Welcome to Wikipedia. We invite everyone to contribute constructively to our encyclopedia. Some of your recent edits, such as those you made to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, have been considered unhelpful or unconstructive and have been reverted or removed as they could be considered to be vandalism. Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make and take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Veinor (talk to me) 21:17, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
ooh... apparently changing "is" to "claims to be" is vandalism. Perhaps i should mark it as an Unsourced statement and have Mr. Veinor here try to dig up a source on it?
- It seems to me that you're just pushing an anti-PETA point of view. The wording 'claims to be' implies that they say they are, but they're not really. Can you source that claim? Veinor (talk to me) 21:43, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
- How foolish! By the same token, using "is" implies an accepted standard by which animal rights organizations are defined. But I accept the challenge. PETA claims to be an animal rights organization at [1]. The exact quote as extracted at 1:51 p.m. Pacific Time is: "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), with more than 1.6 million members and supporters, is the largest animal rights organization in the world". According to my study of the English language, which I do not claim to be a master of, this is a claim to be something. So, the accuracy of the statement that PETA claims to be an animal rights organization can be verified at that webpage. However, since I now have been accused of having a political agenda and "pushing an anti-PETA NPOV" I suppose I have the right to make the opposite claim on our fair editor here for reverting my edit and using "is" (thus denoting a support of PETA's position). Or is my (and therefore the clever editor's) logic faulty here?
- My opinion is that 'claims to be' is a weasel phrase that undermines PETA's credibility and suggests they are not what they say they are. And note that I never claimed you have an agenda; I just said that that's the way it looks to me. Veinor (talk to me) 22:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
- So, since it comes down to opinion with Mr. Veinor, I suppose my opinion (which I honestly hope makes sense) is that when an organization, be it PETA or AMA, make a documented claim, the use of "claims to be" is appropriate. Note, that "claims to be" does not equate to the actual weasel phrases discussed on the weasel words page such as "some claim", etc. The source is the organization itself. I suppose using our esteemed editors logic I can claim to be a Martian and ask that an article identifying me as such be constructed on Wikipedia. For using "claims to be" may indicate that someone somewhere thinks I may not be what I say I am. But, since this is Wikipedia, we will have to disagree whereupon I will go my route and Mr. Veinor will cling to his guns of an unsourced "x is y" being a perfectly valid substitute for a verifiable "x claims y".
- My opinion is that 'claims to be' is a weasel phrase that undermines PETA's credibility and suggests they are not what they say they are. And note that I never claimed you have an agenda; I just said that that's the way it looks to me. Veinor (talk to me) 22:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
- How foolish! By the same token, using "is" implies an accepted standard by which animal rights organizations are defined. But I accept the challenge. PETA claims to be an animal rights organization at [1]. The exact quote as extracted at 1:51 p.m. Pacific Time is: "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), with more than 1.6 million members and supporters, is the largest animal rights organization in the world". According to my study of the English language, which I do not claim to be a master of, this is a claim to be something. So, the accuracy of the statement that PETA claims to be an animal rights organization can be verified at that webpage. However, since I now have been accused of having a political agenda and "pushing an anti-PETA NPOV" I suppose I have the right to make the opposite claim on our fair editor here for reverting my edit and using "is" (thus denoting a support of PETA's position). Or is my (and therefore the clever editor's) logic faulty here?