> "X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse."

>> That may be true, but irrelevant to the Guardian – unless they feel they are feeding it. That would deserve action, but otherwise...

To be clear, the first quote is a direct quote from the Guardian article. Not my words. Does that change your response? I suspect it would, since their words would seemingly not be "irrelevent to the Guardian."

> I have to disagree. "Citation needed" is stupid Reddit nonsense

Interesting. My perspective is that this is more a wikipedia phenomenon. Reddit enjoys responses like "Sir, this is a Wendy's." The HN guideline that discussions should get more substantive I think means discussions should become more grounded in facts as claims are challenged and discussed.

> On Hacker News, there is an expecting of being smart enough to carry on your own conversation using your own words without needing to outsource to an arbitrary third-party.

Can you link this expectation back to the discussion guidelines? The first part of what you wrote here I could be convinced of. The second part, the "needing to outsource" part, I disagree with. Either a person on HN is an expert in the field, and if not, they should very much "outsource" their claims (AKA provide evidence) to show that those claims are supported and are not just random thoughts. Random thoughts are not truth, our perception and gut instincts are often wrong. What we think is generally kinda worthless, what we know via data & facts OTOH is information.

> but if all you can offer is something like "citation needed", you contribute nothing and are participating in anti-social, bad-faith behaviour.

If someone is making claims that are unsupported, potentially incorrect. Is pointing that out and asking for the basis of the claim completely without value? I agree it is a bit anti-social, but this is not improv where the best response is "yes, and...". In contrast, the alternative is to let bad info just sit, unchallenged, and IMO be perpetuated. So, is there no value in saying "hey, wait a minute, there is no data to support your claims; please back up and give that data, or make it clear that you're spouting pure opinion." We disagree seemingly that HN comments is a place for pure opinions (which is okay to disagree).

> Accept it as a lost cause and ignore it. Those who cannot string a worthwhile post together will soon grow bored with being ignored and leave. Don't feed the trolls, as they say.

Interesting. My view is there are plenty of trolls, they are legion, and they can "win" through sock puppetry and sheer volume. For example, this article is about The Onion & Infowars, yet most of the discussion is back to X. Most HN discussion of Elon Musk usually go off-topic and become dominated by very tired and familiar discussions. In part, it is not about the trolls but the other readers. It is clear when people cannot support their claims vs when they can.

> (Why did you remove the rest?)

My apologies. I was hoping you would not react quite so quickly. After getting a coffee, I think I may have profoundly misunderstood what you wrote and deleted my first response. The second response needed a little cleaning up to read well (my intent was not to alter the substance, but enhance clarity).

[*more edits, to enhance clarity]