5 ms·

"He was accused by many" is routine in other Wikipedia articles and is one of the ways experienced Wikipedians learn to sneak bias into articles.

• morsch 5y ago
  So routine that the phrase occurs 29 times in the English Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%22was+accused+by+many%22&title=Special%3ASearch&profile=default&fulltext=1&ns0=1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%22was+accused... Using such language is against editorial policy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WEASEL https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WEASEL
  • Jiro 5y ago
    The exact phrase appears few times, but similar things abound. The first one I tried is the Donald Trump article, which for obvious reasons I'd expect this sort of weaseling in. I wasn't disappointed. "Trump's election and policies sparked numerous protests. Trump made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics, and promoted conspiracy theories. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist, and many as misogynistic." That's one "numerous" and three "many" in a small space, along with the weasel wording "many have characterized", which is just like "accused by many"--it's used because Wikipedia wishes to imply that the accusations/characterizations are true without saying so explicitly. Actual information would be something like "Trump made 500 misogynistic statements over his lifetime, but three similar politicians only made 100". Except for the little problem that such data doesn't exist. So the article claims that he made "many" statements. This is of course trivially true.
    • morsch 5y ago
      Well, you quoted an exact phrasing and said it was routine. All of the things you mention on the Trump page are appear to be links to expanded parts of the article that go into greater detail (including, crucially, references). It's not a violation of WP:WEASEL which I wouldn't expect any how on such a high profile article. You're of course right that weaselly language exists on Wikipedia, otherwise there wouldn't be a need for an editorial policy. It's a process.
      • Jiro 5y ago
        >Well, you quoted an exact phrasing and said it was routine. You're being overly literal in a way that's too common on the Internet. Whether the exact words are common is irrelevant. Things that are substantively like it are common. >All of the things you mention on the Trump page are appear to be links to expanded parts of the article that go into greater detail (including, crucially, references). It is, of course, true that many people have characterized Trump's statements as racist. Providing references for that is easy, and meaningless. What makes it weasel wording is that Wikipedia is trying to imply that the characterizations are true. But there are no references that establish that definitively, in a way that can't be disputed, so Wikipedia resorts to suggesting and implying it by using this language. >It's not a violation of WP:WEASEL which I wouldn't expect any how on such a high profile article. You just said that using such language is against Wikipedia policy. Now you admit it isn't.
        • morsch 4y ago
          Your policy complaint is directly addressed in said policy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Words_to_watch#Unsupported_attributions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Wo...
          • Jiro 4y ago
            A document stating what the policy is does not address a complaint about a bad or loophole-filled policy.
            • KarlKemp 4y ago
              You lost this debate, like, five replies up.
• gspr 5y ago
  If that's true, then it's a problem. How does that make doing more of it any better?