zlacker

> And let's not get started about the legal acumen of the site as a whole.

This has been disappointing, not because I expect everyone to be lawyer, but because I expect HN commenters to be able to use an internet search engine. It'd be one thing to miss details that you need years of training to understand correctly, but a huge proportion of the comments in these threads strongly suggest that the person posting them has not spent even five minutes researching the subject they're posting on, and yet has somehow arrived at strong opinions on the subject anyway.

>>mjn+(OP)
Yes! It's like reading and tracking down sources is a kind of superpower here; sometimes, it feels like threads treat that as a kind of unfair advantage. In fact, if pressed, I could cite examples of commenters on threads asserting that.

>>tptace+7
I don't have time to hunt for sources, honestly. I'm not attempting to be a bastion of truth when I interact on the Internet, I'm attempting to explain my take on an issue, or ask a question based on what I already know.

Maybe I'm the problem, but I'm not going to change. I just don't have the resources to be 100% right every time I say things online.

>>mjn+(OP)
Tracking down sources are not always as simple as spending a few clicks on a search engine. I particularly find talks to be problematic, as the content is not indexed, nor is it easy to remember which n'th talk the speaker said a particular fact. You basically have to re-watch them all, which for a few comments I have done.

Worse is legal case findings which for whatever reason, the media did not pick up. Take the statement that in Swedish law, people who produce or run a webservice can be made liable if the majority of users use the service for illegal purposes? That facts is basically impossible to find using a search, even through it is written plainly as a simple Q&A in the appeal court judgment of the TPB trial. If the case had been that I forgot where I read it, a search query would not have helped me in tracking it down.