Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 02:05, 5 August 2008

Template:Weasel is permanently protected from editing because it is a heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by consensus, editors may use {{edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes or categories. Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. This template does not have a testcases subpage. You can create the testcases subpage here.

This template was considered for deletion in December 2005. The result of the discussion was "Not deleted".

Archives

Archive 1

Please feel compelled to enumerate yourself in this vote.

This article contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. Such statements should be clarified or removed.

                     Chillum Cailil MoonRiddenGirl
Concrete Terms:         U      U          U
Notability:             U      U          U
Neutrality:             U      U          U
Contains Equivocation:  U      U          U
Audio:                  U      U          U
Suck or Draw:           U      U          U
Terse:                  U      U          U

Your attitude towards participants is irrelevant. Your decision should come from analyzing the effect of those examples. If you are not named, then please feel free to add yourself. Please ignore conversation about those issues.

Needs talk link

This template needs a talk link: what's "weasel words" is not always obvious. Problem is referred to above. Now it is marked by Category:Templates needing talk links and other improvements, which implies it will probably be fixed soon. Said: Rursus ☺ ★ 09:48, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Found this: Misplaced Pages:Avoid weasel words. I'll insert it if nobody objects. Said: Rursus ☺ ★ 18:10, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, darn stupid of me! Pardon! Said: Rursus ☺ ★ 18:11, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Iceweasel

Am I the only one wondering why is a browser logo being used in a template? Reinis 13:57, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it should be reverted back, as I don't think it is appropriate. Danielnez1 18:40, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I've reverted it, since the change was done by a annon user and there reason for changing it was to match the style of Template:Peacock, which I don't think is a good enough reason. Danielnez1 18:49, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, it's much better now. Reinis 21:18, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Weasel

I'm not sure how many times this joke has been posted, but it is at least once. -- Jreferee 04:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Weasel image: Stays or goes?

The weasel image was re-added a while ago; I'd really prefer this template to be as small and non-intrusive as possible (I'd vote for L1AM's suggestion, below). I'd revert to L1AM's design, but there's a lot of intermediate changes, and I don't want to undo things indiscriminately. Does anybody else think L1AM's suggestion is better than what we have right now? If not, I'll just leave it as is ... Gaurav 19:32, 14 April 2006 (UTC) Is this something with I.M. Weasel? 65.43.182.46 (talk) 14:05, 20 November 2007 (UTC)Kinz

I'm thinking that an egg full of meaning being sucked out to nothing but a shell by a weasel is anti-PETA. Weasel words suck meaning out of facts. I don't see an easy way to illustrate that. Goes. BrewJay (talk) 06:58, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

This template uses weasel words

"May be compromised by weasel words"? The template, at least, should be straight with the facts. --Munchkinguy 04:48, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

This is an interesting point. Could "may" be removed - as the template would carry more weight and have more resonance with users - might receive higher responses. Wisdom89 (talk) 10:35, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that would be ill-advised, as the implementation of the template often comes up in disputes. Consider the neutrality dispute template. The purpose of the templates is to alert readers and editors to potential problems that need fixing, not to label articles. --Ryan Delaney 22:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

You can't hav weasel words in the template. That's hypocrisy. BrewJay (talk) 05:36, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Weasel image obstructs text in safari

When looking at Template:Weasel in Safari 3.1.1 (latest version), the Weasel image is a bit too much to the right, obstructing the first 3 characters of each line. Could somebody fix that? Thanks! Paluv (talk) 11:29, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I did a quick fix, maybe somebody can clean it up and make the code correct etc. Paluv (talk) 11:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Bring back the Weasel!! --293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 21:52, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Weasel words suck draw meaning out of wikipedia.

BrewJay (talk) 23:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I think David Levy missed the mark on what weasel words are. They are typically vague attributions. More jenerally, they are vagueness, period. Let's see: vagueness, fuzziness, indetermination, equivocation. "Fuzzy" could be barbaric. Please remove terms from this article or section that make it fuzzy. A problem with that is that I don't see anywhere to link notability and verifiability policies in, and it doesn't offer the alternative of snipping the whole sentence. BrewJay (talk) 06:37, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not changing the text. I'm just putting up a 57k VBR ogg that breaks George Orwell's sixth rule in "Politics and the English Language" in place of the exclamation mark. It needs two links, though. Hopefully I can see where wp:notability goes.BrewJay (talk) 05:40, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Barbaric it might be, and if you call it nonsense, then I'm raising the production value with my synth and adding a beat to put less emphasis on "suck". Nothing was wrong with the template; If the icon for audio is too big, then make it smaller for an ambox, please. BrewJay (talk) 11:38, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a serious template that appears in articles. Please stop inserting your "joke" that breaks it. Thank you. —David Levy 12:15, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Broken is exajeration for a graphic image that is too big. I would fix it, and template:ambox is locked. I'm glad you still find humour in it, because I adapted (found a beat for) an instrumental refrain in High School Confidential (Rough Trade song). So, you can see that the tune is aimed at something other than humour. And isn't it also a refrain of Jim Wales to hav the objective of making the internet not suck? BrewJay (talk) 12:31, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

No, "broken" refers to the fact that you've repeatedly broken the template (by making it difficult or impossible to read). Don't do that. —David Levy 16:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

We hav here a tendency to egzajerate. Sticking text into the rightward third of the screen was and is not my decision, nor does it change how readable the text is. You'll find less than ten words in a newspaper column. Five is good enough, especially when there's about thirty words of it when ten will do. BrewJay (talk) 22:19, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know how the template was affected in your browser, but in mine (Firefox 3), the audio player covered much of the text. The template was broken, and you did this a second time (after I informed you of the problem), all for the sake of an admitted "joke." Please refrain from vandalising the template. —David Levy 23:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

That wasn't my choice, nor did I hav any details about browser distinctions. In I.E., at 800by600, all it did was make the play button take up two thirds of the width. The easy choice to make was to use features in the ambox template, rather than setting width:10% and height:10%, like I would if I were writing the style.

When someone tells you that your edit broke a page, don't bloody restore it without checking other browsers (not that the IE result was remotely acceptable). And don't add jokes to the article namespace, period. —David Levy 05:10, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Additionally, your joke sucks. Please refrain from making the template suck.

It must be funnier than the exclamation point. I didn't expect anybody would listen to the way I posted it the first time more than once. I don't remember anyone telling me the same joke twice in a day.BrewJay (talk) 22:19, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The template isn't supposed to be funny; this is a serious encyclopedia. Do you have it confused with Uncyclopedia? —David Levy 23:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Why is it so hard to explain that truth is in jokes? The funny part is in our understanding of them. Typically, a comedian will feign total ignorance of something to show you an angle on truth that's hard to see. For example I know this comedian who tried to tell David Suzuki that Whales we saved explain the rise in sea levels. Sometimes a perspective in nonsense is informative. In that case, it's showing what is likely (that we're still the cause) by taking an unlikely alternative. Every joke is like a riddle. Where is truth in it, and how much? The full explanation for why "Weasel words suck meaning out of wikipedia." is in piles and piles of essays (and gigabytes of phrase that didn't even make it to wikipedia) about circumlocution.

Jokes are a sketch and reminder of what you already know from a perspective that's obviously false. Someone experienced at writing and reading won't need to hear anything more to know foggy prose or what causes it. What to do about it will always be tricky.

Kindly keep your jokes out of the article namespace. —David Levy 05:10, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Your wording, Mister Levy, still fails to link to wp:notability. That's really what weasel words are best at: interfering with significance. BrewJay (talk) 13:02, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

That page deals primarily with determining the notability (or lack thereof) of articles' subjects. It has very little to do with this template. —David Levy 16:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Weasel words weaken the meaning of a sentence, making what might otherwise be a notable fact into something that looks like fiction. That interferes with notability. Perhaps it tends to be the product of bias, and I think it's more important to attend to results, which are weakened facts; weakened notability. BrewJay (talk) 22:19, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The page in question is about determining whether subjects are sufficiently notable to have articles in our encyclopedia. —David Levy 23:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

It follows to apply those rules to facts within those articles. For example, the subject of Gravity in Physics is notable. Statistics about opinions of whether the Sun goes around the Earth or vice-versa are not, because the remaining fact is that they both go around a mutual center of gravity that is very close to the center of the Sun.BrewJay (talk) 02:10, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Quoth Misplaced Pages:Notability: "These notability guidelines only pertain to the encyclopedic suitability of topics for articles but do not directly limit the content of articles." Please stop linking to an irrelevant page. —David Levy 05:10, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism (as posted on User talk:Brewhaha@edmc.net)

Please do not add nonsense to Misplaced Pages, as you did to the Template:Weasel page. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you. —David Levy 12:12, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I could accuse you of the same thing for using wording that does not link to wp:notability. This discussion doesn't belong on my talk page. I think my wording is all too clear, and you will need to think about your objection to it more carefully.BrewJay (talk) 13:12, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

No, using wording with which another editor disagrees isn't vandalism. Repeatedly breaking a serious template by inserting an admitted "joke" is. Don't do that.

My objection is that you're using vague wording (in a template designed to discourage the use of vague wording, no less). As noted above, the added link isn't helpful (because the page lacks relevance to this tag). —David Levy 16:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

To repeat myself, "breaking a serious template" is an egzaJeration, when all it does is display a graphic that's too big, and that's beyond my power to fix. BrewJay (talk) 21:41, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Obscuring the text = breaking the template. Doing so for the sake of a "joke" = vandalism. —David Levy 23:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Explain why wp:notability isn't in your "fix"!? BrewJay (talk) 21:41, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I did; it lacks relevance. —David Levy 23:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Biased has a bigger problem. You can't read motivation behind obscurant text; you can only guess that it actually and only represents an author's opinion, rather than a faithfully represented line from credible authors. If it is ONLY an opinion or unreliable hearsay, then it's not significant, and I won't be able to tell if it was biased without a very careful interview of the author.BrewJay (talk) 02:24, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Joke is not an admission. It's something to be proud of. If people want to hear it more than once, then maybe they'll come to understand what degree of truth is in it. To be sure, jokes are always lies of some kind. In this case, I think it's all in the strength of that one word "suck", that we demand of good vacuums and bad girls. BrewJay (talk) 21:41, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Your pride in inserting jokes into the encyclopedia (a form of vandalism) is quite troubling, and your remark about "bad girls" was uncalled-for. —David Levy 23:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Please stop making the template equivocal. BrewJay (talk) 06:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Significance

Dear Mister Levy:

I must take issue with your supposition that Misplaced Pages:notability does not make decisions on the notability of content within an article. In direct terms, it doesn't make decisions. It off-loads them. That's from a long-standing tradition of different standards for different subjects. The document leaves it for projects. In pure mathematics, the Probability of Significance must be one (applicability to anything real is incidental). In applied mathematics, it's arbitrary. In Physics, a lot of discussion is involved in arriving at an appropriate level of significance. It's usually .97 or greater. In Psychology, there is one number that I hear quoted more often than any other, and that's nineteen times out of twenty: 0.95. So, there are standards for significance. If wp:notability doesn't list them all or link to them, that's a fault in the policy document, not an opposition to the idea that significance is relevant to whether information should be in an article.

So, do statements become more important if they become definite? The Earth very probably revolves around The Sun, or it does. (Both statements are not quite right). You must see that having a definite answer is more valuable.

On another topic, I don't understand why you are putting bias into this template. It's relevant, and I don't see any way to be sure that weasel words are bias. They indicate that the information might be fabricated or original research, but those don't make it false. Since you can't clearly detect bias from weasel words, I favour removing the mention of bias from this template.

It is not safe to assume bias within an estimated or approximate fact. I can be definite with the way I want to word this template. It is not appropriate for this template to analyze tendencies or equivocate. Either too many statements in the document are foggy, or not.

In sum, even if we don't hav a single document, here, describing standards for notability or significance, all of which are arbitrary, those standards exist. Deleting weasel words or the statements attributed to anonymous authorities has its own pitfalls in bias. It is still the only path for primer documents to take.

Impeding significance is what weasel words do best; it is a problem; it is relevant to policy. BrewJay (talk) 11:01, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

1. My "suposition"?! I quoted the bloody page itself:

These notability guidelines only pertain to the encyclopedic suitability of topics for articles but do not directly limit the content of articles.

2. The template merely states that weasel words often accompany biased information (which is a true statement). —David Levy 13:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Protection

I have fully protected the template for now in respect to long-term ongoing dispute about the language that has been carried out primarily, it seems, in the template. As WP:BOLD notes:

Please take this opportunity to establish consensus for language or other changes to this template. When the protection expires, please be sure that changes to the template accurately reflect the consensus established here. Efforts to force through changes without consensus by directly and repeatedly editing the template may constitute edit warring, even if not technically in violation of the "three revert" rule. Please consider following the dispute resolution process if consensus cannot be reached here. --Moonriddengirl 14:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

After discussing the matter at WP:ANI, I've extended the protection to infinite in accordance with the protection policy. If consensus is reached for a change, please follow the steps listed at the top of the page for having those implemented. Thanks. --Moonriddengirl 16:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Old habits are hard to break. This is not USENET. BrewJay (talk) 17:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC)