Wikipedia talk:Avoid weasel words and Olli Kunnari: Difference between pages

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{{Infobox Volleyball biography
{{calm talk}}{{Archive box|[[/Archive 1]]<br />[[/Archive 2]]}}
| playername = Olli Kunnari
| image = [[Image:Kunnari_76.jpg|150px| Olli Kunnari]]
| fullname = Olli Kunnari
| dateofbirth = {{Birth date and age|1982|2|2|df=y}}
| cityofbirth = [[Alahärmä]]
| countryofbirth = [[Finland]]
| dateofdeath =
| cityofdeath =
| countryofdeath =
| height = 196cm
| position = Spiker
| currentclub = AZS UWM Olsztyn
| clubnumber =
| years = 2000-2002<br> 2002-2004<br> 2004-2006<br> 2007-2009<br>
| clubs = Vammalan Lentopallo<br> Pielaveden Sampo<br> Beauvois Volley<br> AS Cannes <br>
| nationalyears = 6 years
| nationalteam = Finland
}}


'''Olli Kunnari''' (born [[February 2]], [[1982]]) is [[volleyball]] [[Player (game)|player]] from [[Finland]] who is one of the key players in his native country right now. Season 2007-2008 he played in [[AS Cannes Volley-Ball|AS Cannes]]. He have played in Finland Champion league teams [[Pielaveden Sampo]] and [[Vammalan Lentopallo]]. Then he moved to France and started play in Beauveis, [[Pro A|France Pro-A Volleyball league]]. After that he changed to [[AS Cannes]]. Season 2009 he play [[AZS UWM Olsztyn]] in Poland.
==IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT TO WELL-MEANING WIKIPEDIANS==


== Career ==
Before contributing your inevitable witty objection concerning the stylistic or content choices made in this article contradicting its own message, please consider first if your objection would also apply to the [[WP:ASR|Avoid Self Reference]] guideline's numerous references to itself.
Kunnari started his [[volleyball]] career in his hometown [[Alahärm]]ä. When Kunnari become seventeen years old he moved to [[Tampere]] and started to study in Varala sport [[highschool]]. After that he played his first game in Finland Champion league season 2000-2001. Team was [[Vammalan Lentopallo]]. He played in Vammala season 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 then he changed to a bigger team named [[Pielaveden Sampo]]. In Pielaveden Sampo Olli became star. He was his teams major player and win his first Finland Champion season 2003-2004. Before that he captured one bronze medal season 2003. Season 2004 Kunnari was chosen as best player in Finland league and also in Finland league All-Stars team.


After four seasons in Finland, Olli started his professional volleyball career in [[France]], [[Pro A|Pro A-league]]. His team was Beauvais where Olli became a major player. Olli played two seasons in Beauvais until he signed a contract with AS Cannes. In AS Cannes Kunnari he won in his first season the France Cup, and came in league 3. place. Next season [[AS Cannes]] he won again the France Cup and come in league 3. place. Media chose Olli too in season [[Pro A|France Pro A-league]] All-Stars team.
If they would, it is recommended that you take a few minutes to meditate on the differences between project space and article space.


== National team ==
Have a nice day. -[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 15:24, 13 June 2007 (UTC)


Olli Kunnari has played over 130 national team games. He is team major player with [[Mikko Esko]] and [[Tuomas Sammelvuo]]. In the European Championchips 2007 Finland's national team came in 4. place and Olli played arguably the best volleyball of his career. He was the third best server in competition and second best receiver in the competition.
:''"take a few minutes to meditate on the differences between project space and article space."''


== Achievements ==
:So are we to take it that your opinion is that the style guide need not live up to the standards of the rest of wikipedia? This would indeed explain some things about the style guide.
:''"Have a nice day." ''


'''Personal:'''
: Polite, and yet, condescending. A nice balance.


* France league All-Stars player 2008
: -- [[User:Doom|Doom]] ([[User talk:Doom|talk]]) 23:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
* Best player in Finland league 2004
* All-Stars player in Finland league 2004


'''Team:'''
It says avoid, not obliterate. This article could make an explicit exception for itself under "Clear...".[[User:Brewhaha@edmc.net|BrewJay]] ([[User talk:Brewhaha@edmc.net|talk]]) 08:41, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


* 4. place in European Championship 2007
== (subsequent discussion) ==
* France league bronze medal 2007, 2008
* France Cup win 2007
* Finland Champion 2004
* Finland league 3. place 2003


== Teams ==
:It is quite important to note that this guideline is indeed in poor shape, style-wise; it is too long, there are too many examples, it rambles, and it confuses [[WP:NPOV]] and [[WP:VER]]. There are repeated comments on the talk page to the effect (that the guideline is not really helpful), irrespective of occasional joke edits to the article page. This has nothing to do with self-reference or self-contradiction, it is just that the article is in need of a major rewrite so that it has a decipherable meaning, a meaning that can be summed up coherently, in a few phrases, in sensible and pleasant english, which it does not do at present. &mdash; [[User:Newbyguesses|Newbyguesses]] - [[User_talk:Newbyguesses|Talk]] 11:23, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
*2000–01: Vammalan Lentopallo
*2001–02: Vammalan Lentopallo
*2002–03: Pielaveden Sampo
*2003–04: Pielaveden Sampo
*2004–05: Beauvais
*2005–06: Beauvais
*2006–07: AS Cannes
*2007–08: AS Cannes


[[fr:Olli Kunnari]]
::Too long, too many examples - that's correct, and this guideline could be improved by trimming the rambling down to a few concise, powerful sentences. This current form is a stage of improvement from the way this guideline used to be, when it didn't bother justifying or explaining its point at all.
[[fi:Olli Kunnari]]
::But the "repeated comments" that this guideline is not helpful or, as you put it, lacking in decipherable meaning, they're just absurd and they prove absolutely nothing. The guideline leaves no question as to what weasel words are. It defines what makes for a weasel word and explains how using them can sabotage Neutrality and Verifiability (which by no means constitutes a conflation of these two concepts). The criticisms you speak of do not stem from petty issues like form and presentation; their tone often betrays an outright rejection of the notion that there's something such as weasel words at all or that Wikipedia should admonish against their usage in any way. Usually when an opinion is oft-cited it is worthy of consideration, but even the most flattering sort of consideration I could muster for this position concludes it to be flat out wrong. I think most editors who have ever faced the challenge of striving to NPoV on a controversial article would agree with me. --[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 03:43, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
[[pl:Olli Kunnari]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kunnari, Olli}}
:::With apologies to ''User:AceMyth'', this editor did not check too many past versions of the project page before launching the current aspersions as to clarity. Much progress has undoubtedly been made over time.
[[category:1982 births]]

[[category:Living people]]
:::Agreed also, many of the complaints on the talk page are flat out wrong (that undermines the current argument substantially, as you have pointed out). Also agreed, is it, then, <too long, too many examples - that's correct>. My suggestion, and I am toning it down, note the apology for my former intemperence, is '''keep''' most of the article, but '''drop''' all the examples, for now, and develop a better lot. It is better to trim now, find out what is supposedly being said. (Such a major rewrite is almost certainly beyond my capacities, yet, after some thought, I did draft as such in my user-space, still, no changes need to be made till more fruitful discussion develops, my work is offered since this page, a guideline, does a good job, but needs tweaking, and considering also, ''WP:Words to avoid''. A rewrite, substantial, yet not changing any policy/guideline inflections, just shorter, clarified. This would take helpful input to achieve. [[User:Newbyguesses|Newbyguesses]] - [[User_talk:Newbyguesses|Talk]] 06:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
[[category:Finnish volleyball players]]

::::I've already started a re-write with your input in mind. The "Other problems" section is a tough nut to crack in this regard- I think the only way to simplify it would be to actually spread it out into a whole descriptive section rather than the current bullet point format (which is what currently forces the section into the paragraph-compressed-into-a-sentence-and-a-half style).
::::As for actually checking past versions of the page - Nobody ever does. Nobody ever should, either. That's what being bold is about. --[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 11:59, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

== Complaints ==
Marc Defant makes a good point. On the one hand, weasel words can convolute an article and completely destroy the credibility of an entry. But when used appopriately they serve an important function. There are few absolutes in life and many things are subject to interpretation, even concrete "facts." There are, IMHO, many occasions when the use of a weasel word phrase would be appropriate. Even when a topic has been empirically studied and expounded upon, there is more often than not (weasel word?), several possible conclusions. [[User:Asturnut|Asturnut]] ([[User talk:Asturnut|talk]]) 05:04, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't this page itself cite in order to avoid hypocrisy? Some people (me) would say that this page is written poorly. {{unsignedIP|24.90.86.97|05:50, March 22, 2007 (UTC)}}

:You must be the umpteenth person to come along and say "ho-ho, this article should apply to itself". That this demand makes no sense at all seems to take a backseat to the potential of saying something witty. --[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 01:27, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
:: The point would be that many of the phrases this article dismisses as "weasel words" reflect a very useful idiom, as evidenced by the fact that the article writers themselves have difficultly avoiding it. -- [[User:Doom|Doom]] ([[User talk:Doom|talk]]) 23:16, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

"Many mathematicians argue ...." <br />
"A substantial minority of biologists believe that ..." <br />
"A majority of academic sociologists find ..." <br />
"'''The consensus of many editors formed the conventions described here...'''"<br />
Well, just from reading this talk page I can tell that last one is invalid, and there it is at the top of the neutrally-termed Weasel Words page; uncited and most obviously hypocritical. And from reading below, it seems there wasn't ever a vote taken to show this consensus. [[User:155.94.62.221|155.94.62.221]] 12:58, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

::Oh, by golly. This page seems to have become a favorite target for well-meaning new contributors. Why don't you go bother the people who've been working on [[WP:A]] and tell them there was never a vote to indicate the so-called "consensus" on it and the policy text is not cross-referenced? I'm sure they'll be thrilled. --[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 14:51, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

:::Well, you see, it could have something to do with the fact that in this case wikipedia is going against the grain of hundreds of years of English usage. Look at any other encyclopedia and you'll find that these sorts of phrases are quite common there.

:::And I have to say, as rhetorical counter-moves go, rolling your eyes and saying "We've all heard ''that'' before" is pretty weak. Maybe you hear the objection a lot because there's some truth to it? Maybe if enough people object to a style guide article it doesn't really deserve to be considered a "consensual guidline"?

::: -- [[User:Doom|Doom]] ([[User talk:Doom|talk]]) 23:16, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

::: I am a research scientist (have been for 30 years) and have written numerous scientific papers including in the journal Nature. These so called weasel words are really the way scientists tell others that something may be plausible, but we do not have enough data to support the hypotheses. It is crucial not to be dogmatic in science, and these phrases help indicate to the reader that he/she should be cautious of the suggestion or hypothesis. I find it amusing that you would discourage the usage by putting up scary alerts. What else would you have the writer do - state it as fact or leave out alternative hypotheses? [[Special:Contributions/75.104.198.217|75.104.198.217]] ([[User talk:75.104.198.217|talk]]) 15:30, 21 June 2008 (UTC) Marc Defant

== Was there EVER a consensus-indicating vote on this guideline? ==

I am placing this comment at the top here, but please note that I think this is a highly important matter for this guideline. As [[User:Doom|Doom]] points out just below this, the vote on whether the guideline was a good idea was very much divided (34 for, 24 against) and ''cannot'' be considered to indicate a consensus. So, I am wondering, was there ever a vote that established consensus for this guideline?

I've spent the past hour or so skimming through the history of the guideline and many times there were statements at the top of guideline saying things like "This guideline is disputed. See the talk page." Those comment were removed (by the original poster of this guideline, among at least one other) with essentially nothing in the edit summaries explaining why.

As best as I can tell, this guideline has always been controversial, a true consensus on it has never been established; as such, it cannot technically be considered a guideline nor part of the manual of style and would accordingly become ''unenforcable''.

That is not to say that I disagree with the principles of this guideline, but as it is now, I have seen those principles horribly misapplied (as many of the comments on this page can attest to) such that I suspect that Wikipedia is made ''worse'' because of this guideline existing (in its current form).

If this guideline were to be rewritten in a much clearer and universally acceptable way that would establish consensus, then that is exactly how guidelines here are supposed to work. ''But'' people need to write the guideline in that consensus-based way ''before'' trying to enforce it. And in fact, precisely why demanding consensus is a good idea is because it makes sure that guidelines are well-written, and not like this unclear BS that we are all having to deal with now.

[[User:HalfDome|HalfDome]] 06:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

:That's odd. This guideline has always struck me as pretty obviously a good idea. At any rate, Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy and if anything we should be having a discussion about this, not a poll. I mean, what kind of argument could possibly be made against this guideline that wouldn't also compromise [[WP:A]] and [[WP:NPOV]]? --[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 01:33, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

You are exactly right about needing a discussion for this. Wikipedia is based around building consensus through discussion, and thus far there has been nothing to indicate that such a consensus-building discussion took place, and, moreover, the poll that did take place indicated considerable disagreement about this guideline. As best as I can determine so far, some individuals just imposed this guideline on Wikipedia without building consensus first, and as you can note if you read through the comments below, it has resulted in all sorts of problems for editors (even though in principle and on the surface it may seem like an "obviously" good idea -- in current practice and in its current details it is much more problematic).

At some point I will get around to challenging the enforcability of this guideline that was established so counter to standard Wikipedia procedure. But no time at the moment...

[[User:HalfDome|HalfDome]] 02:02, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

:: ''That's odd. This guideline has always struck me as pretty obviously a good idea. ''

::: Oh well, that settles it then.

:: ''At any rate, Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy and if anything we should be having a discussion about this, not a poll. ''

::: Because if you discuss it long enough, the opposition gets tired and wanders away, and then you can declare victory.

:: ''I mean, what kind of argument could possibly be made against this guideline that wouldn't also compromise [[WP:A]] and [[WP:NPOV]]?''

::: Well, you might try looking through the aforementioned archives, and it just could be you'll find some.

::: Here's another for you. Starting with the "attribution" guidline, you will (at present) see the line ''Editors should provide attribution for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or it may be removed.'' Keeping that in mind, once again consider the example "''War and Peace'' is widely regarded as Tolstoy's greatest novel." It may indeed be possible to provide references to this, but it's unlikely to be challenged by anyone who knows anything about literature, so what would be the point of doing it? One of the problems with this "avoid weasel words" guideline is that it empowers the ignorant to dive into an article on a subject they know nothing about, and dispute a line like this because it uses one of the Forbidden Phrases. This kind of activity is very little more than busy work, it has nothing to do with writing better articles. -- [[User:Doom|Doom]] ([[User talk:Doom|talk]]) 23:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

== Archives ==

:I recommend looking into this "Archive" myself, there are two things you might notice immediately about it: (1) when a vote was taken on whether the article was really a good idea, it roughly split in half, and (2) ESP feels that it's now an "established part" of wikipedia. This is not anything like "consensus", this is more like one determined person avoiding changes to their personal territory. -- [[User:Doom|Doom]] 19:04, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

::I took a look at this archive. I didn't encounter any serious discussion about whether "avoiding weasel words" was a good idea, but I did encounter your proposal [[Wikipedia:Be cautious with compliments and mass attribution]] and ESP dropping into the discussion page to announce that AWW was already an established part of Wikipedia so you should take your proposal and go away. I bet that sucked.

::I still think that this is a good guideline, though. For all this defending of personal territory, I have stumbled upon this page a few months ago and brutalised it with edits, with most edits having remained intact since, so it's not like AWW has been doomed to stagnation. I think it reflects a common pitfall in writing that often tempts people to take advantage of it and push POV, and that it's very useful to have a clear term and guideline to call it out. But I'm not representative of anything, so if you think there should be a discussion about this go ahead and open one. Just make sure to make a decent effort to spread the word so we don't end up with fifteen people going "for" and "against", because that isn't representative of anything, either. --[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 01:59, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

::: ''I bet that sucked.'' Sure. That wasn't the only instance of it either: my first tries were hacking on the "avoid weasel words" page itself: all edits instantly reverted by [[User:EvanProdromou]] (who in those days went by his initials, "ESP"). Your edits have no doubt been more stable for a number of reasons (not the least of which is that "ESP" has wandered away), and the current version of this article is ''somewhat'' improved (I'm happy to see that the list of Forbidden Phrases has gone away). I've still got major problems with it, and I suspect that it's essentially ill-conceived, however well-intentioned. I do understand that some people hide POV by using vague references: just because an idiom can be misused, doesn't mean it should be prohibited. -- [[User:Doom|Doom]] ([[User talk:Doom|talk]]) 17:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

== "Probably" ==

Is "probably" (and its siblings, "likely", etc) a weasel word? As in, "The '666' carved on Mercedes' forehead is a probable reference to the biblical Number of the Beast", for example. [[User:Clayhalliwell|Clayhalliwell]] 23:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
:It is, without exception. Your example should just give a hyperlink to [[666]], so the reader can decide themself on ''possible'' references made by the carving. [[User:Ramir|Ramir]] 05:26, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
::Which "people once thought"? <small>—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/162.129.251.17|162.129.251.17]] ([[User talk:162.129.251.17|talk]]) 17:04, 21 November 2007 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

==Probably the most confusing and annoying Wikipedia rule==
I'll be damned if someone truly understands it, instead of a guideline for articles, Weasel Words has becomed the ugly cousin of POV, with articles being branded of having "weasel words" just because they are formated to fit a proper article, in which, if all sources would be properly listed, it would be 10 times as big as it is. {{unsignedIP|201.215.169.199|05:26, September 5, 2006 (UTC)}}

: I see the biggest problem in people only seeing the "letter" of this, and not the "spirit". It's not about the words, folks, it's about what's being done with those words. So, don't go looking for "weasel words", but for "weasel tactics". --[[User:Jae|jae]] 23:02, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

::I agree wholeheartedly. About time someone brought this up. —[[user:Kncyu38|Kncyu38]] ([[user talk:Kncyu38|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Kncyu38|contribs]]) 22:38, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Only Weasels disagree with this rule. They hate being called weasels. :)

Seriously this is the most important rule in WP. It is a quantifiable way of nailing down people that try to avoid the POV rule and use WP to advance their world-view. WP is starting to become a joke for exactly that reason. [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/16], [http://www.penny-arcade.com/2005/12/16],[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_&_Nerdy],[http://www.google.com/search?q=Wikipedia+joke&hl=en&lr=&safe=active&start=10&sa=N] {{unsignedIP|131.247.83.104|22:05, February 23, 2007 (UTC)}}

: "Nailing down"... like someone to a cross, this sounds like. The article says, right there at the start: However, it is not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception. "Nailing down" and "quantifiable way" (quantifiable? Do you, Mr (or Ms?) Anonymous, even know what that means?) doesn't sound like there's room for exceptions. Oh, and why not signed? Are you chicken? -- [[User:Jae|jae]] 01:55, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

: Oh and your first link to PA... care to show me where there's a weasel word? Neither does the Google link have anything to do with "weasel words". People consider WP to be a joke for all kinds of reasons (this very guideline can be one of them... or rather, the "spirit" that it expresses). -- [[User:Jae|jae]] 02:01, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

:: Interesting take. Of all the reasons I've heard that anyone has EVER taken WP for joke, the spirit of being too clear about what constitutes "weasel wording" is not one. (BTW, asking if someone is "chicken" is culturally off-base here, IMO. Think what you want, but at least you could use more class when you accuse someone.)

:: My take on that spirit: "The following are examples of words and phrases that signal a LIKELY case of weasel tactics: <various examples given on the article page>". The specific words & phrases are clear warnings, not definitive proof: prima facie evidence, as it were. Just as using the passive voice is a warning about weak or unattributed writing, not definitive proof. [[User:Jmacwiki|Jmacwiki]] ([[User talk:Jmacwiki|talk]]) 00:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

==Weak exceptions==
Exception clauses #1 and #3 seem to be quite weak. As far as #1 is concerned, it is almost always very desirable to cite sources when making claims about historical or religious beliefs, '''especially''' when writing in depth about a particular belief system. The current clause seems to legitimize making an unsourced statement along the lines of "members of religion X believe in beneficial effects of pedophilia" - bad idea. The example provided says "most people" - how do we know? Is this even true on a global scale (what about population outside Europe and their religions?). Unless a reputable historian had made such a claim, it's just a weak belief by itself.

Clause #3 is puzzling to me - the rules disallow saying that, for example, "''foo'' is believed to be the best ''bar''" - but somehow, "''foo'' is believed to be the best ''bar'', but ''baz'' claims otherwise" is OK? This holds water only if the first statement, a majority opinion, belongs to a body of common, undisputed knowledge that needs no proof in the first place ("grass is green", "Beethoven is generally regarded as one of the greatest composers") - but if so, this should be the rule by itself, I see no need to mention the prerequisite of contrasting common knowledge with anything.

Sure, common sense applies, but then, why do we need to mention such weak examples at all? --[[User:Lcamtuf|lcamtuf]] 02:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)


::I edited the section according to this very correct criticism, but the examples were restored. Would somebody care to defend them here? --[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 18:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

==About the tag==
One of the problems with this policy is the way the tag for it is phrased. As written, it says '''"The neutrality or factuality of this article or section may be compromised by weasel words",''' which implies a process where an editor reads an article, has a suspicion that it's got too many weasel words in it, and sticks the tag on it. However, I doubt very much that's the way things actually occur. A better approximation of what happens might be this: an editor reads an article, is outraged or annoyed at what he or she perceives to be weasel words, and therefore sticks a tag on it. If that's the case, and I think it highly likely that it is, then the use of "may be compromised" is, in fact, an example of weaseling, and a better construction would be '''"An editor found this article to contain weasel words which compromise its neutrality or factuality."''' In fact, similar phrasings should be used in a '''lot''' of Wikipedia cleanup tags, since they presumably indictate a definite value judgment by an editor concerning the content of an article, and not a mere suspicion by the editor that the violation may exist.

By the way, I'm of the opinion that way too many articles on Wikipedia are tagged, that the tags are too prominent, and that Wikipedia's functionality is in some measure compromised by rampant tagging. Cleanup tags are (or should be) essentially an internal administration matter, and there's no particular need for them to be highly visible to the casual user. [[User:Edfitz|Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz)]] 10:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

:Very good point. There are way too many drive by-taggings out there, and there is virtually no pressure on taggers to motivate their actions. Tags should be a last resort for very problematic statements ''after'' they have been brought up for discussion. As it is now, even experienced and otherwise sensible editors are adding tags as a way of asserting their opinion in article space.
:[[User:Peter Isotalo|Peter]] <sup>[[User talk:Peter Isotalo|Isotalo]]</sup> 11:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

:'''Post above tagged for attention and response''' --[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 01:19, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

== INCORRECT DEFINITION of "Weasel Words"!!!??? ==

I'm baffled by this article, it does not relate any definition of "weasel words" I've ever seen before.

It looks more like an explanation of "loaded language" NOT of "weasel words".
There are no sources either!

My understanding is that "weasel word" means:
"changing the meaning of a word in the middle of your argument so that your conclusion can be maintained."
(bottom of p78 "A Rulebook for Arguments" 3rd Ed. (2000), Anthony Weston, HACKETT Publishing Co.).

It's basically a form of equivocation, isn't it?!

Can we look into this please, as it may be that the title (and links to) and content needs changing; and certainly supporting with some sources. <small>—The preceding [[Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages|unsigned]] comment was added by [[Special:Contributions/87.113.23.157|87.113.23.157]] ([[User talk:87.113.23.157|talk]]) 15:13, 12 April 2007 (UTC).</small><!-- HagermanBot Auto-Unsigned -->
[[User:87.113.23.157|87.113.23.157]] 15:14, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

:This isn't the article namespace. The meanings of "verification", "neutral point of view", "fancruft" and many other terms which have grown into use in Wikipedia differ from their classic meanings, and some are even neologisms. This doesn't mean they don't belong. --[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 01:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

::[http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/Weasel%20word Merriam Webster] and [http://www.bartleby.com/61/10/W0071000.html The American Heritage dictionary] both define weasel word as something like "a word used in order to evade or retreat from a direct or forthright statement or position." This is consistent with the meaning of the term in the article, and not in your book. As for "loaded language," that's more [[WP:PEACOCK]]. (Isn't it quite the coincidence that both the WP policies/guidelines that refer to animals are related to each other?). --[[user:ybbor|Ybbor]]<sup><font color="green">[[User Talk:Ybbor|Talk]]</font></sup>'''<font color="orange">[[User:Ybbor/Watchlist Survey|Survey!]]</font>''' 01:35, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

:::I agree with this. I got "An equivocal word used to deprive a statement of its force or to evade a direct commitment." from American Heritage. Since it's policy, it has to come up with examples of how meaning can be diluted, and foremost of such examples for us is hearsay, however inevitable that might be in biographies about politicians. I think this article is easier to read and better organized than [[weasel words]]. The part about a direct commitment isn't relevant here. <small>—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:Brewhaha@edmc.net|Brewhaha@edmc.net]] ([[User talk:Brewhaha@edmc.net|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Brewhaha@edmc.net|contribs]]) 06:46, 4 July 2008 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

::AceMyth, you're generally right-on on this page defending the integrity of what is an important guideline. However, it could use a better name. If it were a neolgism it might be vague, but at least it wouldn't be misleading (confusing). "Differing from their classic meanings" should itself be held to some standard, unless of course the usage arises organically. Assuming that's not what happened here (it seems not to be), do the posters who pointed out the misuse have any BETTER IDEAS for a name? Maybe "vague or anonymous attribution". --[[User:Willhaslett|will]] ([[User talk:Willhaslett|talk]]) 23:08, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

== Last two paragraphs ==

I don't understand the last two paragraphs of this article. Is the following an accurate paraphrase? (If so, it might be substituted for the original):

"Avoid weasel words" is just a rule of thumb, and, like any rule of thumb, is subject to exceptions. It is permissible to use weasel words occasionally, if they will improve the rhythm and sense of the text without impairing its verifiability and neutral point of view. Evidence should be cited only for controversial or unusual claims, not for statements that are common knowledge in the field; a sentence like "the sky is often blue" does not need supporting evidence. Do not clutter the text. An article that bristles with trivial footnotes is an incoherent jumble, and encourages the reader to google the subject instead.
--[[User:Gheuf|Gheuf]] 03:47, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

:Yeah, that's the gist of it. Go ahead and substitute if you feel it makes for a better closing paragraph than what's there now --[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 06:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

== Copypasted from article ==

[The section following examples of weasel words] uses weasel words! It uses phrases like "often" and "many" and "almost certain" without citing any actual data or use trends. If we are to conform to this writing style, then the writing style should conform to itself. -(edit by [[user:agvulpine|agvulpine]])

:I'll assume good faith here and judge this comment and edit (which contained the audacity of tagging this very guideline as "compromised by weasel words", bordering on a blatant infraction of [[WP:POINT]]) the result of excessive pedantry rather than, well, bad faith. This being a guideline, it does not have to conform to the same confines as article space. But even letting that up, is ''anyone'' arguing that this is not actually the case? That "clearly" is ''not'' often used to slap together a valid chain of reasoning in written form? Clearly, that last section about not blindly demanding references for blatantly obvious things has been conveniently ignored here. --[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 15:45, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

:I hope we are past this, but the complaint arises from a true difference between this project page and virtually all other WP project pages, something that seems to have escaped the attention of several editors here: This is not an article ABOUT weasel words, for the interested encyclopedia reader. It is a statement of WP policy, a core principle for WP's existence. It is thus not subject to POV, stylistic, or other constraints. Period. If readers collectively feel that this or other fundamental policies are inappropriate, they must abandon WP. Vote with their feet, so to speak. Or mice, in this case. [[User:Jmacwiki|Jmacwiki]] ([[User talk:Jmacwiki|talk]]) 00:39, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

::Congratulations, user:Jmacwiki, you replied to a post which was not quite one year old! Yes, I think we are past this, if by this you mean '''just slapping a tag''' on this guideline, or indeed on any article in mainspace. Editing of this page by thoughtful editors is best practice, per [[Wikipedia:Be bold|WP:BOLD]], and changes to guidelines, which reflect clearer statements of [[Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines|Policies and guidelines]], are brought about through discussion on the ''discussion page''.
::This page has undergone quite a few changes since May 2007, and I hope it will go through some more, though there is no need, anywhere, for drive-by tagging. Thanks for your refreshing viewpoint! [[User:Newbyguesses|Newbyguesses]] - [[User_talk:Newbyguesses|Talk]] 01:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

::: FWIW, I considered carefully whether to reply to a 9-month-old post. But there seemed to be enough challenging commentary throughout the talk page that I felt the point was worth stating. [[User:Jmacwiki|Jmacwiki]] ([[User talk:Jmacwiki|talk]]) 06:28, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

== "Offhanded references to the sky being often-blue will not necessarily demand a citation" ==

The final section, "Offhanded references to the sky being often-blue will not necessarily demand a citation", seems like a joke to me, since it contains lots of errors and is chock-full of stylistic problems (weasel words, lack of clarity, wandering diction, etc.). But it's been in the article for a while, according to the history, so it's not a new section. But seriously, look at the section's title&mdash;isn't that cloyingly convoluted syntax? I recommend either re-writing that section or nixing it completely. What is it trying to say that the rest of the article doesn't? -[[User:Phoenixrod|Phoenixrod]] 17:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

:Rewritten. Hopefully with this rewrite the point should become clearer, as well. --[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 08:03, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

== The first sentence is way too wordy and confusing ==

Somebody please shorten it so it's easily understood {{unsignedIP|76.102.131.87|18:11, June 12, 2007 (UTC)}}
:Either this guy is a [[noob]], or the article is hypocritical... --[[User:Luigifan|Luigifan]] 18:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

::Oh for goodness' sake. As is discernible from this talk page, apparently '''EVERYTHING''' that will '''EVER''' be written in this guideline is hypocritical self-contradiction, regardless of technicalities such as what's usually meant by "hypocrisy" or what a contradiction is. Look at me now, having to defend its right to contain participial phrases. We have soared to a new height of pedantry, gentlemen. --[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 15:20, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

==Yankees==

I changed the peacock terms example back to the Yankees as the Machester United one was misleading and inaccurate. [[User:Guest9999|Guest9999]] 11:08, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

==Complaint==

Major changes to the project page require discussion on the talk page first.
:So, where is your explanation of your massive recent deletion? `'[[user:mikkalai|Miikka]] 15:58, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

::Actually, that was me. My explanation is that the previous version was written in a tone that I personally was rather fond of but frequent visitors to the guideline seemed to regard as an exercise in reading comprehension. I believe all the important content and points have been retained in this new rewrite, but hey, if you feel that some important element of the text has gone amiss, hit the shiny edit button. --[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 21:53, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

These poorly written phrases clutter up the project page's message, and should be removed.

The emergence of weasel-worded statements often has its roots in biased or normative statements,

The problem of the weasel words starts when an editor realizes this and attempts to remedy the situation by modifying the statement to at least admit that it is not necessarily factual, e.g

The answers to these questions might very well strongly imply that in essence the statement contains no semblance of neutrality, verifiability, significance or any encyclopedic quality whatsoever - that "some people" stands for, e.g., three enthusiastic travel agents encountered by this single editor in 1998.

Aside from the interference with Wikipedia's neutral point of view, usage of weasel words often begets other issues and problems in the text.

suffering from a massive infestation of weasel words

There are more &mdash; a major rewrite is required. [[User:Newbyguesses|Newbyguesses]] - [[User_talk:Newbyguesses|Talk]] 11:38, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
:I added a tag. [[User:Eyu100|Eyu100]]<sup><small>([[User talk:Eyu100|t]]|[[:fr:Utilisateur:Eyu100|fr]]|[[WP:1|Version 1.0 Editorial Team]])</small></sup> 00:36, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

::I removed the tag, as the guideline is mostly ''past'' this requested rewrite, and as far as I understand [[User:Newbyguesses]] agrees that if not complete, this rewrite is at least going in the right direction. So sure, more work is always welcome, but I don't think we need a tag (anymore). --[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 14:51, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
:::This [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words&diff=143187615&oldid=141617460] should show the differences in versions from 30 June to 7 July 2007, with 45 intermediates not shown. Quite a rewrite, and going in the right direction, although any improvements by a bold editor welcomed, and the talk page is available to all. Removing the tag was quite justified,[[User:Newbyguesses|Newbyguesses]] - [[User_talk:Newbyguesses|Talk]] 03:53, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

== Straw poll ==

A while back on the talk page, someone asked if there was ever a poll that showed consensus. I am making one [[Wikipedia talk:Avoid weasel words/Consensus straw poll]]. [[User:Eyu100|Eyu100]]<sup><small>([[User talk:Eyu100|t]]|[[:fr:Utilisateur:Eyu100|fr]]|[[WP:1|Version 1.0 Editorial Team]])</small></sup> 00:57, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

:Here is the link [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Avoid_weasel_words&diff=115736898&oldid=115598308] to the post referred to, by ''User:HalfDome'', from 17 March 07. FYI, [[User:Newbyguesses|Newbyguesses]] - [[User_talk:Newbyguesses|Talk]] 02:23, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

==Hiding the tag when viewing the webpage==

If like me you find the cite and weasel words tags distracting when reading an article, you can choose to personally not display them by modifying your Monobook.css file to have lines like

sup.Template-Fact { display: none; }
sup.Template-Current { display: none; }
.messagebox { display: none; }
.reference { display: none; }
.noprint { display: none; }

The noprint line affects this particular tag, the others hide a range of meta information boxes, superscripts and the like. [[User:Vicarage|Vicarage]] 22:22, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

== Definition too specific ==

The article has improved in style since I saw it last. Yet, it is still failing to define and describe the phenomenon in its breadth and generality. A couple of examples of mine were meant to illustrate that somewhat, but those were all deleted. So here are some:
* Montreal is ''probably'' the most beautiful place in the world.
* Research by X [1] suggests that 84.67% of American <u>scientists</u> believe in Truth.
* The new legislation was met with ''widespread protest'' [1][2][3].
* <u>Because of</u> <u>poor</u> organization and skill [1][2], the army of Zloj was defeated.
(the numbers in brackets [1] [etc.] are hypothetical references to relevant authoritative sources.) These are examples of weasel phrases, yet none of them fit the description given by the article now. [[User:Ramir|Ramir]] 01:36, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

:If the definition of what a "Weasel Word" is supposed to be should be more encompassing than it's now, having a tree-fest of examples illustrating every single possible infraction and completely obscuring the forest in the process would hardly be a good solution. Can you come up with a solid broader definition of the type of fault in a text you're aiming for here? "Weasel Word" will hardly be useful to anybody as a catch-all term for any conceivable fault of descriptive writing that could be linked to typical "culprit" words (to name a few which factor strongly in your examples: Sloppy, nonspecific descriptions; shameless fairness of tone violations; opinion baldly stated as fact; sources misrepresented and taken out of context...) --[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 02:31, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
:: I suggest a general definition like:
::<div style="border:thin solid black;padding:0.8em">“In Wikipedia, a '''weasel word''' is any word, clause or implication that attempts to preserve the formal truth or the appearance of credibility of a statement that is non-neutral, controversial, or plainly false on its own; yet does not add to the specificity or clarity of the statement.”</div>
::I know, such style is inappropriate for a popular explanation, but such are rigid definitions. It could be shortened to “an uninformative word or phrase that is appended to a statement in an attempt to save the latter from rightful erasure.” [[User:Ramir|Ramir]] 08:33, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
:::I like that. Do add that in. --[[User:AceMyth|AceMyth]] 10:43, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
:::: In time I will, unless objections arise. I see the need to emphasise that some weasel words are merely ''implications'', like in the third and fourth of examples above. The bias or falsity of statements is easily exposed by destructuring the sentences; when used as a subordinate clause, a phrase seems more innocent and verified to most readers. Consider:
::::*The army of Zloj was <u>untrained</u> and <u>poorly organised</u>. These were <u>the</u> reasons of its defeat.
:::: This is outright first-hand POV that has no place in Wikipedia in any form; it cannot possibly be “verified” by any sort of reference. Yet, these very two statements appear convincing and verifiable (indeed, with “authoritative sources”) to many, when written as a compound sentence. So, in this example the “weasel word” is not even a single word, but a syntactic construction that adds no information yet making a statement appear as less of a POV/lie. [[User:Ramir|Ramir]]
:::: The third example uses an extremely flexible quantity specifier (“widespread”, which ranges from two persons to the entire population), also implying that the exact cause of the allegedly widespread protest was the legislation in question (while usually one would be an excuse or a “spark” for a more general political campaign.) [[User:Ramir|Ramir]]
:::: I am tempted to give such examples in the article. About seven will be enough; and only one needs to cover the “many-people-think” type of weasel words, since it is straightforward in contrast to the other kinds that I am trying to expose (weasel-syntax, weasel-causality-words, weasel-references, weasel-implications). So I will wait for further approval/critique before I edit. [[User:Ramir|Ramir]] 22:53, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

:::::Adding some worthwhile examples is a good idea. The draft above is also quite suitable for addition to the lead section, nothing wrong with the tone. These explanatory ideas also, of weasel-syntax, etc. represent an interesting approach.
:::::A weasel word sucks the meaning out of the words around it - (Stewart <strike>Chapman</strike> '''Chaplin''', 1900). Well, they suck the meaning out of a discussion, or out of a particular section of text.
:::::In the '' locus classicus'', one could identify a particular weasel word, and the particular word whose meaning is sucked out (for instance, ''voluntary'' negated the meaning of ''universal'' in a political phrase of Woodrow Wilson's criticized by Roosevelt in 1916 as an example of weasel words). But in the general case, as user:Ramir points out, it might be a syntactical construction, or an implication, or the order of certain words or syllables which creates ambiguities. Use of "'''a''' weasel word" differs from using "weasel word'''s'''", and from weasel-wording, or weasel-wordiness. The "definition" of weaseling has certainly changed over a century, [[User:Newbyguesses|Newbyguesses]] - [[User_talk:Newbyguesses|Talk]] 02:08, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
:::::Fortunately, we do not need to provide a definition as such, this is not mainspace. And the backstop is WP:V. In cases where ''weasel words'' are an impediment to '''verifiability''', they need to be re-written, and re-written until the text satisfies '''WP:V''' (Also WP:NPOV and WP:NOR). u:[[User:Newbyguesses|Newbyguesses]] - [[User_talk:Newbyguesses|Talk]] 02:27, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
:::::: Your quote from Chapman is good: both clear and authoritative. It supports my initial concern: the article in its present version does not describe the issue adequately. [[User:Ramir|Ramir]] 12:03, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
:::::: Also, I suggest these assertions:
::::::* Beyond exception, weasel words are unacceptable in a somber, scientific-style publication like Wikipedia, since their purpose (or their effect, at least) is the obscuration of facts and promotion of subconscious (alogical, meaningless) attitudes.
::::::** Attitudes like those expressed in [[Wikipedia:Embrace weasel words]] are intellectually blunt. Their lack of consistency should be exposed and ridiculed. (This I can do easily.)
::::::* One should look beyond examples and definitions, and recognize the general phenomenon of “weaselspeak”; that weasel words are mere manifestations of it; and that they have elusive substitutes more difficult to notice. It is here, towards the article’s end, where I would give examples of the more subtle weasel-wording, like the third and fourth of my examples above.
:::::: [[User:Ramir|Ramir]] 12:03, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

:::Correction- That should be Stewart '''Chaplin''', not Chapman, writing in 1900 in ''The Century Magazine'' according to the article [[Weasel word]], my mistake. What might be really helpful, is to supply some examples which illustrate techniques and phrasing that editors can use to replace passages of poor wording, if possible. This page is after all a part of the Manual of Style. Guidance on how to write better articles is what is required, so, continue to refine these ideas and, when ready, be bold.[[User:Newbyguesses|Newbyguesses]] - [[User_talk:Newbyguesses|Talk]] 20:49, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

==Adding one obfuscation to another==

In the "Other examples" section under the subsection "convoluted syntax":<br>
Citing the following sentence as an example of obfuscation the editor has added another obfuscation, that of which is the "strange little participial phrase". Does he presume that the reader instantly knows which is the participial phrase?
:"Though not universally, squares are widely regarded as having an even number of sides that has been conjectured by experts in the field to be approximately four" wraps the key point in layers of syntactic obfuscation, leaving it to be harvested out of a strange little participial phrase by the reader".
Wow! [[User:Dieter Simon|Dieter Simon]] 23:50, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

== Interaction between [[WP:NPOV]], [[WP:WEIGHT]], [[WP:NOT]], and [[WP:WEASEL]] ==

Take something controversial, like [[Fahrenheit 9/11]]. Which is better?

# "Many conservatives criticized the movie for inaccuracy." (cite to thirty examples) or "A, B, C, ..., BB, CC, and DD criticized the movie for inaccuracy." (cite to thirty critics)
# "Conservative A and conservative B criticized the movie for inaccuracy." (cite to the two)
# "Many conservatives criticized the movie for inaccuracy." (cite to the same two examples)

(1) violates [[WP:NOT]] and [[WP:WEIGHT]]. (2) violates [[WP:NPOV]] by falsely implying that only a couple of people criticized a widely-criticized movie. (3) violates [[WP:WEASEL]], but it is clearly the best option. Yet many editors are using [[WP:WEASEL]] to turn accurate sentences like (3) into inaccurate sentences like (2). This hurts the encyclopedia. How can we clarify [[WP:WEASEL]] to prevent this problem? [[User:THF|THF]] 00:57, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

:In a case where many critics or people (up to fifty percent) approved the movie and many (up to fifty percent) disapproved of it - How about - (4) Opinion was divided on the movie, some (conservative) critics said it was inaccurate [ref] while others found it convincing.[ref] . All material must satisfy WP:V for starters. It is also correct though to point out that the NPOV policy, WEIGHT and NOT all apply in different aspects of each particular case, which requires finding fresh ways to express matters in each particular case. [[User:Newbyguesses|Newbyguesses]] - [[User_talk:Newbyguesses|Talk]] 06:10, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

::In this case, conservative opinion wasn't divided. It was pretty close to unanimously disapproving. (Not a big surprise: the movie was intentionally partisan.) Again, though, editors are using [[WP:WEASEL]] to object to saying this obvious point. I'd like to find or add language in [[WP:WEASEL]] that discourages overaggressive use that ends up violating other policies. [[User:THF|THF]] 09:41, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

:Well, not sure what could be done there in that article. Seems that, if there is a section called "Controversy" in any article, there will be a ''controversy'' about it! The whole piece could be restated (rewritten) - Moore stated his intentions of creating a partisan or radical document, and this was reacted to by critics partial to the status quo with disdain. Or why not call the section "Reactions"? [[User:Newbyguesses|Newbyguesses]] - [[User_talk:Newbyguesses|Talk]] 10:15, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

== Merge templates: exception, or in need of correction? ==

Have a look at the text for [[Template:Merge]], [[Template:Mergefrom]], and [[Template:Mergeto]]. Are these acceptable usages of weasel words, or should they be changed? Perhaps instead of "It has been suggested," the template should incorporate the editing user's name (is that possible?) to say User:So-and-so has suggested...? — [[User:Epastore|Epastore]] 00:01, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

It's possible, and I like your idea, but I don't feel like doing it. In any but the most obvious cases of merging synonyms, it ought to be a thread on a talk page. Merging carefully is such a tricky process, though, that I imajin, if you look hard enough, that you'll find a few examples where someone just did it, and to hell with consensus. If it isn't acceptable, it'll get reverted. Go ahead and try improving the style of language in the templates. If you're not adept at mechanical languages, though, copy them into your user space, first.[[User:Brewhaha@edmc.net|BrewJay]] ([[User talk:Brewhaha@edmc.net|talk]]) 03:57, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

== "many," "some," "a large number of," ==

I have the impression that these three terms and expressions are also, as used by Wikpedians, Weasel words. Am I correct? Should this Project page be edited accordingly?
:[[Yours truly]], --[[User:Ludvikus|Ludvikus]] 16:26, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

== "The page contradicts itself" complaint #2748c ==

"As part of the Manual of Style, this page is a guideline on Wikipedia. '''It is a generally accepted standard'''"

It's a generally accepted standard, in other words "the standard is accepted by most editors"

"Most scientists believe that..." Is an example provided on this very page. The page contradicts itself from the very first sentence.

(a combination of edits by {{unsignedIP|124.168.141.124|01:03, September 16, 2007 (UTC)}} and {{unsignedIP|210.84.13.2|17:42, September 28, 2007 (UTC)}})

:I am not a lawyer, nor am I formally a philosopher, but I recognize this policy as common debating practice and court procedure. It's about [[hearsay]] evidence, word of mouth, and gossip. Perhaps there is some wikification I could put into it. [[User:Brewhaha@edmc.net|BrewJay]] ([[User talk:Brewhaha@edmc.net|talk]]) 03:38, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

== Applicable even to quotes? ==

I was wondering if this guideline is applicable even to quotes from third party sources? There's an instance of its use on the Firefox page, as in:
:''On the other hand, LWN also notes that "by some accounts, this feature will turn Firefox into spyware".'' {{WW}}
I was under the impression this is a guideline for Wikipedia authors and to keep up to tabs with the wording in articles, but in this case, the only remedy for this that I can think of is replacing the entire quote? Is that the recommended course of action here to fix this, or is the editor who added the WW template in the wrong here and mistaken in how this guideline applies?

I can not see any word in this article as for this case with quotations, and think it could be an idea to add a consensus on this, because I don't think it's immediately obvious on what applies here. &mdash; [[User:Northgrove|Northgrove]] 08:54, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

:OK, I took another look at this, and according to its template page at [[:Template:WW]], that tag seem to clearly not be used appropriately, as it's intended for quote revisions to include attribution, which is already included in this case. I'll remove the tag in that article for now with a pointer to the template page. &mdash; [[User:Northgrove|Northgrove]] 08:59, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

:As I say later on this talk page, yes, even to attributed quotations. If we can't do it, then we shouldn't let others do it, either. Since we're talking about communications software, the question can be answered in a definite manner. It might require a definition of spyware. What kind of information can the software release? Personal? Are users likely to be unaware of those releases? What further information can the information be used to get? All of those questions are more important than [[hearsay]]. <small>—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:Brewhaha@edmc.net|Brewhaha@edmc.net]] ([[User talk:Brewhaha@edmc.net|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Brewhaha@edmc.net|contribs]]) 03:22, 4 July 2008 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

== First section redraft ==
Propose:

'''Weasel words''' is a term used in Wikipedia (and generally, see [[Weasel words]]) to refer to unspecific disclaimers attached to what otherwise would be claimed statements of fact in order to turn them into true statements of opinion. Usually, weasel words are small phrases attached to the beginning of a statement, such as "some argue that..." or "critics say...", ''etc.''. Additional "weasel" words sometimes allow a statement to be implied when it is no truer than its inverse and sometimes imply that the statement is more contraversial than it is. The problem with weasel-worded statements isn't that they are false; the problem is that they are chosen to imply something which they do not say.
For example, an editor might preface the statement "Montreal is the best city in the world" with a disclaimer: "''some people say'' that Montreal is the best city in the world". This is not untrue: some people ''do'' say that Montreal is the best city in the world. The problem is that the reverse is true as well (some people say Montreal is the worst city in the world), and it is thus easy to write a misinformative, slanted article composed of nothing but 'facts' like these, using Wikipedia to spread [[Hearsay in English Law|hearsay]], personal opinion and [[propaganda]]. All it takes is for somebody to add "Critics have asserted that..." to a statement, and there is a danger that the casual reader will take their word for it. Equally "some people claim that [[The beatles]] were popular" unnecesarily raises a (false) question about something which is better without the preface, and expresses a tacit counter [[POV]].

If a statement is true without weasel words, remove them. If they are needed for the statement to be true, consider removing the statement. If there is a genuine opinion make the preface more specific. Who are these people? When, where and why did they say that? What kind of bias might they have? How many is "some"? If you consider the different answers these questions might have, you can see how meaningless the "some people say" qualification is. To assist users in deciding how to attribute ideas more precisely, the Wikipedia [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|verifiability]] policy provides specific criteria for the support a statement must have for it to remain in an article unchallenged. This is one of Wikipedia's core content policies, determining the type and quality of material that is acceptable in articles, and it is this policy that weasel words undermine.

any views?

--[[User:BozMo|BozMo]] [[user talk:BozMo|talk]] 12:01, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

:Ok, I'll be bold and do it. --[[User:BozMo|BozMo]] [[user talk:BozMo|talk]] 08:56, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I found this page to be quite well written and clear. (Not perfectly, but "quite well".) Can we move past the witty "gotcha's" and aim for something that's simply informative to intelligent people who want to contribute usefully to WP?

Now let me ask a question that seems to be relevant for this section. [Fair warning: I'm quite new to editing WP.] In an article about biological evolution, I might write:

"Most scientists accept the theory of evolution."

No, I haven't any citations at all, nor do I KNOW of any published sources that contain genuine survey results to verify that (and they probably would have too many caveats to be useful anyway). So is that sentence weasel-worded?

Now, I have been a practicing natural scientist for a few decades. In that time, I'm not sure I have EVER encountered another practicing natural scientist who didn't accept the theory. [Your mileage may vary!] Also, I can defend the theory on broad and solid logical grounds (not merely narrow and challengeable observational ones).

As written, then, the sentence is actually far weaker than it deserves.

Or perhaps I am relying on "original research" (and highly anecdotal at that)? It seems to me, though, that neither of these objections really applies. The word "most" actually understates the strength of the consensus. It hasn't turned a highly biased POV into a true but misleading opinion; it's turned what (in my entire professional life) is approximately as factual as gravity into something that SOUNDS like a contestable point.

So what's an intellectually honest and stylistically good solution here?

[PLEASE NOTE: I am NOT asking whether you believe in evolution, or feel a deep-seated need to make some side point about it here. There are plenty of interesting things to say about it. Elsewhere! Nor am I asking for side points about my background & its relevance, nor the style I used to ask my question.]
[[User:Jmacwiki|Jmacwiki]] ([[User talk:Jmacwiki|talk]]) 04:42, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

:I would say as a rule that when you can say "most", then it's not a fuzzy statistic. It's well over fifty percent. A court in Canada, regarding Quebec separation issues, once decided that a clear majority is two thirds. And, if someone wanted to challenge you, then I think they'd be forced to use <nowiki>{{fact}}</nowiki>, and
you would find a number over 95 percent. ''Most'' is verifiable and substantial. It's still about popular opinion, a topic from which I refrain, but in some articles that might be inevitable. [[User:Brewhaha@edmc.net|BrewJay]] ([[User talk:Brewhaha@edmc.net|talk]]) 03:12, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

== Citation Example in Error ==

Contrary to many authors on this talk page, I think the article is a very valuable and well written one. However, the amusing citation example concerning rabies and acupuncture is incorrect in format. If the in-text citation was "Wong et al.", then the corresponding footnote would have three or more authors; as we all know "et al." is the abbreviated form of "et alia" (Latin for "and others"). Two authors would be, for example, "Wong and Smith". A simple oversight, I'm sure, but with everyone else being so nit-picky, I couldn't resist.
[[User:Turkeylips|Turkeylips]] ([[User talk:Turkeylips|talk]]) 22:28, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

==most likely==
Am I being overly critical to think the "most likely" is a weasel phrase in [[Gustavus Adolphus College]]?--[[User:Appraiser|Appraiser]] ([[User talk:Appraiser|talk]]) 13:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Seems a little intellectually sloppy, so I see why you noticed the funny wording. Maybe the low spring-break population "contributed" to the low death count? <small>—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:Jmacwiki|Jmacwiki]] ([[User talk:Jmacwiki|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Jmacwiki|contribs]]) 04:47, 14 February 2008 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

==First sentence==
Does not make easy sense to me. "...true statements of opinion"? I believe I understand the intended meaning, but would somebody please clarify so I can be sure? [[User:Rumiton|Rumiton]] ([[User talk:Rumiton|talk]]) 11:39, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
:accurate statement of opinion. --[[User:BozMo|BozMo]] [[user talk:BozMo|talk]] 12:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

=="Weasel-inline" tag now reads "Attribution needed"?==
This makes things confusing when one is trying to point to a weasel word or phrase that is not looking for a source to be attributed to (e.g. "probably", "most likely", "usually" et al).

[[Special:Contributions/71.241.83.238|71.241.83.238]] ([[User talk:71.241.83.238|talk]]) 11:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

*This has apparently been fixed. DO NOT MERGE weasel words with attribution needed!!! [[Special:Contributions/68.101.130.214|68.101.130.214]] ([[User talk:68.101.130.214|talk]]) 10:17, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

==Pejorative Term==


I had not seen much discussion of this, so I thought I might introduce a subsection.

The phrase "weasel words" is inherently pejorative, in most english-speaking societies, and this connotation is seldom unintended when one denounces the text of an absent author to a present audience. I would suggest finding a more suitable term.

While some contributors and editors of the Wikipedia may, in truth, make intentional use of ambiguous language - be it due to personal bias, in order to gloss over gaps in knowledge or intellectual rigor, or out of stylistic habit; to sound a little more 'encyclopedia-like', in bad faith, or due to the pure evil of their utterly twisted and irredeemable character - I suspect that in the great majority of cases, ambiguous language appears in the Wikipedia <i>unintentionally</i>. Furthermore, I suspect that it is often beside the point, when not impossible, to attempt to demonstrate that a given ambiguity was or wasn't used intentionally.

Unfortunately, to say that a fellow editor's work is using "weasel words" is to accuse him of adding to or editing the wikipedia in bad faith. Given that actual weasels do not use words, it is very difficult to escape the notion that the original, insulting connotation is intended. It is difficult enough to feel that ''any'' criticism of one's work is made in good faith; when such criticism is in the form of an accusation of bad faith on one's own part, it seems to me remarkably predictable that disputes and bad feelings would frequently arise. And human nature is such that many hearts bearing animus would absolutely ''delight'' in expressing it in a manner that evaded direct reproach and censure - by finding and thus labelling ambiguous usages, for instance - which surely complicates the matter.

In my opinion, a community cannot 're-brand' a phrase without either failing, or intensifying the degree of any 'insider' vs. 'outsider' effect. Thus I do not believe that an attempt to explain that the phrase "weasel words" somehow 'means' something different in the Wikipedia would be particularly fruitful in a tasty-fruit sort of way.

[[User:Sixtyninefourtyninefourtyfoureleven|69.49.44.11]] ([[User talk:Sixtyninefourtyninefourtyfoureleven|talk]]) 04:27, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

:Yes, you are absolutely right. The expression "weasel word" is indeed pejorative, and unfortunately for that reason may be invoked incorrectly in cases such as generalizations or the passive voice, to name just two. Perhaps you might look at [[weasel word]] and see whether that article supplies some answers (or indeed you might contribute to it to improve it). [[User:Dieter Simon|Dieter Simon]] ([[User talk:Dieter Simon|talk]]) 18:55, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

::A good point. Perhaps "weasel words" is such a delicious insult to an editor with an opposing POV that it gets used when a simple suggestion for a more focused writing style would have been more appropriate. [[User:Rumiton|Rumiton]] ([[User talk:Rumiton|talk]]) 11:41, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

:::In that case, is there a corresponding "this article needs a more focused writing style" tag? Something more specific than "cleanup" and less loaded than "WW". Some of the WW cases would still apply, though not all: There really is a difference between "Most apples are red" and "Most religious zealots are hypocrites". Notice that the project page's 1st para. says, "the problem is that [WW] <i>are chosen</i> to imply something which they do not say" [emph. added]. This attributed motive seems to define "WW". That's why accusing someone of WW is (justly) pejorative. That motive is probably absent in the apples example, even though it uses the same example word and the same syntax as the zealots example. [[User:Jmacwiki|Jmacwiki]] ([[User talk:Jmacwiki|talk]]) 01:07, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

::::There does not appear to be an alternative term. If there were, I imagine this discussion would have arisen quite promptly: requiring the editor to choose between imputing a motive, or not, rather highlights the pejorative interpretation of 'weasel words'; it become explicit and unavoidable.
::::For me, the question would be '''whether the pejorative aspect of the term really contributes anything of value''', regardless of how weaselly the words are. I think that the essay [[Wikipedia:Don%27t_%22call_a_spade_a_spade%22|Don't "call a spade a spade"]] and the [[Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith#Dealing_with_bad_faith|Dealing with bad faith]] section of the [[Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith|Assume good faith]] guideline page argue that it does not. The [[Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith#About_good_faith|About good faith]] section of that guideline explicitly opines that: "''[i]t is never necessary that we attribute an editor's actions to bad faith, even if bad faith seems obvious.''"
::::Just to be clear, I think that the existence of the page [[Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words]] is fine. We should all seek to avoid using weasel words. What I'm thinking about are the consequences of taking the phrase (in a tag, for instance) and applying it to another person's contribution. [[User:Sixtyninefourtyninefourtyfoureleven|69.49.44.11]] ([[User talk:Sixtyninefourtyninefourtyfoureleven|talk]]) 03:08, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

::::: Excellent reasoning. The "Assume good faith" guideline seems to require that we edit the last sentence of the first para. to remove the "are chosen to" language. Do we have a [[consensus]] here? <small>—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:Jmacwiki|Jmacwiki]] ([[User talk:Jmacwiki|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Jmacwiki|contribs]]) 06:37, 2 March 2008 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->


<-- [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words&diff=195348681&oldid=194601029 I was bold.] Please continue this discussion, and update the project page as necessary, if the wording introduced with this edit still needs work. I hope it addresses the concerns expressed here, which i read through before editing. Cheers, [[User:Newbyguesses|Newbyguesses]] - [[User_talk:Newbyguesses|Talk]] 17:03, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
==Weasel word==

We should not forget there is a mainspace article [[Weasel word]]. Please try make that the main article rather than this much too prescriptive, regimentative and intrusive project page. [[User:Dieter Simon|Dieter Simon]] ([[User talk:Dieter Simon|talk]]) 00:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

: Yeah, I noticed it the other day. My first reaction was "oh great, the disease is spreading": The term "weasel words" is essentially a piece of jargon made up by Evan Prodromou: it's a very specific meaning, a new definition attached to a piece of common slang. It did not exist before he made it up, and now it deserves a wikipedia entry? Can I write some articles about terms that I've made up? (How about if I write articles about terms a friend of mine made up?). -- [[User:Doom|Doom]] ([[User talk:Doom|talk]]) 16:16, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

:: Maybe this will make what I mean a little clearer: when someone who is not a "wikipedian" says "weasel words" they're talking about a wide range of idioms: http://www.virtualsalt.com/think/semant4.htm
::This article is really about avoiding "vague attribution", which is at best a small sub-set of things that might be termed "weasel words". -- [[User:Doom|Doom]] ([[User talk:Doom|talk]]) 17:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

:: Actually, I just looked at the mainspace article [[Weasel word]] again, and it's much better than I thought at first glance -- it's certainly not just using "weasel word" as a pejorative synonym for "vague attribution". -- [[User:Doom|Doom]] ([[User talk:Doom|talk]]) 18:34, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

== Weasel words in source ==

What happens if the source says things like, "Some people think X"? In that case, is it acceptable to write, "Some people think X" in a Wikipedia article? Should I write, "According to Y, some people think X," where Y is the author of the source? [[User:Q0|Q0]] ([[User talk:Q0|talk]]) 01:09, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

:I suppose it depends whether the source is a 'reliable source'. If a distinguished professor in the subject reckons "some people think" something, he is probably more trustworthy than an anonymous Wikipedia editor. It would still be better to find another source though! [[User:Cop 663|Cop 663]] ([[User talk:Cop 663|talk]]) 01:35, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

::I think you have to take a hard look at the statement on its own merits, and in its own context, and largely treat them with the same distrust you would any weasel-like words. The key problem here is when a statement is qualified in such a way that it seems to say more than it actually does. Take the case of the Apiloca people of Borneo.
::* If the Distinguished Professor is saying something like "some Apiloca fear Cameras," he hasn't really said something any more informative, true or untrue than if anyone had said it. For, surely, some Distinguished Professors fear Cameras, as well.
::* If what he is saying is that "many Apiloca fear Cameras," then that is perhaps more informative, but not as informative as it seems. We have no idea how many Apiloca he considers to be 'many'. (Nor, for that matter, any understanding of the degree or significance of the fear.)
::* If he has been banned from ever returning to Borneo by a million-signature petition, than perhaps it is a large majority of the Apiloca. On the other hand, if he is a specialist in the phobias of the peoples of Borneo, then it could be a peculiar theme amongst those Apiloca who suffer from anxiety disorders.
::What he is offering is not a ''fact'', but a ''characterization''; this can certainly inform our beliefs, but it is very important that it not be treated as a fact, or taken out of context.
::So, in other words, I think it would be very important to directly mention the source and context.
::* "In his book, 'How I Lost Ten Thousand Dollars Worth of The University's Camera Equipment', the Distinguished Professor claims that that many of the Apiloca fear Cameras, a view shared by Tourist, the author of 'Well They Took Away My Polaroids, Didn't They'."
::: — [[User:Sixtyninefourtyninefourtyfoureleven|69.49.44.11]] ([[User talk:Sixtyninefourtyninefourtyfoureleven|talk]]) 02:34, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

:I don't think it's any different coming from an authority. Weasel words are fuzzy statistics.<br>There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.<br>--Attributed to Mark Twain, but he didn't ''write'' it if he said it. <small>—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:Brewhaha@edmc.net|Brewhaha@edmc.net]] ([[User talk:Brewhaha@edmc.net|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Brewhaha@edmc.net|contribs]]) 02:54, 4 July 2008 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

==square==

i love the 'square' part of this article, i really do. f**king hilarious :D keep up the good work wikipedians, haha :D <small>—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/195.34.211.145|195.34.211.145]] ([[User talk:195.34.211.145|talk]]) 18:30, 28 April 2008 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

==The greatest team in the world==

This statement about the yankees seems is not objective by any measure. There is no universally accepted standard for deeming a team "the greatest in the world". While I did not remove it, I believe it should be removed.
[[Special:Contributions/74.47.21.87|74.47.21.87]] ([[User talk:74.47.21.87|talk]]) 01:14, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

=="Award-Winning"==
It seems like half the articles that are about musicians, and far too many other artists and entertainers, start off their articles with "award-winning" before their job title. This may be true, but I always roll my eyes. Of course it's fans who originate articles about musicians, if not the musicians themselves. And of course they want to elevate themselves with some kind of modifier before their job title.

Naturally the awards can be documented, but the content is irrelevant. Generally anyone who meets the notability guidelines will have won some award somewhere that can be documented. It's nearly comparable to calling them a "food-eating" person. At any rate it's not encyclopedic, it's more like something you hear talk show host say and so I submit that "award-winning" is a weasel word.

Of course where major awards can be documented, they deserve a mention, but in the opening sentence "award-winning" reads like "really great!"
[[User:Youdontsmellbad|Youdontsmellbad]] ([[User talk:Youdontsmellbad|talk]]) 12:45, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

:I think this is classed as a 'peacock term' (although this overlaps with weasel words). See [[Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms]] - "award-winning" has already been mentioned at least once in its discussion page. I think any word construction like this (present participle adjectives) can be misleading. "Award-winning actor" implies that the actor 'wins awards' (continuous tense), when it fact it is usually used for an actor who has, at some time, won at least one award.[[User:Weasel Fetlocks|Weasel Fetlocks]] ([[User talk:Weasel Fetlocks|talk]]) 03:18, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

:Terms like "Nobel Prize-winning" and "Academy Award-winning" are fair enough - they immediately convey specifically what they mean. But the definition of "award" is sufficiently vague that "award-winning" alone could mean pretty much anything & so is rather a leading statement. So actually I will agree with you that this is a weasel word (as well as a peacock term!). [[User:Weasel Fetlocks|Weasel Fetlocks]] ([[User talk:Weasel Fetlocks|talk]]) 03:25, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

==The Cartoon==

That cartoon (a picture of a weasel saying "some people say weasel words are great"), is a great example of what a lot of us have been complaining about all along: "weasel" is a pejorative, and accusing someone of "using weasel words" is essentially the same as calling them a weasel. -- [[User:Doom|Doom]] ([[User talk:Doom|talk]]) 22:33, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

:The illustration was removed from this article by an unregistered user with no explanation. I have restored it. [[User:Weasel Fetlocks|Weasel Fetlocks]] ([[User talk:Weasel Fetlocks|talk]]) 03:35, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

:: The image is childish and lowers the level of quality and seriousness we're aiming for with Wikipedia. I've removed it. <b><span style="color:#1018ff;font-family:Zapfino,Monotype Corsiva;"> [[User:Warren|Warren]]</span> [[User talk:Warren|-talk-]]</b> 21:56, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

:::I don't agree. It '''illustrates''' the topic of weasel words. Also it is attractive & fun. That does not automatically make it bad content. [[User:Weasel Fetlocks|Weasel Fetlocks]] ([[User talk:Weasel Fetlocks|talk]]) 22:21, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I rather like that image. It gets the point across, and it's just slightly funny, but without being very childish. Also, the page it was on is a style guideline, not an article - so for the writers, not the readers. Therefore, I think we can afford a little bit of fun without feeling that we're lowering the level of seriousness that we should have here. [[User:Stratford490|Stratford490]] ([[User talk:Stratford490|talk]]) 23:02, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

'''Image restored'''. The contention that it is "childish and lowers the level of quality and seriousness" is entirely '''POV''' & may not reflect the prevalent views of the Wikipedia community. There are plenty of other examples of humour in WP project pages (eg. [[wp:beans]]). Please don't remove the pic again without discussing first, since other members oppose its removal. It may later be removed if consensus goes that way, but until then it is easier for us to discuss it while we can all see the picture. [[User:Weasel Fetlocks|Weasel Fetlocks]] ([[User talk:Weasel Fetlocks|talk]]) 01:25, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

The image is '''great''', and it is perfectly consistent with the aims of a "serious" project. Serious does not have to mean stodgy. Countless people have effectively communicated "serious" ideas through wit and humour. (That's the whole idea behind political cartoons--well, depending on how "seriously" one takes politics.) The image illustrates a point, and it puts a smile on the reader's face. Nothing "childish" about that at all. [[User:Cosmic Latte|Cosmic Latte]] ([[User talk:Cosmic Latte|talk]]) 14:10, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

== "Assume" ==
In some cases, it might fit under the {{speculation}} tag. In other cases, like in mathematics, it can be ''necessary'' to state your assumptions. Even in history, documenting assumptions is not necessarily a bad thing. How safe are those assumptions? But, if it comes to a war of assumptions or something like that, then I would snip the premise, the material, and the conclusions as being part of an argument that really belongs on a talk page or a [[newsgroup]]. [[User:Brewhaha@edmc.net|BrewJay]] ([[User talk:Brewhaha@edmc.net|talk]]) 02:43, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to get a third (and fourth and so on) opinion on whether the use of word "assume" in attribution is weasely (as I believe) or not ("historrian x assumes that..."). [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ethnographic_Lithuania&diff=prev&oldid=221554177 Diff].--<sub><span style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">[[User:Piotrus|Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus]]|[[User_talk:Piotrus|<font style="color:#7CFC00;background:#006400;"> talk </font>]]</span></sub> 03:26, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

:I think that that is more relevant to [[Wikipedia:Words to Avoid]] than to Weasel Words. See the first line of this project page: "Weasel words are small phrases attached to the beginning of a statement". That is not analagous to the example you have given, where "assume" is the primary verb of the sentence. Weasel words are phrases that can usually be removed entirely from a sentence (although it is often beneficial to either rephrase them more neutrally or to cite evidence). "Assume" could contribute to a weaselly phrase, such as "It is generally assumed that -". However, when used in most contexts it is not a weasel word as such.

:Have a look through the Words to Avoid article, as it discusses the hazards of using slightly slanted verbs like "claim", "admit", etc. [[User:Weasel Fetlocks|Weasel Fetlocks]] ([[User talk:Weasel Fetlocks|talk]]) 11:17, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

::Regarding acceptable use of "assume", it really depends on whether it can be qualified with evidence or citation. E.g. "historian X assumes that -" may be OK if that historian has used phrases like "from the evidence we can assume that -" or has otherwise made it '''clear''' that he is making assumptions (which should be noted in the article). Less responsibly, using "assume" without justifying it may be rather biased editing. It's often better to replace it with neutral wording like "historian X asserts that -", but I don't think that "assume" is necessarily always a bad word. [[User:Weasel Fetlocks|Weasel Fetlocks]] ([[User talk:Weasel Fetlocks|talk]]) 11:29, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
:::Since I'm involved in to this dispute I need to say my arguments: I do have the book on hand, and despite several attributes of seemingly citation, like quotation marks, historian does not support his statement with any references, that would support his rather emotional suggestion (forced re-[[Lithuanization]] in this exact case). I'd like to hear how to deal with that kind of sources, and how to describe them properly as being somewhat murky. Thank you in advance.--[[User:Lokyz|Lokyz]] ([[User talk:Lokyz|talk]]) 23:09, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
::::What you see as "unevidenced as emotional" I see as well referenced and neutral statement by [[Piotr Łossowski|an expert on the subject]]. Nonetheless I do note insist on language "proves, evidences, makes clear" or such. "States, notes" and such are perfectly reasonable, neutral formulations.--<sub><span style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">[[User:Piotrus|Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus]]|[[User_talk:Piotrus|<font style="color:#7CFC00;background:#006400;"> talk </font>]]</span></sub> 04:40, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
:::::Sorry Piotrus, I know your opinion, it wasn't you I was asking. Thank you for your input, but I'd like to hear a comment from uninvolved party.--[[User:Lokyz|Lokyz]] ([[User talk:Lokyz|talk]]) 14:27, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
:::::: Without looking deeply into the actual debate, I would strongly advice against using word "assume"; we should [[WP:OR|not judge]] whether a historian is doing good or bad history. We can, however, look at the reliability of the sources. Are the books published by reputable publishers? Such matters are discussed at [[WP:RS/N]]. On the other hand, Piotr, the verb "[[Wikipedia:WTA#Point_out.2C_note.2C_observe|notes]]" is equally biased, since one can only note what is true. [[User:Merzul|Merzul]] ([[User talk:Merzul|talk]]) 16:20, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
::::::: Thank you for the analysis. I will use ''state'' instead of ''note'' in the future.--<sub><span style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">[[User:Piotrus|Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus]]|[[User_talk:Piotrus|<font style="color:#7CFC00;background:#006400;"> talk </font>]]</span></sub> 02:41, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
::::::::A good and valid point, Merzul. [[User:Rumiton|Rumiton]] ([[User talk:Rumiton|talk]]) 15:05, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
:The word "assume" is frequently used to insinuated an unjustified assumption. Any sentence of the form "X assumes that Y, but really Z" is generally unjustified. Unless X themselves claim it is an assumption, it doesn't fly - if another author W claimed they were making an assumption, I would use "X asserts that Y, but W labels this an unwarranted assumption, claiming instead that Z". This feels more like a Word to Avoid to me. [[User:Dcoetzee|Dcoetzee]] 01:55, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
::Thank you for evaluating term ''assume''. I will do my best to avoid it in the future.--[[User:Lokyz|Lokyz]] ([[User talk:Lokyz|talk]]) 02:29, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

== Should "controversial" be considered/listed as a weasel word? ==

I have been involved in several discussions where editors want to apply the word "controversial" to any concept or person they disgree with. My own opinion is that the word should rarely, if ever, appear in WP. I have come to think this because: The word casts doubt upon the veracity of the statement being described (often reflecting the view of the speaker/writer). There is rarely, if ever, an objective way of ascertaining whether something is controversial. Something can actually become controversial (or come to seem controversial) merely because someone says so. In my opinion, none of these situations is good for WP.<br/>

Thoughts?<br/>
—[[User:MarionTheLibrarian|MarionTheLibrarian]] ([[User talk:MarionTheLibrarian|talk]]) 20:46, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

:It's hard to define controversial on a planet with a [[flat earth society]]. At some point, someone's opinion has to go down the tubes, because it's too far out there. [[User:Brewhaha@edmc.net|BrewJay]] ([[User talk:Brewhaha@edmc.net|talk]]) 02:32, 4 July 2008 (UTC

Yes, that's my point exactly. The word conveys no real information for the reader; it merely conveys attitude from the writer. "Controversial" seems (to me) to have every quality of a weasel word.

How would this be best pointed out on the weasel word page?<br/>
—[[User:MarionTheLibrarian|MarionTheLibrarian]] ([[User talk:MarionTheLibrarian|talk]]) 10:51, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

== #Redirect from [[Anonymous authority]] hmmm. [[case history]]? ==

[[Anonymous authority]] is a philosophical term for a wikipedia policy. In both cases, authors are finding support in undocumented or unpublished case histories. IOW, you are an authority on what works for you. You are not an authority on what most people do. Much of [[Freud]]'s work is analysis of case history. It's usable material, but in some form, it must be published before you can use it. In case histories, it's Freud who is an exemplary authority, not his patients, so there really isn't such a thing as an anonymous authority. Avoid weasel words. Please reinstall my redirection to this policy, because it's the best answer unless [[case history]] exists, and it probably does. I see that it doesn't. Go figure.

I looked around at anecdotal evidence and related logic, and I find that authority is itself in the category of logical fallacy under appeals, but only in the case where it's used as a proof (something that really only exists in mathematics) or an authority is held to be infallible. [[User:Brewhaha@edmc.net|BrewJay]] ([[User talk:Brewhaha@edmc.net|talk]]) 02:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

== I hope that addresses most concerns. ==

I put the verb form of the American Heritage dictionary definition in, along with a clause showing why violations of this policy are probably in good faith. I took some of the examples from what was intended to be a contrasting essay on this policy. I see now that an effort began in the first comments to tersen this article (remove examples), and a lot of ways are to equivocate. If you think that this article can do without examples, then feel free to delete them, but I think that's what makes it superior to [[weasel words]] as an article. Perhaps these bad examples should also be improved, like [[wikipedia:embrace weasel words]] did, and, in one step. I've addressed about as many concerns as I can. I could copy a template and rewrite the policy declaration with an article reference to [[hearsay]] to avoid a self-referential contradiction, but I don't think it's worth the trouble. Read a grain of salt into everything. [[User:Brewhaha@edmc.net|BrewJay]] ([[User talk:Brewhaha@edmc.net|talk]]) 08:25, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

== Problem of definition ==

In my experience this is among the most misunderstood and so most frequently mis-invoked policies or guidelines in WP - indeed it seems to be overtaking [[WP:NPOV]] in this respect. One reason is that the page seems nowhere actually to state that it covers matters of opinion, belief or interpretation rather than simple matters of fact. The statement "some horses are black and some are brown" is not weasel words, but there are plenty out there who will claim it is. The page should make this clear in the first para. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 18:08, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

: "There are plenty out there who will claim it is", is in and of itself a weasel-worded statement. ;-) If there is widespread ''evidence'' of people misinterpreting this guideline, let's have a look at specific incidents in more detail and see if there's a pattern. A wording tweak may be of help.

: But, let's look at the example you provided. A simple rewrite in less ambiguous language would be a good resolution: "Common colours of horses include black and brown." The problem with words like "some", "many", "few", is that they are inherently and intentionally vague measurements; as an encyclopedia, we want to aim to be precise, not vague. Editors will rightly look at a sentence with vague measurements and want to see them rewritten. Can we provide sourced statistics? Can we replace it with simple, widely-accepted statements of fact that pass WP:V and don't use these terms of vague measurement? Pointing to WP:WEASEL whenever terms of vague measurement are used in an article may not always be precisely correct, but the spirit of good encyclopedia-writing is still there, and shoudln't be discouraged. <b><span style="color:#1018ff;font-family:Zapfino,Monotype Corsiva;"> [[User:Warren|Warren]]</span> [[User talk:Warren|-talk-]]</b> 18:41, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
::[[WP:V]] is of course a different issue. There is no significant gain in either precision or lack of ambiguity in your version; "common" is just as weasely as "some". Look at [[Talk:Dormition of the Theotokos]] for one current example. If the purpose of this guideline is intended to be to outlaw "some" etc, then it really does need a total rewrite. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 19:19, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

::: My suggestion of a rewrite is fully in line with WP:WEASEL's recommended course of action: "If a statement is true without weasel words, remove them."
::::How so? You have merely substituted a different weasel; if "some" is a weasel, then so if "common". [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 22:59, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

::: The article you've referred to here does have problems with weasel-wording. The "Some Catholics agree with the Orthodox that this happened after Mary's death, while some hold that she did not experience death" is exactly the sort of prose that the WP:WEASEL guidelines warn against. Who are these people that are talked about? Who are the significant proponents of each view, if there are any? Do we have studies or other statistics we can use to define the sizes of the groups of people with these opinions more precisely? Verifiability ''is'' absolutely the issue here, and [[User:Thomaq]] was quite right to point out that the article is failing to provide verification for sources where contentious statements are being made, and that it's words like "some" that are highlighting the need for this.
::::No there are certainly no such statistics; but authors could be referred to. But most of the uses he seems to be complaining about are in fact followed up by fuller details in the following sentences (about Orthodox practices, again a statistic-free zone). [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 22:59, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

::: Let me be very clear about this: The issue isn't the word "some" in and of itself, but it is usually symptomatic of a deeper problem. <b><span style="color:#1018ff;font-family:Zapfino,Monotype Corsiva;"> [[User:Warren|Warren]]</span> [[User talk:Warren|-talk-]]</b> 22:21, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
::::In this case, that he hasn't understood the guideline, helped by it being pretty poorly written. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 22:59, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

== Tedious wording vs. weasel words ==

Take the following statement:

"Critics have questionned the notion that preagricultural hunter-gatherers would have generally consumed a low-carbohydrate and high-protein diet."

Does the "weasel words" guideline require changing this sentence as follows:

"M.P. Richards, Katharine Milton, Marion Nestle, A. Ströhle ,A. Hahn, S.M. Garn, W.R. Leonard and Sara Elton have questionned the notion that preagricultural hunter-gatherers would have generally consumed a low-carbohydrate and high-protein diet."

Thank you. --[[User:Phenylalanine|Phenylalanine]] ([[User talk:Phenylalanine|talk]]) 22:46, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
:A mention of at least some of these, preferably in citations to works where they do the questioning, would be needed, yes. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 23:02, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
::This is the lead sentence of a paragragh, which is supposed to be a summary of the paragraph. The detailed criticisms are metioned and attributed in the following sentences. See [[Paleolithic diet#Anthropological evidence]].

::The form is: "Critics say "XYZ..." (Summary). A says X. B says Y. C says Z. D says..." This sort of paragraph structure seems clear to me, despite the first sentence employing weasel words. Many thanks. --[[User:Phenylalanine|Phenylalanine]] ([[User talk:Phenylalanine|talk]]) 23:42, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the article should be clarified to take the above considerations into account. In my opinion, "weasel words" are perfectly acceptable when used in sentences that serve to summarise information that is subsequently detailed and attributed to specific studies and/or researchers. --[[User:Phenylalanine|Phenylalanine]] ([[User talk:Phenylalanine|talk]]) 00:16, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

:I am going to edit the article accordingly if nobody disagrees. Weasel words are perfectly fine when the context is sufficiently clear as explained above. --[[User:Phenylalanine|Phenylalanine]] ([[User talk:Phenylalanine|talk]]) 12:30, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

== Bot ==

[[User:AlexNewArtBot/CleanupSearchResult]] picks up new articles loaded with undesirable words. [[User:Colchicum|Colchicum]] ([[User talk:Colchicum|talk]]) 19:56, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

== Avoid stoat words too ==

(n/t) <small>—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/89.139.253.159|89.139.253.159]] ([[User talk:89.139.253.159|talk]]) 06:36, 21 August 2008 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

== recent insertion ==

"When referencing the subject of a particular study, it is not necessary to identify the individual participants. For example,..."

I have ''no'' idea what on earth this means. Nor will most other editors. It contains a number of MoS breaches, too (spaced minus sign, ellipsis dots with comma). [[User:Tony1|<font color="darkgreen">'''Tony'''</font >]] [[User talk:Tony1|<font color="darkgreen">(talk)</font >]] 06:21, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

:I don't really understand your objection. Is the problem with the snippet that you quoted? or the MoS issues that you cite? Sorry if I took the example from the [[WP:FA|featured article]] [[0.999...]], which is in [[mathematics]] (my own field). Perhaps I should have considered a more generic example, such as:
:: "Some of the students surveyed indicated a preference towards neither candidate."
:-[[User:Silly rabbit|<font color="#c00000">siℓℓy rabbit</font>]] ([[User talk:Silly rabbit|<span style="color:#FF823D;font-family:Monotype Corsiva;cursor:help"><font color="#c00000">talk</font></span>]]) 20:05, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

:::I like your point, but I think it's more general than that. I tried: "This guideline doesn't apply if your source backs you up: that is, the source identifies a person or group and says that they actually said or wrote what you claim. But see WP:UNDUE for policy regarding how much weight to give any one person or group." Does this cover it?
:::On another point: I deleted the first and third of those "clear exceptions"; the first said that anything any guide says is okay, which can't be right, and the third infringed on [[WP:V]]'s territory. I skimmed the talk page, and didn't see anyone arguing for those, but if I missed something, please let me know. While reading the talk page, I saw some confusion, and I think I might try to get some changes in before the next monthly update. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 03:13, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

:::: Yes, that's the essence of it. It would still benefit from an example. [[User:Silly rabbit|<font color="#c00000">siℓℓy rabbit</font>]] ([[User talk:Silly rabbit|<span style="color:#FF823D;font-family:Monotype Corsiva;cursor:help"><font color="#c00000">talk</font></span>]]) 10:17, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

:::::Any case where an editor is reporting that a source identifies a person or people and says they said or wrote something is not [[WP:WEASEL|WEASEL]]y; if it's a problem, it's undue weight. If we were writing a style guideline like ''[[TCMOS|Chicago]]'', we could create a list of 5 or 10 examples, just to make sure we're not misunderstood. The problem with doing that in an NPOV-flavored style guideline is that a list like that won't be left alone; they'll want to make sure their favorite case is covered and their least-favorite case is not covered. Bottom line: I'm fine with an example or two if what I said can't be understood without the examples. Can you think of a sentence where it's hard to figure out whether the first sentence in this paragraph applies or not? - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 11:44, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
::::::I agree with the thrust of these changes, but am not sure they are right yet. "These people believe the earth is flat" (if they are then named & refed) is clearly outside the scope of Weasel, isn't it? There are different issues with the statement (historically in fact dubious - see [[Flat earth hypothesis]]) "In the Middle Ages, most people believed the earth was flat". That is within the scope, and should not be rephrased, but the "most" needs referencing. Currently the silliest thing in the page seems to me to be ("Improving ..." section)": "Simply removing words like "some", "most", "many", "may", "some kind of", or "can" will strengthen any statement. Is it still correct? If not, then is that acceptable in a field like Physics or Chemistry? No. Psychology or Sociology? Probability of Significance=.95 (spell it out). If it's important to say, then where are the numbers?" The first sentence is plainly nonsense - try it on the flat earth examples. Can we agree to remove this? [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 15:27, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
←Reading this page made my fingers itch; "Don't make non-falsifiable statements" would cover a lot of this stuff, and more succinctly. But my instinct is that those of us who value the process here more than the outcome should exercise a very light touch; otherwise we interfere with the primary purpose of the style guidelines, which is to record and represent the views and conflicts and results of that conflict for all Wikipedians. I like what you're saying, John; as far as I'm concerned, you can rewrite the whole page (starting with the title; drive-by edit summaries invoking WP:WEASEL violations set the wrong tone, in my view; maybe "Avoid fuzzy words"? But that's a little broader). But please divide things into two piles; the stuff that is already covered on policy pages such as [[WP:V]], [[WT:V]], [[WP:NPOV]], [[WT:NPOV]], etc should be tossed or moved to those pages and discussed there. For what's left, we should keep things more or less in line with the history of the actual conflicts and resolutions on this project page and talk page; otherwise we'll have to make an effort to solicit for opinions and make sure everyone is still happy with the results. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 16:35, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
:P.S. I'm sorry, which first sentence? Do you mean "Weasel words are small phrases attached..."? - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 16:39, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
::No I meant the first sentence quoted:"Simply removing words like "some", "most", "many", "may", "some kind of", or "can" will strengthen any statement". Tempting as it is to take up your offer, I think it is best to raise things first here, & certainly there are people who don't share my/our views about the page. But I'll see what I can come up with. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 16:51, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
:::Oh right. Ugh. Kill it. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 16:54, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
::::OK - mind you the opening sentence of the page has problems too! [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 16:56, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
:Can we also agree that the older:"This page in a nutshell: Avoid phrases such as "some people say" without sources" is better than the current:"This page in a nutshell: Avoid using fuzzy, estimated statistics and hearsay evidence such as "some people say"."? [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 17:08, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
::I'll just throw a few things out. One problem with the older infobox and with the current first sentence, implying that all we're talking about is "some people say", is that the phrase "weasel word" is actually defined in the dictionaries, for instance [[MWOS]]: "a word used in order to evade or retreat from a direct or forthright statement or position". I'm a big fan of [[WP:NOTLEX]] and [[WP:JARGON]]; if a phrase already means something, we don't get to say it means something else, we have to make up a new phrase if we want a new meaning. So, I'd be happy with either of two directions: either we rename the page and say that it's about "some people say", or else keep the current name (or change it to "Evasive words") and focus the page on exactly what we mean by that. The sentence we just killed was not even close to being right, but it is true that those words, and others, should raise a flag on whether there's an intent to evade or to retreat into non-falsifiable statements. The history of both the project page and talk page show that people haven't settled on which of those two focuses this page is supposed to have. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 17:18, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
:::Ok, but "fuzzy, estimated statistics" don't seem mentioned elsewhere in the page. I agree we need a clear definition of what we're talking about. "Some people say" & "critics allege" are often just a lack of referencing, which I think we agree doesn't need its own guideline. The examples at [[Weasel words]] don't seem great either. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 17:49, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
::::You make a good case; feel free to start changing things. I'll invite WT:GAN and WT:MOS people. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 18:03, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
:::::This page is really an extension of [[WP:NPOV]] and to a lesser extent [[WP:NOR]]. Expanding WP:AWW to include a larger variety of propaganda techniques might be appropriate, though that would take a bit of work. The objective, as far as I can tell, is to have some sort of explicit instructions on specific NPOV problems. Weasel wording is the most common, though some comments on loaded language (much of which is now scattered through [[WP:WTA]]) might be worthwhile. I don't think this has to be a formal guideline since [[WP:NPOV]] is a policy. This is just a subset of that which is not NPOV. [[User:Somedumbyankee|SDY]] ([[User talk:Somedumbyankee|talk]]) 22:05, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
:::::::Ok, but as Dank says, [[WP:V]] is very much part of it. Often the weasel words are created in an attempt to achieve NPOV without doing the work to get adequate referencing. I think nearly all the text now here is rather confused & confusing, & wonder how much really needs adding elsewhere. Yet just demoting this to an essay would I think have many opponents. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 01:09, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
←Btw I just self-reverted my addition of [[CAT:GEN]]. After giving notice at WT:MOS and WT:GAN, no one has shown up to defend anything on the page, so unless I get more evidence, I'm going to guess that this page doesn't have the kind of central position and broad-based support characteristic of the [[CAT:GEN]] subset of style guidelines. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 14:44, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
:Also, a confession: I just realized that now that I know that it's not appropriate for [[CAT:GEN]], I'm not as interested in devoting time to the page. I'm not so much being slack, as committed to the idea that no one person should have a heavy footprint on guidelines pages in general, and I have a hard time stopping myself from inserting my opinion. I'll be happy to respond and support positions that seem reasonable if someone else wants to run with this. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 14:51, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

== Demotion to essay ==

Okay, I'm bold-ishly demoting this to an essay. I notified [[WT:MOS]] and [[WT:GAN]] about the problems, and no one is sticking up for this page. A whole lot of work has been done at [[WP:V]], [[WP:NPOV]] and related pages since this page was created, and per discussions above, most of the stuff on this page now seems to be covered by pages that get a whole lot more traffic than this one does. I know I just got finished saying that I wanted to exercise a light touch, and I still mean that; I think going through and trying to change everything to suit me, or to suit a few people, isn't the best way to proceed. Without more input, there's not a lot we can do to save this page IMO. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 14:54, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
*I agree, as discussed above. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 14:56, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
*: I watchlisted the page when it was mentioned at [[WP:GAN]]. Conversion to an essay seems like a sensible step to me. ''[[User talk:Geometry guy|Geometry guy]]'' 19:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

: I've reverted this change. I'd like to see a much stronger justification than "policy pages have received work" before we go changing a very, very long-standing guideline into an essay. It has been considered a style guideline since early 2005, and was in fact a policy for a while before that.

: The simple fact of the matter is that WP:WEASEL has been used for years as a way of promoting better prose by avoiding unsupportable, unquantifiable statements. It is one of a number of WP namespace articles that present a targeted, practical application of a policy. We need these sorts of pages, and we need these sorts of pages to have some weight behind it, so that we don't get a bunch of dumbasses coming along and saying, "That WEASEL page is just someone's opinion!" and then continue adding in poorly-written statements. Pages like this one appeal to editors' rationality in a way that a concise WP:V and WP:NPOV cannot do on their own. Working editors need pages like this one that they can point newcomers to and say, "see, this is why your contribution isn't going to work on Wikipedia", and have a full page with examples and philosophy so that the newcomer will be able to understand not only what they need to do to change their sytle, but ''why it's a good idea''.

: Let me make this extremely clear: This is a '''style guideline''', not a '''content guideline'''. It discusses '''how''' we write, not '''what''' we write. <b><span style="color:#1018ff;font-family:Zapfino,Monotype Corsiva;"> [[User:Warren|Warren]]</span> [[User talk:Warren|-talk-]]</b> 20:08, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
::Since very many weasel issues can and should be resolved by referencing, it is a content guideline too. The page is currently so vague & poorly written, lacking for a start any clear definition of what weasel words are (see above), that I for one think it is unsuitable for it to have any "official" status as it is. Time for a poll perhaps. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 20:14, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
:::No polls please: they are unhelpful and divisive. If MoS wants to keep this as a style guideline, it needs to be reworked into a style guideline, not a mishmash of style and policy. The onus is on those who want to keep it as a style guideline to fix it. ''[[User talk:Geometry guy|Geometry guy]]'' 21:33, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

::::I support the demotion to an essay because debasing saying "some" or similar words to quantify an unknown number of people/whatever... surely above or below the half of the total is [[WP:OR|original research]] itself. --[[User:Novil Ariandis|Novil Ariandis]] ([[User talk:Novil Ariandis|talk]]) 10:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

:::::I think demotion is a bad idea. As style guides go this is one of the more important. --[[User:BozMo|BozMo]] [[user talk:BozMo|talk]] 10:22, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

←Let's get a rhythm going on style guidelines issues; it's just as important to figure out how to handle conflict over style guidelines as it is to make improvements to this particular project page. I have questions:
*Are we agreed that we want to continue to point people to this page? Would anyone prefer to discourage use of the page even as a summary and a pointer? (For instance, see [[WP:ATT]]; it was demoted to an essay in July, but it's still a widely-used and valuable pointer to core content policy.)
*Are we agreed that there seems to be more interest in demoting than not? That's my initial guess; if we wanted to demote any page currently in [[CAT:GEN]], and I made the same notifications, we'd have more than two people showing up voicing opposition. I'm not trying to predict the outcome of the debate; I'm trying to figure out how to proceed. I think I agree with G-Guy that, if it appears we have the !votes to demote, then it's reasonable to ask the people who want to not-demote to help out. Please at least get this page up to the quality of an essay, and pick out your 3 favorite sentences that you'd like to keep; that way, if the page is demoted, we'll know which parts are most important to work into other guideline and policy pages.
*How do we adjust our Wikipedian instincts to the reality that no two wikiprojects will ever agree on all style guidelines? The only tool we have is consensus, and that tool is guaranteed not to work well; professional English is hard and it varies among countries and even from one section of a newspaper to the next. That's why no one knows all the style guidelines, even though it's a matter of [[WP:PG|policy]] that guidelines can't be ignored, and why [[WP:V0.7]] is about to go on sale at Walmart largely un-copyedited.
*How do we overcome the known downsides of working in a nonprofit environment? The fun stuff gets done, the boring stuff doesn't. Working on your own articles is fun, copyediting articles you don't have a connection to is boring. Promoting style guidelines you feel passionately about is fun; reviewing existing guidelines you don't care about to see if they've been superceded by later work is boring ... and also thankless, since every page will have at least a few champions. There's around 99% agreement with the statement that current style guidelines are not likely to be read and absorbed even by all the very active editors; there's an impression that they are too difficult and extensive and not sufficiently reflective of consensus. How much pruning do we have to do to get a much higher rate of "buy-in"?
*Is is okay to re-demote the page, as the best way to get more people to show up and complain about the demotion? - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 13:05, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
:I agree with "demoting" this to an essay. It's pejorative, often abused, and just an aspect of [[WP:V]]. Essays are great for explaining and exploring specific parts of the policies and guidelines, but shouldn't be treated like The Law, as this one often is. --[[User:Itub|Itub]] ([[User talk:Itub|talk]]) 13:36, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
::Re-demoted for the purpose of attracting attention (and potential workers!) to this page. On another subject: please see [[WT:WPMOS]] for discussion of improving and reducing the size of the style guidelines and getting more people involved. It's important, it's hard if you don't know the style guidelines (so please consider volunteering if you are somewhat familiar with them), and it's somewhat urgent because of [[WP:V0.7]]. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]])
:::Okay, I have put this back as style guide. This is a long standing part of the style guide and would require a much greater consensus (i.e. far more editors involved) to demote it. The biggest problem with Weasel (unlike [[WP:Peacock]]) is that quite a few people who come here to edit this page do not understand it so it drifts in quality with well meant but bad edits. As for the general copyediting issue tell me about it. I have just reviewed thousands of articles for [[SchoolsWP:index:home| the Schools Wikipedia]], going through edit histories to try to find the best versions to include. There are plenty of people who copy-edit but plenty more who add badly written content. That isn't a problem with a style guideline its about people. This guide is critical to get people to understand "just because something is true you cannot definitely include it" and it has has the full force of a style guide for years so you cannot just take that off I am afraid. If you want to get a discuss on the topic take it to a community board.--[[User:BozMo|BozMo]] [[user talk:BozMo|talk]] 09:00, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
:::: Undone. It isn't a style guideline at the moment, but a mixture of form and content. Indeed your statement about its "just because something is true..." purpose reveals this basic problem. That has nothing to do with style: it is about [[WP:V]] and [[WP:NOR]]. Those that want to retain a style guideline on weasel words actually need to write one. ''[[User talk:Geometry guy|Geometry guy]]'' 09:10, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
::::: I don't doubt sticky little fingers are all over the current text. What about a fairly deep revert? [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words&oldid=80585940] with the added sentence "If a statement is true without weasel words, remove them. If they are needed for the statement to be true, consider removing the statement." which is the only improvement on the current version? The page should match [[WP:PEACOCK]]. However please note that this is good precedent for insisting on better consensus for changing policy pages than a snapshot of the talk page. --[[User:BozMo|BozMo]] [[user talk:BozMo|talk]] 12:31, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
::::::I was just reading some of the arguments on other style guidelines pages, and I realized that I went about this the wrong way by demoting first and asking for comments second; it can create an impression that I'm throwing my weight around. The right way to proceed is to make sure all the arguments are collected so everyone can see them, ask for responses, and then make any needed changes. In this particular case, the reaction is so strong in favor of demotion that I don't think I, or anyone, should un-demote for the time being, but I added a "caution" at the top to let people know that nothing has been decided and the discussion is still ongoing; I hope that helps.
::::::BozMo, you asked on my talk page about the relevance of WP 0.7. The answer is: we won't know for sure what the relevance is until the DVD is published; let's talk then. A lot of people are worried about having 30000 un-copyedited pages show up in Walmart as the official Wikipedia DVD, but we'll see. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 13:29, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
:::::::Hmm. I don't think in fact V1.0 is supposed to be more or less official than any other offline Wikipedia but I still don't see how the state of the style guide bears on the lack of copy-editing. The Wikipedia Schools DVD (see [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia CD Selection]] )will probably always have more users than the Release Version (because it is free, and has a million user start) and there are evidentally lots of copy editors out there. Just far more tinkerers thats all. The style guides help copy editors versus SPAs and are indispensible. --[[User:BozMo|BozMo]] [[user talk:BozMo|talk]] 14:57, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
::::::::Version 1.0 is an irresponsible mistake. It assumes, what FAC daily disproves, that we have a ''reliable'' system for evaluating articles; we do not. I hope it will be either largely harmless or provide a steady income for the Foundation; and it does keep a certain number of people who want titles away from article space.

::::::::But, that being said, copyediting does require either an intelligible MOS or no MOS at all; the present system of dozens of small pages, most divided into bullet points, each point expressing the opinion of a cabal of a few editors, means that we have guidance on copyediting which most copyeditors don't know - and all too often guidance most copyeditors disagree with. [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] <small>[[User talk:Pmanderson|PMAnderson]]</small> 15:42, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


I disagree with demoting this to essay; it should be a guideline. It should not be a style guideline, because it deals with content; it is, to my mind, a corollary of [[WP:NPOV|Neutrality]] and [[WP:V|Verifiability]] together. But I believe it to be generally accepted, and something we should in general do; that's what makes a guideline. [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] <small>[[User talk:Pmanderson|PMAnderson]]</small> 15:19, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

:I haven't gotten a groundswell of agreement with my concerns about WP V0.7; let's assume, in fact let's hope, I'm wrong, and wait and see what happens. You asked on my talk page, BozMo; I'll answer there, and folks are welcome to join in. I've had a lot of requests to just stay focused on improving the style guidelines; sounds like a great plan.
:I want to second what G-Guy said above about polls; they're divisive. I want to add that style talk pages have a way of devolving into polls. A better way to go is the approach of [[WP:RfA Review]], but there's a problem. After thousands of person-hours of work, they are almost at the point where people have something to discuss and !vote on. Here, we've got maybe a couple of orders of magnitude more work to do than that, if we want to get what passes for consensus on the content and status of every page related to style. (No one is forcing us to do that much work, but when we try to copyedit without being able to point to the reasons for edits, various bad things happen.) I haven't been successful in this latest round of requests at getting more people to help. <s>I can't do something like RfA Review for style by myself, obviously, so I'm going to have to cut corners: I'm going to make a list of issues, position and arguments for every style guideline page in my user space, and that will necessarily involve judgment calls. Worse, it's likely that the usual people will show up on style talk pages, point to what I'm doing, give that as a reason for supporting or opposing, and we will all, many times, be accused of being bullies and fascists who don't listen to reason. What fun. But you know, I'm just over worrying about this. There's work to be done. I'll start with this page some time today, and give a link. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 15:50, 9 September 2008 (UTC) P.S. To be clear, I don't mean that all complaints about what I'm doing in my userspace will be unfair; many will be fair, and I'll let them all stand, fair or not. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 17:25, 9 September 2008 (UTC)</s>
::Update: I'm putting everything else on hold while we work on copyediting the articles in the [[WP:V0.7|WP DVD]] before it shows up in stores. I don't disagree with Sept and BozMo that the general idea of this page is important, but as G-Guy pointed out, if you say we need this page because we need to let people know that not everything that's true belongs in WP, then what you're missing is that there were 3000 talk page messages in and around April alone, as I recall, at WT:V, on just that subject. Policy discussions have taken place and are taking place on policy talk pages; these are not things that can be decided at WT:WEASEL. It would be better to take the same approach that was taken at WP:ATT, and use this page as an essay that summarizes the "weasel" point of view on these subjects, but points to policy pages so that people can join the discussions on the pages where the relevant discussion is actually happening. I favor re-demotion to essay, but I'm un-watchlisting until the WP DVD is out the door. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 13:05, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Demoting this to an essay strikes me as a great idea. There is not, and never has been, any consensus about this as a "style guide" entry -- it's a little peculiar that it's advocates can't seem to grasp that point. -- [[User:Doom|Doom]] ([[User talk:Doom|talk]]) 19:56, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The whole article needs some references to reliable sources about scientific writing which back up the main claims made in it, especially in the "Variations" chapter. I am currently inclined to add a citation-needed-template at the start of the article. --[[User:Novil Ariandis|Novil Ariandis]] ([[User talk:Novil Ariandis|talk]]) 08:36, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

:It isn't an article, it is a guideline. Guidelines live or die on community consensus and should not have references --[[User:BozMo|BozMo]] [[user talk:BozMo|talk]] 12:08, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

As it currently is ( [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words&oldid=237488463 link] ), this is just about as confusing as it could possibly be. On the one hand, it's got a guideline banner. OTOH, someone edited the Nutshell box into something which not summarize the policy, but to detail it's current status ("Was a guideline.") I may be bold tonight and revert the Nutshell box to actually summarize the essay/guideline/whatever to say something different. It is HARD for an editor who doesn't care about the debate drama, but does care about following guidelines, to determine its current status as it is. And to apply it, also.

At any rate, PLEASE keep in mind that this is a widely hit, and used, piece of project space. And most of us who hit it really don't care WHAT it says, as long as it can be read/classified/applied '''in quick fashion''' to our editing of other articles. Maybe a MASSIVE revert is needed, IMVVHO. [[User:LaughingVulcan| <span style="background: #ADDFAD;color:yellow">Laughing</span><span style="background:#FFFDD0;color:Green">Vulcan</span> ]] 12:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
:You say "most of us who hit it really don't care WHAT it says, as long as it can be read/classified/applied '''in quick fashion''' to our editing of other articles" - which is EXACTLY the problem! What does it say in a nutshell? Most of us who have spent time looking at it are not at all sure. Might I suggest you reconsider drive-by tagging in the style you describe. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 17:07, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
::You have something of a point, which is one reason I didn't just do it this morning.

::But I believe a nutshell box is supposed to say what the policy/guideline/essay is ''about'', not what the ''status'' of the policy/guideline/essay is. At least, so it is for [[WP:N]], [[WP:V]], [[WP:RS]], [[WP:OR]], [[WP:DELETE]], and [[WP:BLP]]. So it is with any project space nutshell I've seen.

::The nutshell box as it is right now provides nothing but noise in the [[signal-to-noise ratio]] as suggested at [[Template:Nutshell]]. To me, right now, it says, "This isn't a guideline. Go somewhere else."

::As to content of the box, the version of [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words&oldid=216227879 1 June 2008] of the nutshell box is clear. "This page in a nutshell: Avoid using phrases such as "some people say" without providing sources." That version is the same as what was present 1 January 2008. That version is the same as what was present 31 May 2007. I'd say that's more than good enough to give me an indicator of what this policy/guideline/essay/whatever is about. That summarizes the current state of the rest of the content. Saying what its status is does not help the Editor to understand what this policy/guideline/essay/whatever is about.

::As to drive-by tagging... I've read the essay [[WP:TAGGING]], and generally agree with its' principles. But that wasn't what drew me here. As I was reading an Article I came by something that I wasn't sure if it was a use of weasel words or not. So I left a messsage on the Talk page, for discussion, soliciting opinions before being bold. I asked, "Does, "word," strike anyone as [[WP:WEASEL|weasel]]-y?" Since I thought I have a good bead on what that means, I hit Save. Now, it's been awhile since I've checked this Guideline. So I hit it, and find a very funny illustration that is new and interesting. Then I see a box saying it's a Guideline. And I see that the nutshell telling me this policy/guideline/essay/whatever is now an essay, but doesn't tell me what it is about. And I went, "WTF?"

::My point in quick and efficient application is that an Editor should be able to come here, briefly read the page, and then know what to do. It used to do that for me. The text of the guideline still does. So just how did the nutshell box break? 'Cause it sure looks broken from where I'm reading it, and it was not before.

::I'm not saying it isn't important to clarify the status of this project page. But the nutshell box is the wrong place to do it in. And it doesn't help the Editor passing by to understand the content. And FTR, the guideline seemed remarkably clear to me the first time I saw it back in '06. It still does. Maybe that's the problem with me: I don't see what's wrong with it being a guideline. But I know that the nutshell should summarize the content, not the status.

::But, were I to fix the Nutshell box as it is, given the article content, I'd revert it back to the way it was for (apparently) over one year. That is better than, "This used to be a guideline. Now it's an essay. Run along and go play." [[User:LaughingVulcan| <span style="background: #ADDFAD;color:yellow">Laughing</span><span style="background:#FFFDD0;color:Green">Vulcan</span> ]] 01:57, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
:::I have put the nutshell text back as you suggest (the first time I have edited it myself btw). For problems with what the page is actually saying outside the nutsshell, see above and below. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 02:22, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

== Deep revert? ==
Any comments on a deep revert to when the format matched [[WP:PEACOCK]]? Specifically as above [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words&oldid=80585940] with the added sentence "If a statement is true without weasel words, remove them. If they are needed for the statement to be true, consider removing the statement." which is the only improvement on the current version? --[[User:BozMo|BozMo]] [[user talk:BozMo|talk]] 12:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
:Probably better than what is there now, but "...If they are needed for the statement to be true, consider referencing or removing the statement." would be much better. This is one of the core problems with this page, in all versions: it purports to deal with statements that cannot be referenced, but in practice it is very often, perhaps most often, cited in connection with statements that could be referenced, but have not been. I for one don't really want to encourage weasel-hunters to go around removing stuff without tagging and waiting (see, on a similar issue, the discussion on the just-failed [[WP:Burden of proof]] - well I can't find the link for that - anyone?). [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 17:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
:::[[WP:BURDEN]]. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 23:53, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
::::No, a new proposal, just recently turned down - similar but not the same. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 00:15, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
::I can't support that version as a guideline, either, BozMo. I totally understand the temptation to skip all those messy policy discussions and give a simplified, neat presentation. No one wants to have to read that much crap. But we must resist the urge to skip the real discussion and give people an alternative discussion; WT:NPOV, WT:OR and WT:V tell the real story, not this page. The reason this page got started was that they ''didn't'' tell the story back then. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 23:51, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
:::I am interested in your views on [[WP:Peacock]] then. The essential content could be anywhere but this guideline is mainly about style not content. --[[User:BozMo|BozMo]] [[user talk:BozMo|talk]] 05:41, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
::::My view on PEACOCK is that most editors get the concept that words like "fantastic" are probably bad in article-space unless you're representing what someone else thinks, and making a long list of such words doesn't create the same problem that you get at [[WP:Words to avoid]] and on this page. That is, any kind of long list of examples in style guidelines tends to invite edits as people insert examples that support their favorite articles and delete examples that contradict them, so these kinds of lists are frowned on. We're more or less stuck with [[WP:Words to avoid]], although IMO it should be a lot shorter. PEACOCK doesn't seem to be a problem because there's only one concept represented, and there are only so many ways you can say it. On this page, I think the general rule applies. For instance, "some" can be a weasel word. We shouldn't try to define here exactly when "some" is okay and when it's not; that depends on how it's being used, and the larger Wikipedia community has been extremely vocal on these topics (see next section). I wouldn't mind keeping this page as a much shorter essay, with a list of potential weasel words, and advice to see the core content pages to see how they should and shouldn't be used. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 16:05, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

== A shorter explanation ==

This is my opinion of a shorter explanation of what weasel words are, and why they're wrong. I may be right, or I may be wrong. But here goes:

Weasel words are terms attached to a statement which make the authority of the statement unclear. The underlying statement, or the weasel term itself, may be an unreferenced opinion and should be edited or removed, a fact which has been unreferenced and needs to be cited, or a statement not requiring referencing which could be edited to make that clear. As such, the statement either needs to be rephrased, referenced, or removed. Because Wikipedia relies on material being [[WP:V|verifiable]] and not being [[WP:OR|original research]], statements containing weasel terms need to be either:
* Properly cited as a referenced fact.
* Rephrased without the weasel terms.
* Removed as an opinion, not a referenced fact.
* Noted for later editing.
Common sense will dictate the occasional exception. Even in these cases, weasel terms can usually be rephrased. If there is doubt as to whether a phrase contains weasel words, ask about it on the Talk page of the article.

I guess I still don't understand what's so unclear about it. [[User:LaughingVulcan| <span style="background: #ADDFAD;color:yellow">Laughing</span><span style="background:#FFFDD0;color:Green">Vulcan</span> ]] 11:44, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

:I support all that, but on the other hand, WP:V and WP:OR cover the relevant issues, and the exact wording has been raked over in tens of thousands of talk page comments, and reflects consensus as well as any WP pages do. I understand the desire to restate things in language that is simpler or more accessible, but the bottom line is that the larger community has been extremely vocal about these issues and isn't asking for our help translating what they've said. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 15:36, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

::Dan, All roads lead to Rome does not mean that we have no need of maps. LV,This summary statement is a great improvement. Dan, style is different from content and weasel as peacock is also a matter of style. Plenty of great lawyers use weasel words carefully. We should not and we need to be explicit. --[[User:BozMo|BozMo]] [[user talk:BozMo|talk]] 16:08, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

::WP:V and WP:OR don't sufficiently cover the specific phrasing issues that WP:WEASEL and WP:PEACOCK get into detail about. The policy pages cannot stand on their own as a complete, self-contained treatise on how Wikipedia articles should and shouldn't be written. There simply isn't enough space in those policies to document all the real, actual issues that crop up in day-to-day editing. Your edit history suggests you spend the majority of your time in Wikipedia namespaces, so perhaps you don't come across well-meaning, poorly-informed newcomers too often... if you did, though, you'd understand we need a range of pages with some teeth behind them, to get these newcomers focused on -- and interested in -- writing in an encyclopedic style. WP:WEASEL helps with that in ways that WP:V and WP:OR cannot. <b><span style="color:#1018ff;font-family:Zapfino,Monotype Corsiva;"> [[User:Warren|Warren]]</span> [[User talk:Warren|-talk-]]</b> 17:26, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
:::I'm tied up with [[WP:V0.7]]; I won't have time to respond until it's out the door, probably in December. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 17:45, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

::Thanks for the reply, Dan. I also read the above that you're pretty tied up.
::I can understand that V and OR cover the relevant issues, and I think we agree that taken together they probably cover "weasel" and "peacock" situations. But V does not cover the notion that original research often masks itself with an unverified appeal to authority (though, in fairness, V does say that it must operate in concert with OR and NPOV.) OR is much better about incorporating V into it, but OR does not readily acknowledge that there are times and places where a phrase ''might'' be used which does not need to be referenced or removed - rephrasing might be enough to avoid V and OR both, yet leave the essence of the phrase in. (Because the phrase is most likely common sense that would not be challenged by a majority of editors or readers.)
::In short, I think Weasel fills a gap in the intersection between V and OR, and that it always has. (But I also can see that your opinion may differ from mine about that.) But, if this guideline does not directly conflict with either V or OR, aside from detailing where exceptions might happen, then again I don't see why it can't exist as a guideline. It's my experience that guidelines help interpret and apply policy. (I'll detail the problem with specific examples below.) [[User:LaughingVulcan| <span style="background: #ADDFAD;color:yellow">Laughing</span><span style="background:#FFFDD0;color:Green">Vulcan</span> ]] 22:45, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

==Examples==
I've been looking at [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Weasel&limit=500 "what links here"] from the Weasel template, which has reinforced my original impression that this template, and this guideline, is more often applied wrongly than correctly. For example, where are the weasels in [[St John Ambulance Australia]], tagged for several months? Can they be "In general, youth and cadet divisions meet once a week, to in a designated place, to conduct a training night. As mentioned above, these nights are not just spent learning first aid. The training program includes various other topics, which are of general interest to most." and a couple of similar statements? The article has only one inline cite, & needs a citation tag rather than a weasel one. Other articles/sections are tagged despite meeting the 2nd "clear exception" in the page. I haven't really seen any articles where "citation needed" tags would not be more appropriate.
[[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 18:03, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
:This seems like the central question to me; how is it actually used? - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 20:19, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

::This is a good point and example. My own judgment, looking at the diff where the tag was originally dropped ( [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=St_John_Ambulance_Australia&diff=205732544&oldid=203918403 link] ) is that it may be inappropriately applied, but there certainly are weasel terms to find in the present article.

::One quick test to that is if there's any inline tagging done. [[Template:Who]], [[Template:By whom]], and [[Template:Weasel-inline]] are all examples referenced in the Weasel template documentation. None of them here. So we go deeper.

::As to specific examples, jumping to the [[St John Ambulance Australia|current article]]:
::*The claim that, "St John is the largest first aid training organisation in Australia." may be a peacock, or borderline weasel. Who says it's the largest? Were it cited, it wouldn't be a problem. Were verifiable facts introduced which proves it's the "largest," again no problem.
::*"The training program includes various other topics, which are of general interest to most." Most who? Who says the topics are of general interest to most?
::*"In most states, new youth members will be put through a Senior First Aid Course (SFA), which is usually worth ~$200." We could ask which states, but the more interesting question is Who says the SFA course is worth $200?
::What ''independent'' sources answer these questions? And if none, then are these statements worth rephrasing, or should they be removed? Which are worth an exception? Which are common sense to anyone who lives in Australia?

::Now, the template could still be inappropriately inapplied. But unless those questions are answered, we can't say if it's applied correctly or not. I also note that the Talk page contains no help.

::On the other hand, the <nowiki>{{references}}</nowiki> banner at the bottom now seems to be inappropriately inapplied. There are references at the bottom. So it needs [[Template:Refimprove]] instead. In this case removing the Weasel template probably wouldn't hurt anything major. Yet I could find those examples, anyway.

::Picking another completely random Article example, I got [[National_Basketball_Association#Recent_problems]]. The first sentence, "The NBA has lost a lot of its popularity due to widely publicized problems within the league." Who says it's lost a lot of its' popularity because of problems? And that's the justification for the whole section, apparently. There you go, clear Weasel. Sure, V and OR cover it. But Weasel described the problem with that sentence a ''lot'' better.

::And there seem to be between 1,000 and 1,500 examples that What Links Here <s>the template history</s> reveals to me, including transclusions. Approximately 0.06% of the approximate total article count. What would be a good randomly chosen sample size to determine the appropriateness of the template, and under which statistical mechanism would we like to operate to determine the validity of template application? Or would we rather just cite anecdotal examples? I'm not picking on the example - it is still a good question. [[User:LaughingVulcan| <span style="background: #ADDFAD;color:yellow">Laughing</span><span style="background:#FFFDD0;color:Green">Vulcan</span> ]] 23:32, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

:::I agree, & mentioned, the article has referencing issues, but I just can't see how ""St John is the largest first aid training organisation in Australia." may be ... borderline weasel" '''in any shape or form'''. It is a bald stement of fact, which might be right & might be wrong, but is surely totally verifiable or falsifiable either way. Once again we come back to the fundamental question: what the hell is a weasel anyway? Nobody seems to know, or everyone has their own idea. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 14:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

:::: Agree about St John's but part of the problem is that the mis-application of all templates are harder to fix and last longer than the correct usage, --[[User:BozMo|BozMo]] [[user talk:BozMo|talk]] 14:19, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

== One other item... ==

...And I'll be brief.

My understanding from [[WP:GUIDELINE]] is that the current forum to discuss upgrades/downgrades to guideline/essay status is [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)]]. Was the change from guideline to essay discussed there? I can find where the un-demotion was auto-reported ( [[Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words_has_been_marked_as_a_guideline|link]] )Thanks, [[User:LaughingVulcan| <span style="background: #ADDFAD;color:yellow">Laughing</span><span style="background:#FFFDD0;color:Green">Vulcan</span> ]] 00:19, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
:Not to my knowledge. [[WP:GUIDELINE]] (aka [[WP:POLICY]]) says: "Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), discussion of existing and proposed policies". WEASEL was a style guideline. WP:VPP people have expressed a distaste for style guidelines issues in the past, so much so that style guidelines are the only policies and guidelines currently not being reported on promotion and demotion at WP:VPP; those are reported (now) at WT:MOS and WT:MOSCO. This subject you're bringing up has current threads at both WT:MOSCO and WT:POLICY. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 13:53, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
::Just to be clear, I'm not opposed to discussing any guideline at WP:VPP, and I often do. I just don't often get a response on style issues. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 15:45, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

== Zzzzz ==

For anyone still tuned in, I made a specific recommendation for a change at [[WT:V]] and a possible related change of focus here. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 15:58, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
:Okay! I guess I'm not going to be able to put off working on this page any longer, it was just suggested for a merge. I'll get to work today; I've been collecting suggestions, and we have a talk page full of them. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 17:49, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
::Dank, You are all over the place (as in posting in lots of places) with this including rather hard to follow messages which don't all get a response (also confusing style and policy). Could I suggest you slow right down in one place until you have collected a reasonable number of engaged interlocutors? Then we can start trying to take it forward. --[[User:BozMo|BozMo]] [[user talk:BozMo|talk]] 19:13, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
←If you look at my contribs, you'll see I watchlist a lot of pages, but I'm not starting up conversations on this issue in different places, that I recall (except for [[WT:V]] ... I felt that was the logical first step, but no one responded, so I'll come back there after we've finished here). I responded to what G-guy said at WT:WORDS, and I responded to what MBisanz said at WT:PEACOCK, and I've been responding to other people on this page, too. Moving on, do we have agreement or disagreement with some of the following principles? (And if you'd prefer to do this at some place like the Pump or WT:MOSCO or WT:MOS, that's fine, but I did specifically mention this page over at WT:V.)
*Slapping "per WEASEL" in an edit summary borders on AGF issues. People don't like to be called weasels. I propose we rename this page, or if MBisanz's proposal to merge goes through, merge it into another page.
*The name I'd recommend is WP:Clear language. I'd like for this page to be seen as more important, which would probably happen as a result of being linked directly from WT:V. Please see [[WT:V#Small furry creatures]].
*Policy trumps guidelines, every time. If the reason to remove text from an article is a policy reason, then we should say that. However, I'd be okay with an edit summary on deletion of material that said "per [[WP:Clear language]]" if this (renamed) page made it clear that it is attempting to explain which language will ''always'' fail the test at WP:BURDEN, no matter how many sources you find, because the language is too vague to support, or impossible to prove right or wrong by citing a source. Thoughts? - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 20:17, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
*Also, where did I confuse style and policy? - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 20:35, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

:I think WP:Clear language is a very interesting proposal on Weasel. But it doesn't cover peacock, which I tend to think of as the other half of a matching set. What did you think of WP:encyclopedic language which kind of gets both? This used to exist a few years ago I think. --[[User:BozMo|BozMo]] [[user talk:BozMo|talk]] 20:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
::I'm not getting anything on that name, even a deleted page (but then I'm not an admin), but that sounds helpful, if you can find text from it. - Dan [[User:Dank55|Dank55]] ([[User talk:Dank55|send/receive]]) 20:47, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
:::Unfortunately even as an admin I struggle to trace pages which have moved. There is [[Wikipedia:Forum_for_Encyclopedic_Standards]] there was structure around it. I think it went out of fashion (see [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&rls=RNFA,RNFA:1970--2,RNFA:en&q=site:en.wikipedia.org+wikipedia+unencyclopedic&start=0&sa=N] because it was too all embracing. People wanted lots of specific rules rather than a few general ones. Apparently the opposite of todays trend. --[[User:BozMo|BozMo]] [[user talk:BozMo|talk]] 08:16, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

== Comment ==
If you try to eliminate weasel words, how will ideologues sell their ideas ?
if someone wants to couch a discussion, making their extreme or narrow viewpoint seem palatable or popular,
what discussion method should they use ? If you start marking weasel words for deletion, entire sections fall apart.

:And this is a bad thing? [[User:Somedumbyankee|SDY]] ([[User talk:Somedumbyankee|talk]]) 17:44, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

=============

== Suggested change to wording of nutshell ==

A certain editor appeared to think that citing a source was sufficient to allow use of weasel words in an article. This is clearly not the intent of the article, as I read it. I suggest changing the nutshell to make this clear and avoid acrimony in the future:

{{nutshell|Avoid using phrases such as "some people say" without naming sources inline.}}

The page's text ought also be changed to clarify whether citing sources is sufficient. --[[User:Rogerb67|Rogerb67]] ([[User talk:Rogerb67|talk]]) 22:09, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
::It is surely very clear that it is. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 22:13, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
:::So you're saying that the resolution to a statement such as "Some people have suggested that John Smith may be a functional illiterate." Is changing it to "Some people have suggested that John Smith may be a functional illiterate.<ref name="suitable reliable source"/>", not rewording per [[Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words#Improving_weasel_worded_statements]] and [[WP:SUBSTANTIATE]] (and presumably citing as well)? --[[User:Rogerb67|Rogerb67]] ([[User talk:Rogerb67|talk]]) 22:21, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
::::"Some people say..." may not be great but "Many historians believe..." + cites may often be an appropriate thing to say. The train wreck above & on the page is the story of WP's inability to define a boundary between the two. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 22:26, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
:::::OK so we basically agree and I haven't grossly misunderstood the intent of the guideline. My problem with the nutshell is it is easily interpreted as meaning that simply citing the most gross use of weasel words is OK, and indeed I had a mild disagreement with a user who argued that. I'm inclined to abandon [[WP:WEASEL]] and cite [[WP:SUBSTANTIATE]] anyway. Thanks for clarifying. --[[User:Rogerb67|Rogerb67]] ([[User talk:Rogerb67|talk]]) 22:37, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
:::::::There are also issues like - is the cite to one of the "some", or to an analysis of several of the "some people"'s views, or something in between. Sometimes it is better to say "Historian Fred Dweeb believes...", other times not, eg if the ref is to "Dweeb, Fred; ''The Debate over the Literacy of John Smith''. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 22:49, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

==The word " probably" ===
----------------------------------------

Good day , could the word " probably" be called a weasel word?

What about the example below :

e.g. : ''The disease described in the Chronicle of England is '''probably''' yellow fever''

would the use of the sentence above , as a footnote text, be acceptable as to scientific standards for college assignments?

thanks for all help mates

A Byrne <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/58.169.80.47|58.169.80.47]] ([[User talk:58.169.80.47|talk]]) 07:51, 7 October 2008 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
:: In medieval history, the frequent use of "probably" etc is unavoidable. But it should still be referenced of course. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 10:25, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Revision as of 21:46, 10 October 2008

Olli Kunnari
Olli Kunnari
Personal information
Full nameOlli Kunnari
Height196 cm (6 ft 5 in)
Volleyball information
PositionSpiker
Current clubAZS UWM Olsztyn
Career
YearsTeams
2000-2002
2002-2004
2004-2006
2007-2009
Vammalan Lentopallo
Pielaveden Sampo
Beauvois Volley
AS Cannes
National team
6 yearsFinland

Olli Kunnari (born February 2, 1982) is volleyball player from Finland who is one of the key players in his native country right now. Season 2007-2008 he played in AS Cannes. He have played in Finland Champion league teams Pielaveden Sampo and Vammalan Lentopallo. Then he moved to France and started play in Beauveis, France Pro-A Volleyball league. After that he changed to AS Cannes. Season 2009 he play AZS UWM Olsztyn in Poland.

Career

Kunnari started his volleyball career in his hometown Alahärmä. When Kunnari become seventeen years old he moved to Tampere and started to study in Varala sport highschool. After that he played his first game in Finland Champion league season 2000-2001. Team was Vammalan Lentopallo. He played in Vammala season 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 then he changed to a bigger team named Pielaveden Sampo. In Pielaveden Sampo Olli became star. He was his teams major player and win his first Finland Champion season 2003-2004. Before that he captured one bronze medal season 2003. Season 2004 Kunnari was chosen as best player in Finland league and also in Finland league All-Stars team.

After four seasons in Finland, Olli started his professional volleyball career in France, Pro A-league. His team was Beauvais where Olli became a major player. Olli played two seasons in Beauvais until he signed a contract with AS Cannes. In AS Cannes Kunnari he won in his first season the France Cup, and came in league 3. place. Next season AS Cannes he won again the France Cup and come in league 3. place. Media chose Olli too in season France Pro A-league All-Stars team.

National team

Olli Kunnari has played over 130 national team games. He is team major player with Mikko Esko and Tuomas Sammelvuo. In the European Championchips 2007 Finland's national team came in 4. place and Olli played arguably the best volleyball of his career. He was the third best server in competition and second best receiver in the competition.

Achievements

Personal:

  • France league All-Stars player 2008
  • Best player in Finland league 2004
  • All-Stars player in Finland league 2004

Team:

  • 4. place in European Championship 2007
  • France league bronze medal 2007, 2008
  • France Cup win 2007
  • Finland Champion 2004
  • Finland league 3. place 2003

Teams

  • 2000–01: Vammalan Lentopallo
  • 2001–02: Vammalan Lentopallo
  • 2002–03: Pielaveden Sampo
  • 2003–04: Pielaveden Sampo
  • 2004–05: Beauvais
  • 2005–06: Beauvais
  • 2006–07: AS Cannes
  • 2007–08: AS Cannes
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