I've heard that quote before, but I don't really know its pedigree. Do you have a reference? (I also imagine the lack of sourcing is why you got downvoted).
The Nixon aide who allegedly said that quote died before it was published, so there is some reason to be uncertain about its veracity. It wasn't published until long, long after it was apparently said.
I find it completely plausible and it's very much in line with my political leanings to believe it, but still.
Thanks, I have certainly seen that quote before and thought it actually had been thoroughly vetted. I was not aware that the man quoted was dead.
I've been making a point in recent months to make particular note of things that confirm my own biases, as the last six months have suggested that everything I know is wrong, at least as far as people are concerned...
If anyone doubts the contents of the quoted text, they can copy paste it into Google and discover numerous websites pointing at it. That will guide you to the right source.
Possibly someone downvoted it because they fall under the same establishment or an offspring of that 'Murica generation.
edit: I don't understand the downvotes. This comment contains instructions on how to find the desired source of my original comment which was actually published and publicized in printed media. If you have trouble with Googling, I suggest restarting your computer. Otherwise, trying to deny the track record of systematic racial oppression evident long after the end of racial segregation through downvoting, you are going against history of USA.
> This comment contains instructions on how to find the desired source of my original comment which was actually published and publicized in printed media.
Then why is it so hard to include it yourself? It's poor form to make statements from sources and omit those sources. Unless you typed that from memory, you had one of those sources handy when you made the comment, so you could have included it easily, rather than make every person that read it have to determine whether they believed it as even worth researching to see if it is real or something you made up.
> I don't understand the downvotes.
> Possibly someone downvoted it because they fall under the same establishment or an offspring of that 'Murica generation.
> If you have trouble with Googling, I suggest restarting your computer.
People aren't denying anything. Perhaps your attitude is the cause of the downvotes. Regardless of why you were originally downvoted, imagining it might be because they aren't acting in good faith or are incapable of assessing your comment on its merit isn't exactly a useful way to move forward.
I've always been kind of curious how the people who fill threads with quotes work. Do they have macro hot keys? A spreadsheet of quotes? (In some cases, the first google result for a quote is a page explaining that the quote is fake, so either they have some system that avoids google or they just ignore results they don't like.)
I've always wondered that as well, not being one that remembers quotable material in enough detail to be able to put it into use easily in most cases.
For myself, usually I remember someone said something in a vague way that I think it relevant (often a prior HN submission of some sort), and I start using google and hn.algolia.com to start looking stuff up until I find the article. comment or submission I thought I remembered or I give up. My quotes are generally less quotes and more notes about what I think are interesting references to the discussion at hand. I imagine if even only one out of fifty people reading do that for the whole submission, it still might add up rather quickly.
Of the things I do reference, I generally find I'm likely to use them multiple times over a few months. As things are in recent memory, I see more connections. Sort of like after you learn a new concept you see places to use it all over. It feels like it's just topical all of a sudden, but I suspect it's mostly just that prior to learning it those times weren't strong enough to leave an impression in memory, making it feel like you didn't hear about it before when actually you did.
It then fetches the Hacker News URL, analyzes the text and finds a relevant quote that contrasts the average sentiment of the comments and then posts it.
I think it's more of a birthday paradox type of deal...you get enough people in a thread, it becomes increasingly likely that at least one knows of a long-ass quote that is relevant to the situation.
The birthday paradox might not be a good technical analogy: the number of ways to collide grows quadratically, while the number of people who can individually think of quotes grows linearly.
If someone is so concerned about sources, they can include it in the reply after the parent.
Nobody likes people who complain but won't do anything about it.
If the lack of citation bothers you so much, maybe you should include it yourself. Nobody else gives a shit in case you haven't noticed.
The original comment had no citation yet it received upvotes, contrary to your view of HN. Everyone is intimate with Google and they can follow the instructions in this thread to find the appropriate sources. If you want citation in the format you find in academic papers, that is on you, not the original commentator.
I can't help you any further but there are plenty of comments being posted as we speak that lack citations, you better get on that quick!
No, it's a forum where the norm is that if you are going to make factual assertions where you aren't the source, you should include the source.
> If someone is so concerned about sources, they can include it in the reply after the parent.
Which is just making everyone else do your work for you. It's fine, if you want to make assertions and not include sources, you'll either be ignored by some number of people, or depending on how different the assertion is to their worldview, possibly downvoted.
If you're interested in having a discussion, sources help. If you're just interested in putting your mark down and saying something because you have the urge, then they don't really matter.
There is no norm or enforcement for citations. That is your personal preference. I don't want to spend time chasing down and writing citations. Fact checking is really up to the reader. There is no rule written that says all comments must have proper citations following APA formatting.
Obviously there is a community norm. We both just experienced it. You were downvoted (although that could have been for presentation), and I was upvoted for noting that the reason you were downvoted could have been for not supplying sources. For better or worse, that's how it is here at this point in time.
> That is your personal preference.
It is my preference. I'll note that it's not my preference to the point that I'll generally downvote for it though, and I didn't in this case. Other people do though, and there seems to be a general support for requesting that people supply evidence for claims. That's what makes it a community norm.
> I don't want to spend time chasing down and writing citations.
And I don't want to either. And other readers don't want to either. As a trade-off between one person, who presumably already knows that the reference exists and has some idea where to find it and every other person who reads it, it's obvious that the efficient answer is for the person who is using it as evidence to also include a link to the source when they use it.
> There is no rule written that says all comments must have proper citations following APA formatting.
The norm that the person making claim bears the burden of persuasion in supporting that claim with appropriate evidence and/or reasoning (citations being a means of referencing pre-existing examples of the former) existed for centuries before Wikipedia.
