
project, we don't have people who are paid (or even focus on as volunteers)
fact checkers.  We assume that people generally aren't putting false or
subtly biased info in, and hope that we catch it if they do.

Given that, we can't be asserting the truth on matters.  We need to remind
them, and the people writing articles, that the info here is only generally
and statistically accurate, and that any claims that are made here should be
supported by external sources that did go through some level of credible
fact checking.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com