Wikipedia:Pinocchio
 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
Honesty is the best policy. When we are on en.Wiki, where nearly every action is logged, then inventing hooey to improve our position is just going to get us a load of dislike from the cabal community. If an editor can't be trusted to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, then that editor probably can't be trusted to behave on Wikipedia without adult supervision.
Remember that longstanding editors here tend to be good at finding and identifying reliable sources, which means we also tend to be very good at fact checking. Lying about anything we can conceivably check on is a bad idea. This include unintentional lying, as well. You are expected as a member of this community to have sources to back up any claim you want to put into an article. You will generally also be expected to have sources to back up any claim you make on a talk page.