Some posters like to pull facts out of their asses. Alternatively, they may present highly contestable opinions as facts. Or they may present dubious assertions as facts.
In all of these cases, it is appropriate to demand substantiation.
Let’s take a look at what Kimstu was replying to:
— Most rich amassed their fortunes playing by the rules. Balzac was merely engaging in the classic pasttime of rationalizing failure and bashing success. THis is otherwise known as “Sour grapes”.
That was the entire post. This guy wasn’t constructing an argument. He was merely sharing his feelings. (Later on the poster made a pretty decent argument: he noted that it is Balzac’s burden (or more to the point, his quoters) to prove that, “Behind every fortune there is a great crime.” I wish he had done that to begin with.)
I acknowledge that it is possible that Cite? can be used as a, “hacky debate tactic”, but honestly I can only think of one (borderline) example of that. And even in that case, the problem was easily addressed.
If you are going to fight ignorance, it is not sufficient to be correct. You have to be demonstrably correct.
Part of the reason posters get so cite-happy is that many people believe the way to argue is to state opinions and guesses in a factual way. Yes, that can be convincing in the real world (although I think it’s deceptive and poor manners). But it won’t fly here. People aren’t going to let forceful, assertive statements take the place of fact and accuracy. Of course we know you don’t live in the library. For your part, don’t post as if you live in one.
I have only asked people to tell me their source when they’ve stated something as fact that seems dubious to me. They don’t have to cite something if they’d rather come back to the thread and maturely admit admit they misspoke when they asserted something like “most students do x” or “the majority of faculty feel this” as fact.
Yes, it can go too far. Similarly, I think a much better discussion would result if people didn’t just sneer “cite”? but instead explained why they think the fact in question might not be a robust one. Share what you know, share soem useful cites of your own, and that provides a much better context for (politely) probing a previous poster as to where they got their information or whether they misspoke. Because otherwise we can’t tell if the person requesting the cite is truly contributing to the discussion, or just enjoying seeing a Doper twist in the wind.
— Similarly, I think a much better discussion would result if people didn’t just sneer “cite”? but instead explained why they think the fact in question might not be a robust one.
Nice point, Cranky. Do you think this is an appropriate response when responding to a 2-sentence wonder? Should we always grant the benefit of the doubt, at least initially? What if the poster appears to exhibit fact-aversion: that is, they don’t like to google, and they don’t like to hedge their factual claims or their opinions for that matter?
The core mission of the SDMB is to fight ignorance and make wisecracks. (Entertaining wisecracks, that is.) Users are not obliged to pursue both practices. They should, however, strive to master at least one of them.
I forget, is tubgirl the pic of the woman shitting on her own face or is it the woman they found who died in the bathtub and who had decomposed into soup after a couple of weeks?
In a classic example of NOT giving someone the benefit of doubt, you seem to have assumed to wrote my post with no fucking common sense. Au contraire. Some posts are obviously not worthy of anyone’s time, and I’m not expecting you or me to write a well-crafted explication of why such a post is bullshit.
How many caveats do I need here:
My above suggestion applies only to posts where posters who otherwise seem engaged in the debate are failing to hold up their end with sincerely researched facts.
My above suggestion does not apply to posts in gibberish, elvish, or using logic that appears to be at a sub-simian level of sophistication.
My suggestion does not apply to drive-by posts.
My suggestion does not apply to responders whose space bar is stuck and cannot therefore type long explanations or requests for cites. Same for people who just realized their home is on fire, and can only post for a moment before fleeing for their lives. Same if, in the middle of asking for a cite, their spouse starts clutching at their throat and falls over and needs immediate attention.
The previous reference to “spouse” is not meant to offend those who do not have a spouse. No insult is intended or applied to those who are not married, are divorced, don’t believe in marriage, live in a state where their same-sex union canot be recognized as a marriage, or are for reasons known or unknown utterly and completely single…
Actually, I liked your first post. I agree with your take in the last major post, but I don’t think it’s as obvious as you do.
For example, one might want to bend over backwards to be polite, even with thick-headed numbskulls. We both know the bit about honey and vinegar.
Frankly, I was thinking of fine-tuning of my posting style, so I was asking for a little more elaboration on your part. Which you provided. So I hope we’re good on this. I guess I’ll use the first caveat as a guide.
Oh, I also wish to acknowledge that my first response to Cranky was poorly phrased. Believe it or not, “Nice post”, was not intended sarcastically. My bad.
There are no forum invasions from Something Awful, in fact you get banned there for even suggesting a forum invasion, and you’re out :tenbux: just like that. If a few kiddies from FYAD run over to some other set of boards and start posting tubgirl and pain.jpg, that’s completely unsanctioned and harshly discouraged. SA prefers to find other stupid web boards in their pristine natural condition and mock them from a distance, sort of like a Nat’l Geographic guy doing a special on a bizarre animal.
The goatse man really isn’t that bad, when you consider those other pics. Heck, the goatse man is married, you can clearly see his wedding band, so somebody out there loves him (although it might just be The Giver, perhaps they’re Vermonters.) Tubgirl really is in a league of her own, and not in the cute Penny Marshall movie way.
Oralse.cx, on the other hand, is actually very cute, and not pornographic in any way for those wondering.
I personally think that if you’re posting one of those “everyone knows and it’s easily looked up on google” facts, then why don’t you just google a cite, and post it in the first place?
Just as an example, if we were to be debating the relative size of people that lived in different parts to the world, as it pertains to diet, I would ask for a cite to the assertation that **IzzyR
** made. Because really…that’s not a fact that’s readily verifiable, and I’d treat it the same why I’d treat someone saying “all black people eat watermelon”.
(please don’t take offense IzzyR, I’m just using this as an example).
I will say that I can’t personally think of a thread that I thought “Cite” was used just for the hell of it. Here on the SDMB, and in particular in GQ, and GD, anything you post should be absolute fact, able to be backed up with reliable sources. Not something you either “know”, or read on fark.com. I’ve been guilty myself of posting something that I thought was true, only to have someone ask me to back it up, and had to retract the statement. There are a lot of things many of us “know” as fact, that may not be entirely accurate.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve posted “facts” in good faith and had bullshit called on me. That’s the great thing about the SDMB. Most recently, when called on a bullshit “fact”, I actually cited the correct fact myself. It was a useful exercise in fighting my own ignorance. (It was a WMD thread, for those keeping score at home.)
I have recently read though a 10 page train wreck where a certain poster continually yelled “cite!” to derail the discussion. I found myself frothing mad by the end of it, but it was a month old so I didn’t jump in. There are definitely posters here who use that tactic.
Not much to add except to say that demanding cites for supposedly factual assertions doesn’t derail debate: it keeps it from devolving into opinion-slinging. You can’t fight ignorance with uninformed opinions. It’s about the most basic standard for debate that there is. It’s when people know that they’re pulling stuff out of their ass that they refuse to provide cites.
My position here is that if you yourself actually have serious doubt about the truth of the assertion, I can see you asking for a cite. But if you yourself think the assertion is true, then your asking for a cite is just an attempt to put the other guy on the defensive, and make yourself falsely appear to be putting forth a strong defense of your position.
In the case that I cited, I don’t believe that my opponent really believed that the average height of an adult Chinese male is anywhere near 4’10". And I don’t believe you or anyone else believes this either. It is not comparable to your example of challenging an assertion that “all black people eat watermelon”, where you actually disagree with the assertion that you are challenging.