Editing User:EnWikiAdmin/Essays/On neutrality, sources, and content (section)

====Deviations from Wikipedia's guidelines====
We tried to analyze why Wikipedia's rules, if applied neutrally and uniformly, might lead to what we saw as potentially misleading coverage, or undue lack of coverage, of certain notable topics. The subject matter that we want to cover, such as alleged elite conspiracies and alleged paranormal events, may be hard to [[wikipedia:Wikipedia:Verifiability|verify]], due to their nature or other reasons. From [[wikipedia:Wikipedia:Verifiability|Wikipedia:Verifiability]]:
<blockquote>"[[wikipedia:Wikipedia:Verifiability|Verifiability]], [[wikipedia:Wikipedia:No original research|no original research]], and [[wikipedia:Wikipedia:Neutral point of view|neutral point of view]] are Wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:Core content policies|core content policies]]. They work together to determine content, so editors should understand the key points of all three."</blockquote>
And from [[wikipedia:Wikipedia:Reliable sources|Wikipedia:Reliable sources]]:
<blockquote>"When editors talk about sources that are being cited on Wikipedia, they might be referring to any one of these three concepts: the piece of work itself (the article, book), the creator of the work (the writer, journalist), the publisher of the work (for example, Random House or Cambridge University Press). '''Any of the three can affect reliability'''."</blockquote>
I don't think we would dispute that these policies, along with ancillary policies like [[wikipedia:Wikipedia:Fringe theories|which theories are considered fringe]], are interdependent. It does appear that an alternative encyclopedia cannot logically modify only one aspect of them without changing other aspects or leading to unmanageable problems. To enable an encyclopedia resembling Wikipedia that nevertheless allows for coverage of the range of topics that we're interested in at the level of detail that we think they merit, our guidelines probably have to be different from Wikipedia ''in multiple related ways''. After a lot of consideration, it seems to us that possibly the most logically consistent way to deviate from Wikipedia's guidelines is to simultaneously

* greatly broaden the range of allowed sources to include any [[Ikwipedia:testimonial accounts|testimonial]] sources
* greatly broaden the range of possible topics to include any whose mere existence would be "[[Ikwipedia:Notability|paradigm-shifting]]" if proven true, and
* possibly allow editors to [[Ikwipedia:synthesis and interpretation of source material|synthesize]] information from multiple sources, adding reasonable but potentially unsourced or not [[Ikwipedia:Reliable sources|reliably-sourced]] conclusions,

possibly along with other, less significant differences. While I think we've been able to fairly well define the parameters of the first two, we are less certain about how much original research and synthesis, if any, should be allowed. We're not certain that these rules are optimal, and, as with anything, we are open to feedback.

Under these guidelines, articles may certainly have a more "credulous" tone than a mainstream encyclopedia. In part, this is simply because covering a speculative topic that many people do not believe exists and/or for which there may be no reliable sources (such as [[time-viewing device]]s) probably requires assuming despite this that the topic is real or valid in some way. But it is also because "non-reliable" evidentiary and testimonial sources are permitted — although there are probably sources that don't necessarily fall on either side of the line, I want to clarify what definitely ''will'' be allowed under these guidelines (unless the guidelines change): The articles on [[history of Earth|history of]] [[Earth]], [[history of the universe]], [[origin of biological life|origin of]] [[biological life]], etc. can cite [[Alien Interview|the statements]] about these topics allegedly from a [[UFO crash landing|crash-landed]] [[Airl|alien]] in [[1947]] who conveyed information telepathically to an alleged [[Mathilda MacElroy|Army nurse]] who allegedly mailed the transcripts of the statements to [[Lawrence Spencer|a writer]] around 2007. (These statements are "[[Ikwipedia:testimonial accounts|testimonial]]" as we use the term: for them to be true, the three beings in the chain — the alleged alien, the person who claimed to be [[Alien Interview|Mathilda MacElroy]], and the writer [[Lawrence Spencer]] — would merely have to be not lying and not mistaken in their respective accounts.) We strongly suspect that difficult or impossible line-drawing problems will be unavoidable unless these kinds of references are allowed — indeed, unless references to ''any'' [[Ikwipedia:published|published]] testimonial or [[Ikwipedia:evidence|evidential]] accounts are allowed and references to (at least) some investigators who rely entirely on testimonial evidence are allowed. 

That said, articles should reflect the claims regarding their subject matter even-handedly (and, hopefully, in a way that [[Ikwipedia:Manual of Style|presents claims on the same subject together as opposed to segregated based on the theories they supposedly support]], unless the article is about a theory itself). An article on the early [[history of Earth civilizations]], for example, might incorporate, in the same chronological narrative, the claims/findings of mainstream researchers and experts (who are, generally speaking, considered "high-quality" sources and obviously [[Ikwipedia:evidence|evidence]]-based), as well as "alternative" evidence-based researchers, and people to whom information was allegedly "[[revelation (communication)|revealed]]" (and perhaps transcribed for further dissemination, e.g. [[Alien Interview]], [[Lacerta file]], etc.). An article should, generally speaking, provide context as to the source of any assertions, and use appropriate caveating language (e.g., "allegedly", "according to", etc.). The article and/or related articles might also further discuss an alleged witness's credibility and/or an investigator's qualifications/methodology/reputation (to the extent that is relevant to the claim or theory at hand), supported by citations to sources from which the points are taken and potentially, although it wouldn't be ideal, by [[Ikwipedia:synthesis and interpretation of source material|an editor's limited inferences and reasoning]]).