As I like to say, before you can debate WHY something is true, you must first establish IF it is true.
I read an article about Jimmy Wales (the founder of Wikipedia). It described how when he meets celebrities, they often complain to him about errors on their Wikipedia pages. One such example, “the hip-hop artist Will.i.am stopped Wales to complain about an error on his Wikipedia page. ‘Everyone thinks he’s William James Adams Jr., but it’s not James and it’s not junior’”, Wales told the journalist as Wales changed the page for Will.i.am. This was followed by complaints that the change was uncited.
It’s a little bit ridiculous. But on the other hand, how else are you going to police and verify changes on a giant encyclopedia like that, if you don’t insist on published sources?
[checks forum]
You really are an idiot, aren’t you?
Well, he’s got me agreeing with you, in the Pit…so I think he must be Satan.
Satan? Can we accuse members of being socks in the Pit?
As far as I know, we can, but I wasn’t in this instance. Satan the poster was before my time.
There’s someone else named Satan? It’s a cool-sounding name but Satan and I did not see eye to eye and it kinda ruined the name for me. But that was 13 years ago and since this one made you and BG agree on something, is this one worthy of my worship? ;)<–Something Satan hated.
I think his problem is that he is new here and doesn’t know that the lion’s share of posters at the SDMB generally don’t pull facts out of their asses, and citations are usually asked of newbies and the usual gang of idiots because everybody else knows the rules and doesn’t come to a gunfight without supporting evidence, and how that differs from many other boards. He may also not know that near the bottom of a Wikipedia entry there is a list of references used in preparing the entry and if you follow those links to the original source nobody knows you got your info from Wikipedia. That is the mistake lazy students make.
Well I should tell you a secret, one of the reasons I come to this forum is to learn, not only English, but the information behind many controversial topics, If I was an expert on an specific topic I would report on the specifics, and when a “Cite?” request appears I do know were to link to.
But what happens when I’m not an expert in a subject? How to get the proper cite? Ah, then the educational aspect of the searches I like to do enters the picture, I do think that Nate Silver of political polling fame does this, I think he is good because he checks if the polling organizations he uses are giving him good data, but he does not stop there, he also qualifies how accurate the polling organizations are and looks at the quality of the methods that they use.
I admit that this takes awhile, but once I identified several sources that are not afraid of debunking popular assumptions (some that even exist among your peers) then very relevant citations appear on the ready.
“Right” you can say, “but who has time for that?” I would say that then you need to clean and get better bookmarks. 
What I’m saying here is that sometimes good sources of information are hard to identify, but once you know what to look for the process that allows you to separate the good from the bad gets easier.
All your Base are?
Was English not your native language? You are very good at it indeed!
Alas, one of the most important reasons I read the SDMB is not to learn the truth, but to “unlearn” all the things that I have picked up over the years, which I thought were true but which turn out to be crap. I’m filtering out all my “un-knowledge,” with far more vigor than I am picking up new true knowledge.
I’m just here for the kitty cat pictures, myself.
I was told there would be cake. I am still waiting.
The cake is a lie.
There is cake. There has always been cake.
The pie is a pun.
Thank you for that, yes, English is my second language, however as I work in an educational setting I have to accept that good enough is not good for teaching students, so I stick to science and technology. Still, I have to say that I’m aware of even native Americans 
that are teaching grammar that are worse than I am so I constantly wonder if I’m sandbagging myself.
Dunn and Krueger reported on what happens to the ones that have good meta cognition, in essence it is a confirmation of the old saying that:
*
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.*
- Bertrand Russell
[knee jerk search]
Dammit, you see! I got so accustomed to doubt quotes that I had to confirm it, in reality Russell said thus:
Yeah, the paraphrase is more popular, but one should be accurate.
Oh, don’t worry, I can tell you that just realizing that one has “blind sports” in knowledge is a great advantage over the stubborn asses, one is then aware of what to look for.
