User talk:EvelynGowdy

Ian.thomson (talk) 23:12, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

A summary of some important site policies and guidelines

 * "Truth" is not the only criteria for inclusion, verifiability is also required.
 * We do not publish original thought nor original research. We're not a blog, we're not here to promote any ideology.
 * Reliable sources typically include: articles from mainstream magazines or newspapers (particularly scholarly journals), or books by recognized authors (basically, books by respected publishers). Online versions of these are usually accepted, provided they're held to the same standards.  User generated sources (like Wikipedia) are to be avoided.  Self-published sources should be avoided except for information by and about the subject that is not self-serving (for example, citing a company's website to establish something like year of establishment).
 * Articles are to be written from a neutral point of view. Wikipedia is not concerned with facts or opinions, it just summarizes reliable sources.  Real scholarship actually does not say what understanding of the world is "true," but only with what there is evidence for.
 * We do not give equal validity to topics which reject and are rejected by mainstream academia. For example, our article on Earth does not pretend it is flat, hollow, and/or the center of the universe.

In short: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. All we do here is cite, summarize, and paraphrase professionally-published mainstream academic or journalistic sources, without addition, nor commentary. We mostly stick to sources that you've probably been told to believe are "fake news" but those of us who place reality over political expediency aren't as ready to dismiss. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:12, 11 August 2019 (UTC)