“People are saying…” (and close variations) without immediately pointing out who in particular those people are.
It is used to be a checkless way to back up one’s own beliefs or, worse, to see what floats then declare one’s supposed beliefs after the fact. It is almost as bad as saying “I was just joking!” After a person’s comments fall flat.
I love Charlie Brooker’s take on that sort of thing: Newswipe with Charlie Brooker John Terry
What about it’s use on this board? I am hard put to find a legitimate use for this phrase, a use that doesn’t beg the questions “What people, and why aren’t you telling me to begin with?”
Wait, are you relaying — without pointing out particular examples — that some people on this board are saying that sort of thing?
I will sometimes honestly say that “I’ve heard” something, and cannot remember where or when I heard it, or from whom or what. But I don’t expect that to hold any weight either.
I get the impression from @Czarcasm that the problem isn’t giving an unsupported argument (which we all do all the time, this isn’t Wikipedia and we don’t need to cite literally everything we say every single time), but rather some nebulous call to an unspecified authority which is supposed to somehow give your argument credence while also deflecting blame from yourself. “How can you argue against me, are you calling all of those people liars?!”
In that particular sense, I agree that I don’t like it as a rhetorical tactic. That being said, I’m not sure what the utility of moderating it would be, if by bringing the issue to ATMB this is an attempt to institute some new rule. I don’t know that it’s really that disruptive; this argument just doesn’t work very well and if a person insists on people accepting it after pushback, that will probably violate one of our other existing rules (depending on where and how they are making that argument).
That’s right, all us babies should be protected from reading something that might convince our baby minds of something without proper evidence.
Give me a fucking break.
I’m pretty sure it is a reference to a skincare product.
IMO, this is a solution in search of a problem. Unless we’re gonna start footnoting all our posts in MLA format, I don’t see why we can’t just have a conversation and mention things that we remember reading somewhere.
Man, if we’re going to start threads on ways posters post than I don’t like, I can bring the server to a halt.
Pretty much my take on the issue.
If we have posters who are being disingenuous, then we have other posters who will be happy to refute what they’re saying. Everyone gets to present their side of the argument and the people reading along at home will be able to spot who’s talking bullshit.
O.K. then. forget it.
You want to ban this phrase?
I get why it is weak but banning language here seems anathema except in extreme cases (e.g. hate speech). This does not seem extreme.
Just call out the person using it if it bugs you. Seems simple enough.
Ha!
This, I can get behind. Is there a word for it, that can be used when calling it out, the way there are terms for other things people do in online arguments (e.g. JAQing, sealioning, Godwin’s Law)?
I admit that phrase can be a little annoying at times- but banning it?
What “My Ol’ Granny said”
can be taken as the ultimate truth. I promise.
Well, in her head it was.
But, “People are saying” is someone listening to back ground noise and flipping thru news bites online. It’s worse than spreading unfounded rumor.
These are not “people saying” these are gullible people listening and believing and repeating.
You can say anything. Lie, create out of whole cloth, got the facts wrong and a person overhearing repeats the garbage.
It’s bad. I discount it for the most part.
As far as banning the words? It’s not that big of a problem. IMO
I don’t recall anybody on this board using that phrase unless they were parodying Donald Trump.
I recently used it to do that very thing, parodying Mr Trump. Also “in two weeks time”. Hes such an inspiration.
I can easily see legitimate uses in context.
E.g., " People are saying that JD Vance wrote in his book that he did something naughty to a piece of furniture. Is this really true?" Is there really a need to provide a cite for something that was generally popping all over the Internet? Who would you specifically cite in such a case? That is, it’s not just something that one particular person is saying but that a lot of people are. That’s sort of the point of the question. That it is a lot of people.
Adding the “Is this really true” part changes it. It’s the difference between “I’m presenting this as fact” and “I heard/read this and I want to confirm it”.
We have a few posters here that, while they may not use the exact phrase ‘people are saying’, will present things as fact that they “read somewhere”.
It seems similar to JAQing off. They’re weasel words that people hide behind.
How long a timeframe are we talking about? Thus is before my time but I’ve heard people say ( 
) that there was a guy who used to start every thread with, “Manny people ask and now I wonder,” before asking a really stupid question.