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Comment by chillydawg | Hacker News Reader

A lot of non native English speakers here.

In my non-scientific experience native speakers are more likely to make homophone errors.

That may very well reflect reality, but you also point out that it might not. Would it be better, therefore, not to post the claim in the first place?

(I'm not trying to accuse you of doing something wrong. This is just a minimal, relatively harmless example of a larger and more concerning phenomenon in this age of information spreading so quickly with so little verification. I suspect we're going to need to take a sharp turn towards self-censoring those little unsupported claims, among other strategies.)

It may well be better not to post the claim, but you also seem to accept that it may be. Would it be better, therefore, not to post your claim in the first place?

(Personally, I see nothing wrong with posting anecdotal evidence as long as it's clearly identified as such.)

I was asking a question, not making a claim. Though I obviously made it clear what I think the answer likely is, I'm genuinely interested in the thoughts others can contribute. I'm not sure what the snarky response contributes, though.

I'm just illustrating that you're doing the same thing you're advocating against, so it's rather self-defeating. If this sort of vague, personal thinking is OK, then your post is pointless. If it's not, then your post is bad. Either way, it doesn't make any sense.

There's a deep difference between a conversation inviting disagreement and those with solid evidence to step in, and a strident claim that will only be addressed and corrected by people who are willing to be confrontational.

I agree, but how is that relevant? I only see the first kind here.

Go back and take a gander at the question mark in the comment you're criticizing, and the lack of one in the comment I'm addressing.

Are you thinking I said your comment is a strident claim that requires confrontation to disagree with? I said the opposite: both your comment and the one you originally replied to are conversational and easily amenable to contrary views.

No, the other way I could disagree. I thought the first one was the closed-off claim.

I gathered as much, but I don't see it. With the explicit disclaimer that it's just personal observation, it's about as open as can be to me.

Fair enough. We're making different judgments. And it occurs to me that there might be another important distinction there: I was bringing up a question of value judgment, whereas the commenter I was responding to wasaking a claim about the actual frequency of a phenomenon.

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