Wikipedia:Wikipedia only reports what the sources say
 | This is an essay on the Wikipedia verifiability policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
Wikipedia requires reliable sources. Wikipedia only reports what those sources say. Wikipedia has many different kinds of editors, with many different backgrounds. Even if an editor is sure they know the truth, another editor might note that sources point to a different truth.
Thus it makes sense for all editors to admit their own fallibility when they assert that they "know" something to be true. Don't report what you know (or think you know), but what the sources tell us.
Josh Billings was an American humorist of the nineteenth century. An aphorism he's known by is the following:
It is also sometimes cited as "The trouble ain't what people don't know, it's what they know that ain't so."
Benjamin Franklin in a speech in Philadelphia before the Constitutional Convention of 1787 also stated:
Franklin's words on his fallibility to the Constitution Convention should hold the same standard as a Wikipedia editor as this project moves beyond its twentieth year.