Talk:Straw man

Skip to table of contents

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Straw man article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2: 12 months

Business Mid‑importance

	Business portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Business, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of business articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.BusinessWikipedia:WikiProject BusinessTemplate:WikiProject BusinessWikiProject Business articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Philosophy: Logic Mid‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy articles

Mid

This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Associated task forces:
/
	Logic

Politics Mid‑importance

	Politics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Skepticism High‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Tip: Anchors are case-sensitive in most browsers.

This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.

[[Aunt Sally#Language|Aunt Sally]] The anchor (#Language) is no longer available because it was deleted by a user before.

Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. | Reporting errors

The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future:

More about steelmanning

I'd like to see more about the steel-manning concept. It strikes me quite close to John Stuart Mills thoughts: [1]. Sjmantyl (talk) 07:58, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed! -Reagle (talk) 16:30, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that no one has claimed to identify the original source of the term "steelman" in this sense. I'd like at least to see that; then ideally reinstate a separate page. The earliest reference I can find is John Salvatier on 2012-06-10, predating the Messinger ref given in the article. Simon Grant (talk) 20:17, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to see examples of it as I do not fully understand what steelmanning is. 98.240.235.151 (talk) 14:42, 9 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54 206.116.11.101 (talk) 21:01, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Omit reference to Nixon's speech

The reference to Nixon's Fund speech as an example of a strawman argument should be omitted. The speech described the fund in question and Nixon's interactions with it. The reference to Checkers was obviously meant to be a mixture of humor and sentimentality; not a cogent argument. Ironically, the reference to the speech is more like a strawman argument, distracting from the substantive parts of the speech. 84.247.42.244 (talk) 18:14, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nixon's "Checkers speech" is used as an iconic example of a straw man in almost every book on rhetoric:

I think it's an excellent example and needs to stay. --Chetvorno^TALK 02:47, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It fits when you use the most broad definition of a strawman, but in practice, it's a red herring. There was no attempt to defeat any argument, he simply distracted from it. It makes sense to call it a strawman in a very beginner setting, but if you want to be the most accurate, it's not. 173.188.34.253 (talk) 21:15, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalization

Hi @WCCasey: I'm not understanding why you reverted the capitalization of "Sanewashing". It is typical to begin hatnotes with capital letters. ThaesOfereode (talk) 17:40, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]