It's a risky thing to do if you're not willing to own those judgement calls; I wouldn't recommend that most shops do that. Among other things, you need to eyeball the diffs.
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Oprah says heartbleed is not a problem.
Colin Percival knows a lot about FreeBSD security.
It's especially not fallacious when the actual debate is about the person being appealed to. :)
>The key insight is appealing to an irrelevant authority.
This is true, but the authority is almost never relevant to forming a valid argument. It's just a shortcut. Take the following:
"X is not Y. I am a subject expert on X and Y."
It may be true that X is not Y. It may also be true that I know everything there is to know about X and Y. However, it's a completely invalid argument. There is no evidence provided about why X is not Y.
If someone questions why is X not Y, providing more evidence of authority does not contribute to the discourse. It is definitely a fatal fallacy if you exchanging in meaningful discourse.
If you are just looking for general knowledge on topics you are vaguely familiar with, receiving knowledge backed by statements of authority is okay. But that's okay because you aren't actually arguing, you are just seeking clarification and knowledge.