[vanderZwan]

"The proof that you are wrong is obvious and left as an exercise for the reader" it no way to hold a discussion on a public forum, or anywhere.

And I say this as someone who knows that Gecko is constantly being updated and that Servo is a testing ground for new technologies that after being shown to be effective were migrated into Gecko.

[cxr]

Please don't fabricate quotes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13602947

Aside from that, the burden of proof is on the person I responded to. The idea that anyone needs to prove them wrong is completely backwards.

[vanderZwan]

Thanks for informing me, I'm surprised that it wouldn't be obvious that my "quote" is paraphrasing the tone of your message, but if it is confusing then I'll find other ways to express that.

Anyway, the burden of proof is on anyone who makes any claim in a debate. And you do make a claim:

> This information is incorrect.

... without any further explanation as to why that claim would be more correct than the claim by the person you disagree with.

Or put in other words: there is nothing in the comment that would be of any substantial help to a third person reading along who doesn't know anything about Gecko or Servo. Even if they were to believe that you were right they wouldn't know what the correct information is!

[cxr]

Despite your pronouncements to the contrary, a comment appearing to say "this is incorrect" is absolutely more "help" to someone who's reading along and doesn't know anything than if the original false claim were instead to appear naked and unopposed.

There is no imperative—moral, logical, or otherwise—that I or anyone else spend energy to substantiate the debunking of a claim for which there has been no attempt to substantiate the original itself—even if you want to use a bullshit accounting method which frames it as a de novo claim that the first claim is incorrect. To insist that there is, especially when the energy required to debunk is much greater than the energy spent spitting out the original one sentence nugget of misinformation, is to deliver a set of conditions where Gish gallops are even more effective than they already are. (And that's before we get around to pointing out that you're not even following the rules that you're vigorously arguing are in play; we can let this be one of your exercises for the reader: swap in the word "claim" in place of my use of the word "insist" in the preceding sentence, and then pay attention to the ramifications it has for any of the comments you've written here, esp. wrt the "way to hold a discussion on a public forum".)

In fact, on the topic of outsized expenditures of attention and energy sinks, think about the role you're playing in this even now. (Although, perhaps that was the point—and not an attempt to excite oneself with a pastime that only incidentally happens be tedious in the way it makes contact with others' lives.) This will be my last comment in this thread.