Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Any claim without a URI should be treated as suspicious

shkspr.mobi

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 282 posts

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

#261

Post by tracker1 »

elliekelly wrote: post #221
btrettel wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I use it for APIs when an item gets marked as deleted, vs actually deleted... depends on the underlying data though.

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

#262

Post by mcculley »

For a few years, I was looking forward to newspapers embedding navigable links to the sources of their reporting. I figured that we just had to wait for the pre-Internet generation of journalists to retire and the next generation would cite better.

But now it is apparent that newspapers have no interest in doing this as it would encourage readers to go to another site and deprive them of advertisement revenue.

I would really love to subscribe to a newspaper that prioritized readers/subscribers.

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

#263

Post by s1artibartfast »

ardy42 wrote: post #168
soared wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of “misinformation” I’ve seen (entirely on reddit) isn’t straight up lies. It’s more like reposting an old article on a current topic or leaving out information. When Harvard announced remote class plans, Reddit had a front page article on r/all about it - but it was an article that was a month old about their old plan. It would be so easy for people to read that title (old info), have their friend ask i…

> The majority of “misinformation” I’ve seen (entirely on reddit) isn’t straight up lies. It’s more like reposting an old article on a current topic or leaving out information. IIRC, that's a key tactic for spreading disinformation. It's most disruptive when it contains 1% truth and 99% lies than when it's 100% lies. Take PizzaGate for instance: the pizza parlor in question exists, has a lot of connections to various…

It is even more insidious when it include 90% Truth, omitting a critical 10%.

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

#264

Post by Goronmon »

nitrogen wrote: post #158
Goronmon wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still remember one fake news site that took this to the extreme, in that it linked to a story that flat out didn't exist on the site it linked to. More common what I see is these sites just link to other articles on the site as a "source" for claims made in more recent articles. You almost never see sources to external sites or resources, its just internal site links all the way down.

Many news sites will do this to keep you on-site instead of bouncing elsewhere.

But its still common to have links to outside sites and resources within a given article, which you just don't see on these more "alternative" news sites.

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

#265

Post by [deleted] »

btrettel wrote: post #47

As many of those who have read academic papers know, even claims with citations are often suspicious. Time and time again I've found cited sources that don't say what was claimed. Sometimes, citations are not specific enough (e.g., citing a huge book rather than the specific page with the evidence). So, better than giving a URL would be to give a URL with a "fragment" if possible, i.e., #id. https://en.wikipedia.org/…

[deleted]

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

#266

Post by lopmotr »

jerf wrote: post #157
082349872349872 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Page 58 of "The Art of Conversing With Men" (an 1805 translation of a 1788 work by Knigge) shows that trolls were a thing in the eighteenth century: > "There are people who pretend to know every thing better than others, contradict every one, frequently against their own conviction, merely for the sake of disputing. There are others who are fond of speaking in parodoxes , and accustomed to maintain assertions which n…

To be honest, lately I've been coming around to the idea that a culture that permits you to simply punch someone who walks up to you and flagrantly insults your spouse is probably more civilized than our culture where the puncher faces years of jail time, while the troll gets to do it risk-free. Let me explicitly say I don't mean this as something to draw out much farther than the example I give. I don't mean to punc…

The existing situation favors quick-witted people who can fire back another insult and come away unharmed. But your proposal favors physically advantaged people who are strong/brave/skillful enough to punch someone. I don't think it's clearly better, just different.

It's also how it works in lawless societies where everyone has to protect their honor using violence otherwise they'll be seen as an easy target and get abused by everyone else. That includes, school, prison, and countries with poor rule of law. It seems like a default way for humans to behave in the absence of civilization.

It's also an almost uniquely male behavior, so women wouldn't really function in this system very well. They may make alliances with and become dependent on men to protect their honor on their behalf.

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

#268

Post by clairity »

brlewis wrote: post #245
clairity wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because in the first instance, all you're saying is "prove it", implying that the prior reasoning was deficient without specifying the insufficiency. that's vague, lazy, and ultimately unproductive/stifling. at least point out the deficiency, thus furthering the discussion. the counter is not a non-furthering "citation-free expression of belief", but rather a rationale, a chain of observations leading to a reasonable…

A full rationale is a nice ideal, but if you don't have time to research and compose a full rationale, silence is not always the best alternative.

agreed, no one expects footnoted essays in discussion forums, but just saying "prove it" is lazy and no rationale at all. folks have to put some effort in to further the discussion. they shouldn't expect a response otherwise.

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

#269

Post by Buge »

closeparen wrote: post #176
brlewis wrote: post #172

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.

Just because 1 side doesn't provide evidence doesn't mean the other side is correct. If neither side provides evidence then neither side is necessarily correct.

And in the absence of evidence, generally the simplest (common sense) explanation should be presumed most likely (Hanlon's Razor).

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

#270

Post by Buge »

dqpb wrote: post #151
kardos wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a huge asymmetry between the effort to make an outrageous claim and that to refute one. > I never, ever got called out. In Reddit parlance: ain't nobody got time for that

They also have an inherent information theoretic advantage over non-outrageous claims when consumed by someone who is unable to discern their veracity.

Could you expand on that? Are you saying the more outrageous a claim it's the more likely people are to believe it? That itself sounds like an outrageous claim to me, so I would like to see evidence for it.
Post reply on HN