[wallyhs]

> No, they can't, because the folks who are commenting at what you think is that level are actually completely unqualified to do so.

> The folks who are qualified to write articles and papers on the topics that might interest you, do exactly that.

How could you possibly know who is qualified and who is not? Given that the authors of submitted articles frequently comment on HN themselves, it must be true that at least some HN comments are made by qualified people. But that assumes that writing an article is the sole requirement for being "qualified". Not all articles are written by qualified people. Additionally, many articles are watered down by journalists, and HN threads can provide broader perspectives.

> There is no inherent value in wasting intellectual effort on an HN comment.

There is as much inherent value as there is in wasting intellectual effort in a conversation at a dinner party. If I am talking to someone whose life experience is completely different from mine, I am learning something even though they are not rising to the level of their capabilities. I am allowed to learn subjects superficially out of curiosity and without the blessing of an authority figure. I have to choose who to listen to and who to ignore just like I do with other sources of information such as HN submissions.

Asking for sources in response to an unfounded claim is common on HN. I've never seen anyone called naive, greedy, and lazy for it, though. At any rate, asking for a source does not preclude one from researching the topic separately.

I agree that HN should not be put on a pedestal. Neither should the submissions.

[diminoten]

So you think I'm speaking to you as an authority figure?

[oldmanjay]

I'm not a part of this conversation but I was assuming you were playing the role of the condescending nerd who tells other people how to think. was I wrong?

[diminoten]

If ever I was, you just took over.

[wallyhs]

No, but you seemed to imply that one can only learn from certain people in certain contexts. I find that I gain surprising insight from unexpected people at unexpected times. HN is not an exception.

[diminoten]

I wasn't implying anything, I was directly stating that the folks who are most beneficial to learn from aren't making elaborate posts on HN, and you shouldn't demand that they do.

You're just being lazy by demanding someone to do your research or write an article for you. Think of it from their perspective: why would they? Any reason someone might post on HN with a comment containing original or well-thought content can be better accomplished by putting that effort elsewhere, in a blog post or website article, and then posting that article as a submission to HN.

Only a small fraction of HN users even visit the comments page, not to mention the additional exposure one might achieve by getting their message out to folks who don't go to HN.

So yes, there are things to be learned from HN comments. Just not the way you're suggesting.

In other words, stop asking folks for citations on HN (or any other comments section, for that matter). You're wasting everyone's time.

[escape_goat]

I believe you should reread the previous parts of the thread, including your own, because it seems like your understanding of the positions in this argument have shifted. melling isn't demanding that arbitrary experts make elaborate posts on HN for his or her education and betterment. Rather, melling seems to believe that people who present information as knowledge in the comments section should be able and willing to explain the source of their certainty.

You're positing that people with expert knowledge have an inherent interest in exposing that knowledge to as large an audience as possible, and that this interest is so significant that they would always preferentially invest the extra effort and resources required to write a blog post or website article that properly contextualized and presented the information.

You're positing that the prospect of writing an article or blog post would preclude the possibility of responding to the comment on HN.

You're positing that the nature of this interest implies that these experts would wish to submit their own writings to HN.

To me, it seems that these terms must imply that this interest is not so much in the distribution of information, but in publicity and the tacit validation of expertise brought by the ownership of the information as an original source.

In my experience, this does not reflect the general behaviour of domain experts, who routinely correspond on mailing lists, usenet, and comment forums, including HN. There are in fact extensive comments made by at least one electrical engineer in response to this HN submission.

There is a subset of experts who already blog, for whatever reason, and stand to gain in some way by presenting themselves as an authortative source of knowledge and thought to the HN audience. However, many such persons (patio11 comes to mind) routinely write extensive responses to comments on HN.

Personally, the specific reason I began to routinely read the comments on HN was precisely because I could read fascinating domain-expert knowledge, presented in dense paragraphs, regarding topics that interested me. I usually read the comments about a submission before reading it.

Personally, I do wish to know whether someone's thoughts on a topic reflect domain expertise, or hobby interest; I do wish to know whether an assertion is established fact within a domain, controversial, sourced from an article or a blog post, et cetera, especially if that assertion seems dubious to me; the alternative is to simply continue believing what I believe, and to disregard such statements. In my experience, however, it is sometimes I who is wrong, and the dubious assertion which is correct.

In closing, I'd like to mention that melling, as the new OP of this now detached comment thread, was censured for describing someone's assertions as 'chest beating', which I think was appropriate. However, in the course of your comment here, you have accidentally or deliberately asserted that he was both "lazy" and "wasting everyone's time." I don't think that this sort of argumentation is useful, and I doubt that it is acceptable in your team debates. dang[a moderator]'s comment in reply to melling about "jabs" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9378899) is relevant, well-written, and interesting, and I think that you could benefit from reading it.

[diminoten]

You've taken what I wrote and pushed it much further than I did. If you re-read what I've written, I'm not nearly as extreme as you present.

Your argument hinges on me being extreme in my position, when in actuality I am not. I have not said anything nearly as absolute as you've implied. For example, I don't believe me using the words "lazy" or "wasting everyone's time" were an example of what dang refers to as "jabs" -- I was describing an activity. My words were not used as personal insults, but as descriptions of behavior. It is lazy to ask for sources on HN comments, and it is a waste of everyone's time, for the reasons I specified. These aren't insults, because they're specific, and directed at an activity, rather than a person, and I provide reasons for why those activities are as described.

I'm sure some SMEs do make the mistake of posting on HN in an elaborate and detailed fashion, as another example. I've never said it's impossible, that'd be an absurd thing to say. I just said it's not in a) their best interest, and b) many won't for the reasons I outlined.

Coming to HN for the reasons you do is an absolute and unambiguous mistake. What you get here is bad quality, for what you're looking for. You can get much better elsewhere, in the form of blog posts, articles, wiki pages, published papers, etc.

I'll repeat my thesis -- HN holds value as a "back room" where experts can speak without the same rigors with which they usually have to speak. There is value in informal discussion, and that's what happens on HN. Citing sources is a waste of time on HN, because you shouldn't take anything you read here at face value.

Besides, next time you're in a conversation, are you really going to say, "a post I read on HN said..." as a way of citing the source of your knowledge?

[escape_goat]

Actually, you used the personal pronoun 'you', which is not used in English to describe an activity, but rather a person. This is unambiguous.

To me, your response on this matter indicates that I'm likely to get argumentation in reply to anything I say rather than discussion or honest reflection.

This is fine, if one likes argumentation for its own sake, which it is established that you yourself do; I, however, do not, so I'm going to disengage from this conversation.

Scanning your points briefly, I would in another context be happy to go back and re-examine my representation of your position, but will not do so, as I can't take the assertion at face value, and would anyways be wasting my time as per above. I will remember it as a possibility. I do not exactly remember your thesis in the terms in which you have now restated it, but it seems likely that we are largely talking at cross-purposes with regards to the nature of valuable discussion on HN. Experts seldom fail to speak with sufficient rigor or mind correction when they do so. And 'citing sources' can be a waste of time, or a courtesy to others, depending on the context.

I would not hesitate to link to information on HN if that was the source of my knowledge. It is more important to me that I be (eventually) correct than that I maintain an appearance of correctness.