Wikipedia:Avoiding untrue text in articles

This essay, WP:Avoiding untrue text in articles is about considering issues of truthful information when writing articles, and how to denote former incorrect ideas in the text. There are several levels of "Truth" which writers must heed, to avoid writing incorrect information, which is known to be false, as if the truth of the text did not matter. It does.

Although Wikipedia cannot determine "ultimate truth" (as by divine guidance), there are many areas where WP policies require editors to be truthful in writing articles. The text, although written in original phrasing, is required to truly match factual data which reliable sources (WP:RS) have written, and editors are expected to be truthful in discussing the details about article text. Editors are expected to truly write text, in their own words, and not plagiarize sources as copyright infringement. When an editor claims to have "added 4 sources" but actually deleted 6 paragraphs of carefully sourced text, then those actions are discouraged. Hence, any claims that "Wikipedia is not about truth"  (misleading) are completely out-of-touch with the reality of how Wikipedia editors are expected to edit articles.