User:Doom/Sandbox

I'm temporarily leaving this material here for now, though it's been

exported to the style guide. The "live" location is now:

Wikipedia:Be cautious with compliments and mass attribution

This page is a proposed replacement to two disputed nodes in the Style Guide:

• Avoid peacock terms (disputed)
• Avoid weasel terms (disputed)

See the "discussion" page.

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== Be cautious with compliments and mass attribution ==

Quite often the only good way to perform a quick

introduction to a subject is something like this:

:"War and Peace" is widely regarded as Tolstoy's greatest novel.

However, this use of a compliment attributed to consensus

opinion has it's dangers (and has been derided by some

wikipedians as the use of "peacock terms" and "weasel

words"). This idiom should be used only with restraint.

One problem that authors need to watch out for is that when

writing this evaluation, too much of your own opinion of the

subject may leak through. For example, when writing an

article about a musical group, it's likely that you

yourself are very enthusiastic about it, but

your immediate purpose should be to describe the material to

someone who is unfamiliar with it, not to declare your

enthusiasm.

Even when discussing a human evaluation like "popularity",

you should strive for accuracy: was the music

widely popular in a particular country; was it popular

among fans of a certain kind of music; was it critically

well-regarded? Can you support your statements with any

factual references (sales figures, quotations from critics,

etc)?

If you find yourself using large amounts of vague

attributions or gushing superlatives without any follow-up

support, you probably need to think some more about what an

encyclopedia article is for.

Consider the wikipedia entry for William_Shakespeare. The

lead paragraph contains many complimentary phrases, for

example:

:"... considered by many to have been the greatest writer the English language has ever known"

To begin with this article skips the problem of defining what

group of people hold this opinion ("many"?) and the statement

may seem vague at first (great in what way?), but the article

quickly goes on to explain what Shakespeare is known for, and

it even goes as far as to provide evidence of his popularity.

The opening statement is well-supported, and the entire

introduction is brief: the bulk of the article consists

of indisputably factual material.

== Peacocks and Weasels ==

Here are some common examples of phrases that may be warnings of a disguised lack of Neutrality: