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Comment by anonbanker | Hacker News Reader

> Smartphones and tablets are at least 15 years old too. Bill Gates used to run around CES telling everyone that tablets were the future.

[citation needed]

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It was COMDEX in Las Vegas. He gave the keynote.

http://news.cnet.com/Gates-defends-PC-at-Comdex,-unveils-new...

http://news.microsoft.com/2001/11/11/gates-showcases-tablet-...

Thanks. Exactly what I was hoping for. Totally worth the downvotes for asking.

You didn't get downvoted for asking. You got downvoted for the way you asked. [citation needed] is incredibly rude.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9207078

Respectfully, I don't think you'll find much sympathy here on HN with a reply in that vein, even from people who would agree with you.

I find it amusing that asking for source, using wikipedia's standard, is considered ”tone” of any sort, let alone a rude one.

No offense was intended in the grandparent.

I know I certainly consider that specific reply to be flippant, and I know there are others who do as well. I don't know if it's the general opinion of people on the Internet to view it as flippant, but at least on HN, the general culture is to not use Reddit-esque short-form replies, and to articulate a full response that uses your own words. Wikipedia isn't exactly known for being a welcoming community.

I think what sets it apart in my mind is the "needed". In a Wikipedia article aiming to be authoritative and correct it may very well be "needed", but in a HN comment it is not "needed", it is "requested". Perhaps even "humbly requested". And the conflation of those 2 words tend to make the requester come off as judgmental/abrasive.

Everyone gets the reference, but it's not really the same situation.

It was just a matter of luck, try using [citation needed] with an argument the HN Community usually disagrees with (for ex. one which favors C or C++ over Rust or Go), and the results will be completely different.

Based on my own experiences with /r/programming and /r/startups, HN is very reasoned, respectful, and lacking in fanaticism in comparison. I think a lot of that has to do with the expectations that the moderators have established and their enforcement thereof. Though I don't necessarily agree with the mostly invisible way in which they do, I've never ran a site this big, so I don't really have the background necessary to argue on what is most effective.

Yes, it's not perfect, but nothing is, and that's not a good enough reason to give up on trying.

In general HN is pretty centered, but there is always a slight bias, I don't complain about it, it is expected, there's no place without bias.

But when you play the devil's advocate you have to take a little bit of extra care in your wording, or at least, this is the pattern I have noticed when your argument disagrees with the consensus.

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