[WikiEN-l] "I want to at least simplify the problem a bit."

[Delirium]

Rich Holton wrote:
> On Feb 5, 2008 10:03 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
> My point is that we don't intentionally include erroneous information. We do
> include information about errors. We do include controversial claims with
> references.
>
> But we also include depictions of historical figures that we *know* are
> false, that we *know* cannot possibly be true. But we include them on the
> article about the person they erroneously depict, as though they accurately
> depict them. And at least some people find this "useful".
>   
We don't use them "as though they accurately depict them", though. The 
first image caption on [[Jesus]] explicitly points out that "though 
depictions of Jesus are culturally important, no undisputed record of 
Jesus' appearance exists." Though repeating that verbiage over and over 
would get tiresome, it might still be possible to improve the other 
captions if that's your issue, such as by making sure to use something 
phrases like "traditional depiction" and "Renaissance depiction" and so on.

This is hardly limited to religious figures in any case, but covers most 
famous historical figures prior to sitting portraits becoming 
commonplace. We have several depictions of [[Nebuchadrezzar II]], for 
example, only one of which is even possibly accurate, but we point this 
out as well. I don't see how the article would be improved by removing, 
say, the William Blake drawing.

-Mark