No, it isn't the blurb from the latest Dan Brown wannabe, it is the serious lead to an article on that world-renowned accurate encyclopedia that's bringing knowledge to all mankind......

The sad thing is that Pope John Paul I conspiracy theories has existed (with this same lead) for 18 months, and despite dozens of edits only now does someone have the good sense to suggest that wikipedia might be better off without it. But guess what? There are some people think it should stay.


Wikipedia: essential travel reading........................

..............................................................for your next alien abduction.

Problem is, I know few things about Pope John Paul I - in fact, just that he was only Pontiff for a short time and there were rumours he was bumped off.

Though clearly a small section in the Pope John II article would be more than sufficient!

Of course, I'm no Catholic and when I think of Pope John Paul II my first thought is "Polish goalkeeper," while the current incumbent makes me think "Hitler Youth".

Fair enough, but one would hope that the world's greatest encyclopedia would do better than your average two minute word association game.

Not fair enough. As a Catholic, I just hope this forum is not turning into an anti-Roman-Catholic rant and rave site. I ask you to withdraw your opprobrious remarks. Thanks in advance.

There are entire books about this stuff, for crying out loud.

That hardly justifies the crap on wikipedia. It's just the usual, "in theory, hypothetical speaking, someone could maybe want, sometimes, some year, to write a good article on something akin to this subject. So keep this unusuable crap in case".

Nothing stopping you writing that article.

You have a point. The current guy is waaaaaaay too old to remind of Hitler youth.

They found John Paul I dead in bed, and presumably they did the Maxwell silver hammer trick on him, and that was that. If the Catholics wanted fewer conspiracy theories they should do more papal autopsies-- though I see no reason why some blood samples weren't taken on this guy, just for the archives. It's not like you can say Roman Catholics have a big prohibition against keeping preserved tissues and body parts and relic stuff like that. They love it; always have.

Yes it does, according to the wiki rules. If there are books on it and not all of them are self-published on lulu, there's some "reliable sources" (for some people believing or saying this, I mean, rather than that it's true.)

I'd rather have a shitty article than no article, because it makes it plainer to our readers that we're a mishmash of good articles, debacles, and everything in between. If we're going to be something less than reliable - and, even as somebody who's a big fan of Wikipedia, I think we always are - we might as well be transparent about it. And I don't even intend that as a snide remark; I quite sincerely believe that it's better to have an encyclopaedia that anybody poking around will realize should be read with skepticism than one that does a good imitation of a serious source.