3 ms·

>> Can you cite a reference there? > No, this is not an academic paper. If you can't support your assertions, they are worthless, regardless of what the conte

by sorbus 16y ago

>> Can you cite a reference there? > No, this is not an academic paper. If you can't support your assertions, they are worthless, regardless of what the context is. Asking for citations is a really common practice on HN, and one which almost always improves the conversation; despite the fact that you're one of the most prolific members, you still need to conform to community standards.

jacquesm 16y ago
> you still need to conform to community standards. Can you cite a reference there?
- sorbus 16y ago
  Hmmm. The closest I can find is "If people are expected to behave well, they tend to; and vice versa."[1] There's nothing in the guidelines that's even similar, except for avoiding comments with no substance. I suppose that, as long as you're civil about it, there's no need to do anything that the community expects. However, this was exactly my point; being called out to provide a citation and actually responding to the request (as opposed to saying "No, this is not an academic paper. But I distinctly recall ...") tends to lead to changing the views of at least one person in the conversation. The last time I was called upon to provide a citation, I wasn't able to find a credible one, and adjusted my beliefs appropriately; therefor, I'm of the opinion that refusing to provide a citation is evidence that you know that you're wrong (or, occasionally, that a single search would find the citation; that isn't the case here, I tried. Almost all of the results involve how Gmail was seen as a huge advance for having simple text ads which were relevant to the content of emails they were displayed next to). [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html
- axod 16y ago
  There's no point moaning "Google promised us X" if you can't back that up.

3 ms·

>> Can you cite a reference there? > No, this is not an academic paper. If you can't support your assertions, they are worthless, regardless of what the conte

by sorbus 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago
> you still need to conform to community standards. Can you cite a reference there?
- sorbus 16y ago
  Hmmm. The closest I can find is "If people are expected to behave well, they tend to; and vice versa."[1] There's nothing in the guidelines that's even similar, except for avoiding comments with no substance. I suppose that, as long as you're civil about it, there's no need to do anything that the community expects. However, this was exactly my point; being called out to provide a citation and actually responding to the request (as opposed to saying "No, this is not an academic paper. But I distinctly recall ...") tends to lead to changing the views of at least one person in the conversation. The last time I was called upon to provide a citation, I wasn't able to find a credible one, and adjusted my beliefs appropriately; therefor, I'm of the opinion that refusing to provide a citation is evidence that you know that you're wrong (or, occasionally, that a single search would find the citation; that isn't the case here, I tried. Almost all of the results involve how Gmail was seen as a huge advance for having simple text ads which were relevant to the content of emails they were displayed next to). [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html
- axod 16y ago
  There's no point moaning "Google promised us X" if you can't back that up.