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Shantavira, a Teahouse host
Welcome to the Teahouse!
Your go-to place for friendly help with using and editing Wikipedia.
Your go-to place for friendly help with using and editing Wikipedia.
New to Wikipedia? See our tutorial for new editors or introduction to contributing page.
Note: Newer questions appear at the bottom of the Teahouse. Completed questions are archived within 2–3 days.
Note: Newer questions appear at the bottom of the Teahouse. Completed questions are archived within 2–3 days.
Truth and Wikipedia
[edit]Hi, I'm new here and trying to learn more about Wikipedia. I was wondering, how do you know that anything on Wikipedia is *true*?
--GalacticTrekker (talk) 00:26, Thursday, November 14, 2024 (UTC)
- Hey GalacticTrekker, and welcome to Teahouse :-)
- I'm so glad you asked that question. It's a deep and important one to ask. The simple answer to your question, is that we know that information on Wikipedia is "true" because the information is backed up by a reliable source! If NPOV is the foundation of Wikipedia, good published sources are the pillars.
- We look for sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy... sources like books, newspaper articles, magazines, academic journals, and expert websites. These are typically much better than self-published books, blogs, self-made websites, and other personal writing or original research.
- Even though Wikipedia is a volunteer-written project, put together by mostly non-experts, it's *still* based on high-quality sources.
- This is part of our core policy called Verifiability. In practice, not every single sentence has a source, but the key is that it could be sourced. I'm so glad you asked! Feel free to come back any time for help. Cheers, --TheHelpFullWand (talk) 00:26, Thursday, November 14, 2024 (UTC)