Talk:Lawn Boy (Evison novel)

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Weasel words and intentional obfuscation

We can all read. When we see words in front of us, we can see the message that is obviously being communicated. It occurs to me- if words on a page constitute pedophilic erotica, anyone and everyone can directly observe that the words are what they are. It seems to be, simultaneously, unnecessary and deliberately obfuscatory for a third party to say "people claim that they perceived" or whatever. If the words on a page say a certain thing- and they do- there is no room for subjectivity. So why don't we stop doing that? Can we try to be a bit more objective and say, for example, that people have observed what is written instead of looking for weasel words that allow you to call the claim into question, even though there is no factual basis for calling it into question.

Imagine, for a moment, that I type a bunch of curse words into this comment. Imagine that someone responds to me with some type of disagreement, and then I make disgusting and very specific threats against that person. No one within the Wikipedia community is going to turn around and say "Well, people claimed that they perceived him to use foul language, and they made some tenuous claim to the effect that some of what this person said could be construed by some people as a threat." This is a stupid thing that no would actually want to do, but apparently if something is written in a book (and the book is "perceived to have gay topics"), some of you feel the need to be dishonest.

Don't do that. Don't be stupid, and don't be dishonest. What do we all think about that? Does that sound like an okay idea? Let's be objective about things that are demonstrably and objectively true. This is exactly what is normally supposed to happen on Wikipedia, but we've got an obvious carve-out right here.

Whoever is doing this. Whoever you are. Step forward and explain yourself, please. Mmmcounts (talk) 18:41, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]