How Wikipedia deceives and defrauds its readers ....

This subject has come up over and over again, and now it has come up again in stark terms, and it relates to the subject matter of this Blog.

A Wikipedia Editor wrote on November 5, 2020: "We are not interested in 'the truth'. What we are interested in is what can be verified by reliable sources." It was boldly proclaimed on Wikipedia.

What does the Wikipedia Foundation mean by that?

Well, we turned to their own page called: Wikipedia: Verifiability, not truth to read their own official explanation. (Click.) This is what that page says in part:

"Wikipedia's core sourcing policy, Wikipedia:Verifiability, (click) previously defined the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia as "verifiability, not truth". "Verifiability" was used in this context to mean that material added to Wikipedia must have been published previously by a reliable source. ....

The phrase "the threshold for inclusion is verifiability, not truth" meant that verifiability is a necessary condition (a minimum requirement) for the inclusion of material, though it is not a sufficient condition (it may not be enough). Sources must also be appropriate, and must be used carefully, and must be balanced relative to other sources per Wikipedia's policy on due weight. ....
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The Verifiability policy is related to another core content policy, Neutral point of view, which holds that we include all significant views on a subject. Citing reliable sources, for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, gives readers the chance to check for themselves that the most appropriate sources have been used ....

The Verifiability policy was later re-written in 2012 to clarify these points, stating that Wikipedia's "content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors. Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it". That we have rules for the inclusion of material does not mean Wikipedians have no respect for truth and accuracy, just as a court's reliance on rules of evidence does not mean the court does not respect truth. Wikipedia values accuracy, but it requires verifiability. Wikipedia does not try to impose "the truth" on its readers, and does not ask that they trust something just because they read it in Wikipedia. ...."

Wikipedia compares its information to evidence presented in a court of law. But a court of law seeks the truth of an issue, not verifiability. A defendant in a court of court may have a verifiable alibi, but that same defendant may have created a false verification. So investigators are used to peer behind the curtain to discover whether the verification itself is a fake.

Now let's look at the subject matter in question: Radio Caroline.

The Wikipedia page about Radio Caroline (as of November 6, 2021), is downright absurd. Yes, its opening line is verifiable with a local USA news story from 1966. It is about the people who created Radio Caroline in 1964 as a station sitting off the southeast coast of England. But this 1966 local story from the USA is about the person of George Drummond as the entree in a sports car race.

However, if the curtain is pulled back on the person of George Drummond we find a lot of information relating to his later arrest due to his association with the theft of travellers' checks from a print firm in Essex, England. We also find news of his forcible return from Germany (where he was arrested and brought back to England), where charges of theft were pressed against him as part of a criminal gang.

The same story is also used to verify the claim that Ronan O'Rahilly from Ireland was Drummond's partner in creating Radio Caroline, but it fails to establish any connection to Drummond in that same article, and this is the first false claim of many in the Wikipedia sourced document.

​It takes little effort to disprove all of the following claims that are made on that Wikipedia article, but now we are dealing with an article that already exists, where the reader has to use the same standards of evidence to try to remove the article.

If this were a court of law, as Wikipedia claims, then the defendant would be deemed guilty to begin with and it would be up to the defendant's lawyer to prove that the defendant is innocent. In reality, the accused is innocent until proven guilty.

So even though common-sense says "get rid of the Radio Caroline article', common-sense does not prevail and instead, the fake Wikipedia article is being used to promote several frauds by using the fake article as verification of fake claims to obtain money under false pretenses!

This is truly a very sad and silly state of affairs in which the Wikipedia Foundation is part of various schemes to break various laws.

Wikipedia should adopt court room procedure, and it is a lie to suggest that this is what it is now doing.