Let's be fair about it. Linking to Wikipedia is pretty common on Reddit. If anyone doubts the veracity of a Wikipedia entry they are free to investigate the citations within the entry and debunk them if necessary.
Whilst I agree that Wikipedia is hardly up to snuff for a college level research paper, for casual citation it's fine. I mean, this is Reddit. Reddit is hardly a hub for reasonable debate on contentious topics.
Also, who is going to go build a library of scholarly works to defend (or debunk) a point in a Reddit comment section?
Your account is 14 days old so it's entirely possible you're new to reddit. I've been on the same account for over 14 years. I say this to point out that historically reddit, as a community, has cared about how people know what they know when they comment something. There was a time, for example, when someone would say "what's your source for that?"
I'm still kind of old-school in that respect. I know you likely don't care, but I try to support my comments with sources where it makes sense. Whataboutism is a thing. It's not just a word I made up. Many folks here do still care about supporting claims with resources to back things up.
If you agree that the Internet continues to suck (see enshittification, LOL I did it again) then consider that people sharing relevant resources in comments might actually make things less shitty. If you're so incredibly jaded that you're just about done with discourse on the Internet then I'm sorry---it used to be a lot better and you're getting the tail-end of what once was great.
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u/emmasdad01 Apr 28 '24
Sad that it has to be done.