Live data from Hacker News

Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

shkspr.mobi

221–230 of 282 posts

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also a good reason for news orgs to have strict policies around never taking down articles or changing URLs. It happens enough to give cover to the behavior you cite. News sites could also replace their 404 page with an explanation "there used to be an article here, but we decided to remove it because ____" or "there's never been an article at this address".

There's a HTTP status code for pages which were deleted: 410 Gone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes#4xx_... This was famously used by Mark Pilgrim: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Pilgrim#%22Disappearance%...

Has anyone ever seen this in the wild? I didn’t even know it existed. Who knew there were so many different status codes.

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a huge asymmetry between the effort to make an outrageous claim and that to refute one. Asking "Got evidence for that?" is sufficient refutation for baseless claims.

Make the opposite of your claim with an alt account. Then challenge it for evidence. Now your position wins by default.

I think this is the part that ain't nobody for time for

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#223
post #59

I hate URL fights. I give little extra value to people providing links with their clams. I largely given up providing links to information when called out as well. It's not worth the time. Discussion on the internet is broken in most places (HN is less broken than most). I find little value providing URLs. Much of the time I provide them, few folks seem to read it, fewer actually want to read it in an intellectually…

There are a lot of documented rhetorical devices that can deflect your opponent, and one of them is sometimes called "assigning homework".

A URI that is a 3 minute read is fine. But you'll see people say they won't even entertain a discussion with a person until they have read a book, and that is not a road to dialog.

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#224
post #59

I hate URL fights. I give little extra value to people providing links with their clams. I largely given up providing links to information when called out as well. It's not worth the time. Discussion on the internet is broken in most places (HN is less broken than most). I find little value providing URLs. Much of the time I provide them, few folks seem to read it, fewer actually want to read it in an intellectually…

This seems to be more an argument for avoiding internet discussion altogether.

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#225
I agree, but even that isn't any kind of guarantee.

I have noticed that many sites simply repost single-origin garbage, so it can easily look like it's multi-sourced.

Scammers and politrolls use this all the time. Marketers work really hard to get talking points pushed out to as many outlets as possible, so the "origin" may be different, but the text all came from one place.

"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet." -Benjamin Franklin

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#226
post #59

I hate URL fights. I give little extra value to people providing links with their clams. I largely given up providing links to information when called out as well. It's not worth the time. Discussion on the internet is broken in most places (HN is less broken than most). I find little value providing URLs. Much of the time I provide them, few folks seem to read it, fewer actually want to read it in an intellectually…

> Much of the time I provide them, few folks seem to read it I wouldn't be so pessimistic. Only a small fraction of people that read comments will respond. Plenty of viewers will probably check out the link and derive value from it, but won't have anything valuable to contribute to the discussion. Antagonistic viewers that already strongly disagree will be much more likely to respond (and without reading the link), s…

It helps me sometimes to remember that my conversation has an audience, and just because my opponent didn't learn anything doesn't mean that I wasted my breath.

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#227
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extension needs to be installed by both the creator and the receiver of the URL with the original intended text encoded into it?

The extension uses a new URL fragment addition that Chrome has shipped: https://github.com/WICG/scroll-to-text-fragment so these links will work on any Chrome/Chromium-based browser. (in non-Chromium browsers without the extension the link will load but the fragment wont be recognized) The hope is that this is useful and adopted by other browser engines and links like this would eventually be interoperable.

Ohh nice! I wondered where scroll to fragment did lead to.

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#228
post #59

I hate URL fights. I give little extra value to people providing links with their clams. I largely given up providing links to information when called out as well. It's not worth the time. Discussion on the internet is broken in most places (HN is less broken than most). I find little value providing URLs. Much of the time I provide them, few folks seem to read it, fewer actually want to read it in an intellectually…

The challenge with the link fights is often about the difference between data and conclusions . For example, if I claim that "marriage has a positive impact on men" then cite a bunch of data showing that married men live longer and make more money on average etc... Have I truly proven my conclusion that marriage benefits men? Or does the same data show that healthy men with jobs are more likely to get married? Yet, I…

Data interpretation is pretty hard and we get it wrong so often.

I'm such a buzzkill when people show a graph that does not say what they think it says.

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#229
post #59

I hate URL fights. I give little extra value to people providing links with their clams. I largely given up providing links to information when called out as well. It's not worth the time. Discussion on the internet is broken in most places (HN is less broken than most). I find little value providing URLs. Much of the time I provide them, few folks seem to read it, fewer actually want to read it in an intellectually…

The challenge with the link fights is often about the difference between data and conclusions . For example, if I claim that "marriage has a positive impact on men" then cite a bunch of data showing that married men live longer and make more money on average etc... Have I truly proven my conclusion that marriage benefits men? Or does the same data show that healthy men with jobs are more likely to get married? Yet, I…

You are getting close to just saying it's impossible to know anything and giving up.

The point of citing studies is to have some kind of empirical starting point for discussion, beyond just anecdata or ideology. Not as a declaration of absolute truth.

> 9/10 times the disagreement isn't data/citations but conclusions or criteria.

If it's not a good faith discussion, it's best to avoid those interactions entirely, or end them as quickly as possible to not waste your time.

Re: Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

#230
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s very worthwhile; it allows readers to judge the legitimacy and relevance of sources for claims made.

A big gripe I have about youtube links: I can't learn anything about the video from the link. Once in a blue moon a youtube source is actually good. But the odds are so low that I often wont even bother clicking.

You can't maintain an asynchronous conversation with a youtube video in the middle.

With a link I can scan for support of your position and mine. With the video the conversation just stops for 20 minutes while I watch a stupid video. And then I can't cite anything from it unless I'm a transcriptionist.

Post reply on HN