I again appreciate the respectful dialog, thank you. I think we might be coming close to talking in circles though and would do well to wrap up soon.

I want to emphasize a bit up front that (after having sat on it a bit), I really reject the framing of "outsourcing" thought when giving citations. 'Sourcing' is giving evidence to why a thought might be correct, without it - it's navel gazing, frankly worthless. I go into a bit more detail later in the below responses.

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> I mean, aside from the obvious: That nobody is reading the content anyway

I find that quite doubtful. X does have a large user-base. I suspect the number was tens of thousands (but I don't rightly know).

> But if you are writing comments on HN made up of quotes from others, why...? Why not let the authors of those quotes speak for themselves?

The authors are not omnipresent and clearly won't respond to every random discussion forum. On the other side of the coin, personal opinions are not worth a lot - particularly here on HN.

Which reminds me of your "outsourcing" framing". Backing statements with facts and data is not outsourcing, but instead it is evidence, data, reason. When a person is forced to provide data, to think about why they think they know things - two things happen: 1) quality of statements relative to being truthful goes up (ie: you say more things that are actually true). 2) you realize how much you think you know turns out to be completely wrong, that without data or evidence, you're probably wrong and don't actually know (ie: we think we know a whole hell of a lot more than we actually do, and we are wrong quite often when speaking without facts and without data).

This is something I learned very deeply at Amazon, a place with a culture that is data driven to the max. The saying is there are only three answers at Amazon: "(1) Yes, because of this data. (2) No, because of this data. (3) I don't know, I will get data for that soon."

Working in programming, at those jobs, just stating stuff and being right 90% of the time gets you fired. You have to provide data & reasoning why you think something is true. You can't rely on just how you feel or your intuition. The latter is a poor methodology for finding truth. It goes to why we use science to find truth and not intuition. Science is a powerful way to find truth, intuition is not. We can see what science has done for the last 200 years, vs intuition that turns out to be wrong so often (but seemed like it must have been right).

> not a wiki, it is a discussion forum. Do you disagree?

To my previous point, discussions not grounded in truth are largely going to be incorrect, navel gazing. Having a reasoned discussion is different from a wiki. A person is able to very well make multiple points, backed my multiple sources to provide well founded conclusions. It is the difference of talking to a scientist vs someone else that spouts a series of unfounded conclusions. Now, we don't all have to be 'scientists', but we can use the same methodology to support what we say. Even experts would provide citations of why they think certain things - their benefit is largely that they have already read most of the material and can draw from a much larger knowledge base to connect facts together. In contrast the lay person needs to be concerned of the Dunning-Kruger effect and would do well to remind themselves they are approaching a topic as a novice.

> If I want to have a discussion with a third-party,

Except you're not. It is akin to me saying 'I am saying X, because of Y data and Z reasoning'. That gives a much greater probability of actually saying something meaningful. Rather than simply saying "X" without reasoning. As I mentioned earlier, without any type of backing, that is truthiness, not truth. It goes to methodology of deciding what is correct.

> Furthermore, a citation by its very nature requires a quote

People often give a link to where data comes from, or where a conclusion comes from without a direct quote. There is risk of mischaracterizing the source, but no direct quote can be needed when the conclusions or data from a source are amalgamated. Sometimes a person can give multiple sources to back up a single statement. I don't agree to this framing.

> "citation needed" here a quote is nowhere to be found

This is bad framing. 'citation needed' is another way to ask for evidence, data - more than just an opinion that is based on what you think and feel. It is an ask to move away from truthiness, to truth. It is a way of saying "that is your opinion, please provide data so we can decide if there is a basis in reality, or if you are just communicating your own truthiness."

> Fine for a tired Reddit meme

I have never seen that as a reddit meme, and have an opposite perspective. I've found the bar for truth on reddit is essentially non-existent, nobody cares about evidence there (my impression). Reddit is almost more entertainment than it is a place to learn something.

> but has no place on HN

I respectfully disagree, HN asks that we get more substantive when discussions go on. To me, that means the conversations should become more rooted in fact, data & truth - rather than back and forth with more truthiness claims aimed "at each other" rather than discussed with each other.

> I don't know. I'm not about to read it [HN discussion guidelines]. It has no relevance here.

Everyone is expected to read the discussion guidelines before posting here. AFAIK it is asked that you do. The guidelines of the discussion forum where you are discussing are of course relevant.

> The expectations of a service like this come from the users, not some arbitrary guideline document.

Agree on the former, but the latter does follow from the former. The guidelines frame the expectations of users.

This article is actually something to be flagged. The discussion here is largely an aberration. Notice how we have yet to mention once "The Onion" or "Infowars". Overall the article is not a good fit for HN.

> They only "win" if you react to them. That's what they are here for: Attention. Ignore it and they'll quit wasting their time.

In some cases I would agree. In other cases though, trolls seek to dominate conversations. The 'Seattle Times' discussion threads became completely unreadable. Any comment was followed by 30 responses that veered away to some other talking points and was a noise that drowned out all other conversation. I call it akin to an intellectual DDOS. Trolls don't have to be right, just loud in order to dominate the discourse and prevent the truth from being heard by obscuring it in noise. I feel HN is well enough moderated and has a particular community where that is not tolerated and there is therefore often a good bit to learn form the discussion. The discussion is not just noise of people talking at each other, ignoring what the other has written and just waiting to write platitudes and endless truthiness of their perspective.

> I mean, think about it: If you kept posting and nobody ever replied or pressed one of the vote buttons, wouldn't you get bored of being here too?

I can see that as being the case. On the other side, do you not think there are people who are simply ideological? That want to be sure if there is a conversation about a topic that they care about, that they want to be sure the conversation concludes with 'their points', and 'their truthiness?' In a way, it's defending an in-group.

> You are not going to chase them away with "citation needed".

I agree. Though, sometimes conversation threads are not intended solely for the other party. HN is read by many, having read such threads myself as a third party - it becomes clear when one side is talking in bad faith. Not answering questions, not responding to points, not providing data. It reveals their argument to be bad; sometimes that is the strongest form of persuasion IMO when someone is so clearly making bad arguments. Again, the persuasion is not of the troll, or necessarily the other person, but the thousands of readers. Sometimes it's more the readers who are the audience than the intractable mind of someone that is wanting to die on some hill of truthiness without a shred of evidence.

[edits: clarity]

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[edit, added this section]

Now, there are still places where citations are not needed and are useful and interesting for HN IMO. To this extent I think we might agree. Namely when additional perspectives are raised, and questions asked. That is very different from making unbacked claims. It is very easy to change an unbacked claim into a question - and that keeps the dialog more open IMO and away from incorrect rabbit holes. For example: "Nobody reads the Guardian on X", vs "how many readers do you think they engaged with on X? Do we think that was a significant number?" Staying away from assumptions of what you don't actually know I think gives a lot of healthy space in a dialog, so long as the questions don't go into a bad faith & leading territory (eg: gish-galloping).

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[additional edit, added this section]

Backing up a bit - I think The Guardian layed out their motives very clearly. I believe you ascribed additional motive incorrectly. To which my response is: "show us", and otherwise gave key quotes so you can argue with the motive as written by The Guardian itself. Ascribing the additional motive IMO is incorrect and/or borderline conspiracy theory. To which I want to know why you think that, what you are basing those beliefs on. That is why a response that was largely just quotes from The Guardian was appropriate, it was a "here are their words, here is their exact reasoning."