SmashWiki talk:Manual of Style/Words to Watch
Proposal discussion
Support, as nom.
--- Monsieur Crow, Author Extraordinaire, 21:13, 1 July 2017 (EDT)
- Support. Good pointers for new users, and I don't see anything that's too pedantic.
Nyargleblargle (Contribs) 01:13, 2 July 2017 (EDT)
For right now, Neutral. I haven't seen the Neutral POV page yet, so whatever I say here could potentially apply here. While this has a place snd I will support it over time, as of now it seems to discourage phrases and words in a way that remind me of the first time Miles took a stab at neutrality. For example, in the section "puffery", you are mostly right that we should explain standpoints instead of over-emphasizing them: however, we shouldn't sugarcoat it either. "Fantastic" and "incredible" should be avoided, yes, but if something is highly above average, then it should be able to be considered among the "best" or "worst". "Sub-par", by definition, means "below average", which therefore would eliminate the usage of a term that really isn't that opinionated. And going back to Cloud's recovery, you can explain why it's one of the worst in the game without simply making it seem like it's merely lackluster when it's not.
Ok, "cliché"'s a really bad way of putting it when I've only ever seen these phrases used correctly. Sure, "mixed bag" can go, but how else do we give characters like Mario a quick description BEFORE we get into everything about him other than "jack-of-all-trades"? If someone doesn't get an idiom, you can't just assume they'll read that and nothing else like idiots. They can either look it up or keep reading and get an idea of what it means.
Less significant, but you mean the mainspace for the profanity segment, right?
Ok, badly written essay over. Ganonmew, The Evil Clone 18:56, 2 July 2017 (EDT)
- There is absolutely nothing wrong with your essay, and I actually appreciate someone going through the effort of telling me what I have done wrong.
- Ultimately, the point of this proposal was to expand on Miles's initial idea of wanting to discourage certain words and phrases from the mainspace. However, Miles missed the mark and only said not to use the words without explaining why, so I tried to fix that with both this proposal and my secondary proposal, Neutral Point of View.
- Puffery was ultimately the hardest part of the proposal to write, and I'm not surprised to receive some questions about it. I'll try my best to explain:
- For example, in the section "puffery", you are mostly right that we should explain standpoints instead of over-emphasizing them: however, we shouldn't sugarcoat it either.
- My intention with puffery was that it should cut both ways; we should not over-emphasise in either direction, whether singing praises to the high heavens or damning complaints to the depths of Hell. Maybe I'm just a negative bastard, but I could only really think of words that over-emphasised on the "good" side rather than the "bad" side. I'll try to see if I can rectify this, because if you brought it up first, then it's potentially something that a lot of people are going to miss.
- For clichés, that was partially personal preference (I really don't like such expressions in SmashWiki), but I still feel that it should stay. As I said in the proposal's main text, it can misrepresent the scope of a viewpoint. While Mario may be described as a "jack-of-all-trades", it can imply to some readers that all aspects of Mario are average, when in reality, it might not be such a easy call; his special moves in Brawl would generally be considered below-average by most smashers due to FLUDD being so garbage, and in Melee, his falling and air speeds are actually below-average as well. As for misunderstandings, I feel SmashWiki's goal should be avoid presenting any confusing statements in the first place; I know we shouldn't assume viewers are morons, but at the same time, any sort of ambiguity should be avoided.
- For profanities, I put mainspace. Userspace is free-range; after all, I have a page which uses the word "fuck" or some variant of it at least 77 times.
- Ah, I see. With changes made and things being cleared up...Support. Ganonmew, The Evil Clone 21:25, 2 July 2017 (EDT)
- Perfect. Thank you for the input!
Comments
This is somewhat of a sister proposal to SmashWiki:Neutral Point of View. As a future reference, in the event one or both of the proposals passes, there are some bits of invisible text on both pages that may need to be made visible.
--- Monsieur Crow, Author Extraordinaire, 21:13, 1 July 2017 (EDT)
- I am just not sure that soft banning words is a good idea. I get what you are going for here but I just don't know that this is the right way to do it. Some of your examples, especially those in the "editorialising" section are words and phrases that I even use, and fail to see harm in. Serpent
King 23:36, 2 July 2017 (EDT) - Also, time references are applicable on tournament articles, and "as of" is another term I don't see the harm in. I thiiink the rest of it I can agree with, but I do have concerns that the current wording of the whole policy is too strict. There are situations where any......most of these words and phrases can and should be used. Serpent King 23:42, 2 July 2017 (EDT)
- A majority of this proposal is heavily dependent on my other proposal, and as a result, it can come across as needlessly strict without the former. Regardless, I have addressed that this list is not intended to be a full-on ban on these words, hence why the phrase "where possible" frequently shows up throughout the proposal.
- Also, if I may, you shouldn't be using editoralising terms in the mainspace. SmashWiki, like Wikipedia, is intended to be as impartial as possible; such terms can introduce bias, regardless of how well-intentioned your edits may be. Compare "Crow won that tournament down the street" to "Unusually, Crow won that tournament down the street". Both sentences say the same thing, but in different tones, and if such a distinction is necessary, we should be using more than just one word to describe it.
- Fair enough. Regardless, the proposal does say "should be avoided", not "should never be used". Again, this is a guideline, not a strict, full-on policy. I'm generally opposed to editorialising terms in the mainspace, but if a case can be made for it, such terms can be used. However, we shouldn't go overboard on them, which is what my intention was.