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No, truly and emphatically not. People throw around “citation needed” style lazy remarks on HN very often. As a rhetorical device it’s critical to not treat tha

by mlthoughts2018 6y ago

No, truly and emphatically not. People throw around “citation needed” style lazy remarks on HN very often. As a rhetorical device it’s critical to not treat that as legitimate, especially for well-known subjects. It has nothing to do with how easy or hard it is to look up confirmatory material, rather it has to do with rejecting disingenuous attempts to goad people into citation spam debates.

kbenson 6y ago
> People throw around “citation needed” style lazy remarks on HN very often. First, that isn't always used as a rhetorical device as you state. Sometimes (a lot of times) it's people asking so they can look for themselves, either to confirm the data or educate themselves as to how they are wrong. Second, why does anything you say on the subject have weight? Do people know who you are, and have you previously shown yourself to be an authority on the subject in question? If not, why would you expect someone to take your word as fact when no evidence is supplied, and no reasoning is either? Would you accept the same from me? If you look closely, the person that asked for a source noted why they thought it would be otherwise. Instead of reading it as "you're wrong and I'm going to use a rhetorical trick to eat up your time" I read it as "where can I read more, since this goes counter to my intuition, which I just laid out for you." > It has nothing to do with how easy or hard it is to look up confirmatory material, rather it has to do with rejecting disingenuous attempts to goad people into citation spam debates. If you can't back up your statements, don't make those statement as fact. That also avoids citation spam debates, as those that aren't actually contributing don't contribute to the spam. Citations aren't spam, they lend credibility and facts to a debate. Having a lot of them on both sides at least lets people see more details on the subject. Unsupported assertions of fact? Those are spam. These aren't school essays, these are conversations with other people. Taking a definitive stance in a discussion without the facts to back them up isn't conducive to a useful discussion here, or likely anywhere, from what I've seen.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  Hacker News is not an encyclopedia or doctoral thesis. There is no expectation here that people provide a citation for every statement they make or always start from first principles. When people won’t simply discuss and instead keep falling back on “citation needed,” it’s a form of rhetorical trolling called Sea-lioning [1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
  - kbenson 6y ago
    > Hacker News is not an encyclopedia or doctoral thesis. I think you took my comment about a school paper the opposite way than I intended. I'm not saying we should be professional, I'm saying we should be respectful to those we are communicating with. That means not presenting yourself as absolutely right and others as wrong without evidence. School papers often (depending on type) want you to take a position and argue it assertively and as if absolute. That's not how sane people discuss things. I'm not saying that people have to source what they say, but if they are going to make a broad assertion of fact, they should at least be able to back it up or accept that they don't have a lot to contribute that's useful. That doesn't mean keep your mouth shut if you can't site a source, it means state it as opinion so people feel like they're part of a discussion and not a lecture. If a lecture is what you want to give, have sources, or be authoritative enough by the nature of who you are that your opinion matters. If mthoughts2018 had sprinkled a couple "from what I've seen", "I think", or "to me"'s in their original response, they probably wouldn't have even been asked for a source. But if you present yourself as authoritative, it's only natural for people to ask where you got that authority from if it's not obvious. Edit: As a simple example, if you're presenting yourself in a way that you wouldn't to a new acquaintance at some mixer, maybe that's a sign you're not being a good discussion participant. If I was discussing something with someone in that situation and they asked me how I knew what I was presenting as fact, I would try to point them towards things I had read, even if I couldn't source them exactly. What I wouldn't do is tell then to figure it out themselves, because it's obvious, and I shouldn't have to explain myself because that's just a rhetorical method to keep me from spreading the truth. How rude would that be?

kbenson 6y ago

> People throw around “citation needed” style lazy remarks on HN very often. First, that isn't always used as a rhetorical device as you state. Sometimes (a lot of times) it's people asking so they can look for themselves, either to confirm the data or educate themselves as to how they are wrong. Second, why does anything you say on the subject have weight? Do people know who you are, and have you previously shown yourself to be an authority on the subject in question? If not, why would you expect someone to take your word as fact when no evidence is supplied, and no reasoning is either? Would you accept the same from me? If you look closely, the person that asked for a source noted why they thought it would be otherwise. Instead of reading it as "you're wrong and I'm going to use a rhetorical trick to eat up your time" I read it as "where can I read more, since this goes counter to my intuition, which I just laid out for you." > It has nothing to do with how easy or hard it is to look up confirmatory material, rather it has to do with rejecting disingenuous attempts to goad people into citation spam debates. If you can't back up your statements, don't make those statement as fact. That also avoids citation spam debates, as those that aren't actually contributing don't contribute to the spam. Citations aren't spam, they lend credibility and facts to a debate. Having a lot of them on both sides at least lets people see more details on the subject. Unsupported assertions of fact? Those are spam. These aren't school essays, these are conversations with other people. Taking a definitive stance in a discussion without the facts to back them up isn't conducive to a useful discussion here, or likely anywhere, from what I've seen.

ryandrake 6y ago
Hacker News is not an encyclopedia or doctoral thesis. There is no expectation here that people provide a citation for every statement they make or always start from first principles. When people won’t simply discuss and instead keep falling back on “citation needed,” it’s a form of rhetorical trolling called Sea-lioning [1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
- kbenson 6y ago
  > Hacker News is not an encyclopedia or doctoral thesis. I think you took my comment about a school paper the opposite way than I intended. I'm not saying we should be professional, I'm saying we should be respectful to those we are communicating with. That means not presenting yourself as absolutely right and others as wrong without evidence. School papers often (depending on type) want you to take a position and argue it assertively and as if absolute. That's not how sane people discuss things. I'm not saying that people have to source what they say, but if they are going to make a broad assertion of fact, they should at least be able to back it up or accept that they don't have a lot to contribute that's useful. That doesn't mean keep your mouth shut if you can't site a source, it means state it as opinion so people feel like they're part of a discussion and not a lecture. If a lecture is what you want to give, have sources, or be authoritative enough by the nature of who you are that your opinion matters. If mthoughts2018 had sprinkled a couple "from what I've seen", "I think", or "to me"'s in their original response, they probably wouldn't have even been asked for a source. But if you present yourself as authoritative, it's only natural for people to ask where you got that authority from if it's not obvious. Edit: As a simple example, if you're presenting yourself in a way that you wouldn't to a new acquaintance at some mixer, maybe that's a sign you're not being a good discussion participant. If I was discussing something with someone in that situation and they asked me how I knew what I was presenting as fact, I would try to point them towards things I had read, even if I couldn't source them exactly. What I wouldn't do is tell then to figure it out themselves, because it's obvious, and I shouldn't have to explain myself because that's just a rhetorical method to keep me from spreading the truth. How rude would that be?