Now, I do see people post all kinds of stuff here, and clearly without citations. So I know some of the time, it is permitted.
So, when are cites necessary? And when are they not?
And what about something you just saw on the Science Channel yesterday? Why wouldn’t your attesting to what was shown be enough?
Frankly, you’re tempting fate when you open an OP with, “(I assume the fact President Biden had a stroke a while back is common knowledge. So therefore I don’t need a cite. That having been said…).”
When you present something as fact.
When you want people to accept it as a fact.
When you’re using it to prove a claim you’re making.
When (at least in FQ) asked for a cite.
You don’t have to cite anything ever. However, if you don’t cite your claims, it’s fair game for others to assume it’s untrue.
Furthermore, and this is in general, not specifically directed at you, can’t present something as fact and then demand other people find their own proof. And you can’t make an uncited claim and then tell others to prove you wrong.
Providing cites (or not) isn’t generally a matter of what is “permitted” (though it might be a little different in Factual Questions); it’s more a question of if you want people to take your posts and arguments seriously.
“While watching ‘How the Universe Works’ on Science Channel last night” is one thing, and may be sufficient for some arguments (and some people); “I saw this segment on the local news 20+ years ago” holds a lot less water, despite how strongly you believe that you remember it very clearly.
And in those cases, it may very well be true (the news story, not the new story’s claims), but without proof, it’s little more than an anecdote. I asked a handful of questions in that thread, but they remain unanswered because there’s no cite.
It’s like telling your friends you have a girlfriend that ‘goes to another school so you wouldn’t know her’. Might be true, but it sure sounds made up.
In that thread, he could have easily changed the OP from a statement of fact to a question asking for more evidence one way or the other.
Think about how much better it would have been if it was something like “I remember seeing something on the news about 20 years ago saying that pepper spray wasn’t nearly as effective as people seem to think it is. Has anyone else heard that?” instead of “Pepper spray doesn’t work”.
Are you presenting “something you just saw on the Science Channel yesterday” as an interesting tidbit? Are you open to being challenged on your memory of the “something”? Then you don’t need a more solid cite.
Are you presenting it as fact in a discussion and other people are challenging whether you remember correctly? Then you might need to look for a cite or concede the argument for the present.
I think for some users, their credibility is so low, that a cite should always be provided. Some people have worked hard to establish almost no credibility. They’ll get called out for wrong assumptions and faulty memories being presented as fact very often.
it’s funny because it’s true. 
It was very much presented as “I don’t need a cite because I have a perfect memory of a 20+ year old news story”. Which, again, even if his memory is perfect, is little more than an anecdote without a cite (and even with a cite, it’s very possible the news story was flawed).
Here was his response to being asked for a cite:
In general, this is a deep and important question, about what level of skepticism is appropriate for various sources of information. How do you know that what you “know” is true? When you read/hear/see something, how do you know when to trust the source? These are the kinds of things that plenty of people don’t understand nearly as well as they should.
I do not have cable, and “The Science Channel” is not something I have any experience with nor knowledge of.
Some of The Science Channel’s shows, like “How the Universe Works,” are pretty good science, with actual astronomers commenting. Some others are a little more speculative, IMO.
Ah, yeah. He just shouldn’t have posted that thread at all. It’s a crime against fighting ignorance.
You owe it to the people you want to have a conversation with the chance to form their own opinion of the information you read or saw. It’s condescending to form other people’s opinions for them.
For starters, something that you saw on the Science Channel yesterday would almost certainly be available online for us all to view. Even if it isn’t, anything said on that channel (well, anything grounded in science) could likely be found in other places all over the internet. As kenobi said, they have actual astronomers commenting, meaning you could find papers those astronomers have published.
On top of all that, if you can’t find their cites, if they don’t cite their work, if you don’t like their cites, you’re under no obligation to believe anything they say.
As for attesting to what was shown, that’s not enough because you’re a random person on the internet. You have no reputation to tarnish. You have no credibility that we know of. We have no reason to believe anything a random person on the internet says.
Consider Hitchen’s Razor, “that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence”
It is a decent rule for any argument you choose to put forward. If you aren’t prepared to back up what you claim then you should be prepared for people to assign it no weight.
If you’re a regular reader of the Dope then you’ve almost certainly come across dozens, hundreds, thousands of posts that do not accurately describe a previous post that is instantly available to everybody.
Multiple explanations for that can be given. The poster simply forgot what was said. The poster misunderstood what was said. The original post was poorly worded or otherwise misleading. The poster wanted to make a political/social/fan-related point. The poster doesn’t like the earlier poster and misstates posts on purpose. The poster wanted to make a dumb joke.
Now extend those possibilities out to the world at large. Memories of earlier events are often suspect (maybe even always suspect). Understanding of events can be faulty from the beginning. “Facts” that are thought to be true are proven otherwise. “Authorities” aren’t always right. The editing or presentation may alter the original in unpredictable ways. Things that people know for sure aren’t always true (ask any family member of any family). Court cases have two sides that sometimes sound like they are from opposing universes.
Every individual deals with these uncertainties in individual ways. They draw the lines at “belief” in different ways, and even within their own sphere of belief these lines may not always be consistent.
William Gibson defined cyberspace as a “consensual hallucination.” But that’s reality. If we don’t defer to consensual facts, we cannot function: the world is far too complex to be created from root causes in the instant. We know that the Earth is a sphere because every aspect we deal with - from long bridges to radio to shipping - starts with that assumption and therefore uses numbers and calculations that depend on spherical geometry. If the Earth were flat, nothing would work. The same is true with most technical and physical effects. All the people in all the cultures over all the times agree that the foundations are true. You not only can trust experts, you do in a million small ways every single day.
But. Experts can be wrong, and new facts can be discovered, and society changes affect how facts and expertise are applied, and not everything can be reduced to a technical fact, ad infinitum. Suspicion is often warranted. Again, where the lines are drawn are down to the individual. Nevertheless, “my old memories” is not the soundest basis for winning an argument. Nor is “I was taught this in high school.” Nor is “my parents told me.” Sources that seem flimsy usually are. People should expect doubt and pushback on them. Cites are better than “stuff I heard.” Cites have their own issues, but that’s a different rant. At least they are checkable, which is more than can be said for memories.
The thread title isn’t a question you ask other people: it’s a question you ask yourself.
Why are you posting information? Is it to teach folks something interesting–that is, to persuade them that something is true?
If that’s your purpose behind posting, then you have to ask yourself whether you’re effective in your purpose. If you are–if it looks like your intended audience is persuaded of the truth of your claims–then whatever you’re doing, keep at it! But if they’re not persuaded, maybe listen to them when they tell you what would be persuasive.
If you’re posting information for some other purpose, damned if I can tell what it is–but even then, examine whether you’re achieving your purpose in posting.
Not so simple.
What you’re describing makes sense in a non-controversial situation, e.g. GQ. But in an ideologically charged situation, e.g. GD, P&E or BBQ, it’s different. Because there are many people who will challenge for cites on things that really shouldn’t require cites for intelligent people arguing in good faith. The reason they do it is either because they have such a distorted view of things that they are not even aware of - or just don’t accept - basic facts, or because they’re just trying to harass you by making you look things up. Either way, these people are probably not your target audience and you are extremely unlikely to convince them of anything regardless of what tactic you adopt.
The problem is that people like this can sometimes be the most active posters in the thread. Which makes it hard to tell how prevalent your target audience is, or whether it exists altogether. So you might be posting based on a guess as to whether and to what extent your target audience - to which you’re tailoring your arguments - exists. But the bottom line is the same. You’re posting based on an assumption that people who are receptive to your arguments are reading them, although it might not always be apparent from the actual responses to the thread. And if you’re wrong, well then you may have wasted some time but not nearly as much time and frustration as if you engaged the “cite?” people.
I think it really is as simple as I suggest. Figure out your goals, and figure out if your current approach to posting is meeting those goals.
There are certainly people who cite-harrass. And your goal may not be to convince them of anything, and that’s legit. I’ve definitely ignored requests for cites from folks who weren’t (I thought) engaging in good-faith discussion; ognoring them, or explicitly refusing to dance to their tune, accomplished my goals just fine.
But JimB wasn’t in an ideologically charged situation when he was asked for a cite. He was making a remarkable claim (that a product with decades of reputation was essentially useless). People with experience that contradicted his claim asked for cites. In that case, he had some options: