Best practices for requesting cites

Not laughing. You made a vague, inflammatory accusation. Can we see a cite?

ETA: if you’d rather withdraw your previous claim, I’d understand.

Opinion articles and editorials very often include facts and factual quotes meant to support the opinion being made.

The search engine kinda sucks, or more likely user error on my part.

But there have been more than one thread in FQ/GD/PE where someone asks for a cite, and the response is a link to an opinion piece on NYT/WaPo/WSJ.

Excuses are like . . .
Again, put up or shut up. Please.

UV’s only argument there is “because I say so”. He hasn’t produced any cites showing that any courts have ever agreed with his interpretation, despite having been asked to do so multiple times.

Your hostility in this thread is unwarranted.

Ok, but why not link to the facts and factual quotes themselves, instead of the editorial one has read?

Granted, I’d only ask for some understanding, as I only became hostile when I read unsubstantiated claims. That bothers some people.

Sometimes those are the factual quotes - a writer interviews a politician, gets a quote from the politician, and uses that quote in the editorial or opinion piece they are writing. If you dismiss any and everything titled “editorial” or “opinion”, you are indeed dismissing some legitimate factual sources of quotes.

Better, ISTM, to consider each cite on its own merits rather than dismissing vast swaths because of their title, website, or some other similarly cosmetic reason.

You’re right. A direct quote is factual. Most often, IME, editorials go well beyond that. An editorial (which is like 95% what someone else thinks about a subject) is not factual.

So you shouldn’t dismiss the whole category, but rather consider each cite on its own merits.

On second reading, I’ll challenge your claim.

Unwarranted is being used here as an adjective, meaning:
1)Unjustified
2)Unauthorized

If you are saying my hostility is unjustified, show me your cite or withdraw your claim. I’ll apologize and sit down

If you are saying my hostility is unauthorized, I’ll leave that to the mods to decide. Have you reported me? All I’m asking is for a cite to back up your (so far) baseless claim.

In a thread about . . . requesting cites.

ETA: New Oxford American Dictionary used for definition of “unwarranted”, just so we’re clear.

Unauthorized is certainly not my call. And report you? Why on earth would I? and for what?

You seemed bothered by my hostility which apparently was caused by your continued refusal to provide a cite for or withdrawal of your so far baseless claim.

So then, your admitting that your claim that my hostility was unwarranted is not true, as you’ve neither shown it to be unjustified, nor unauthorized?

Yes, there is such a rule: If you post a factual claim, be prepared to back it up with a citation. If someone asks for a citation, don’t take it personally, we’re trying to get to the facts here, and that’s how it’s done.

~Max

@kayaker and @D_Anconia if you want to have a go at each other, do so in the Pit, not in ATMB.

Let’s focus on the actual topic of this thread, please.