Feel free to do that in your mind if you want to, this way it won't bother other people.

"citation needed" is an apt response if something is presented as fact, without backing it up it's not relevant for arguments, which are clearly presented as opinion.

It doesn't really matter how outlandish an opinion is, but if you make assertions and present them as fact, then you better be prepared to back them up with evidence.

>Put everything on the same plane, and you make it harder to focus on a specific section of the page.

How does a person draw a conclusion then without any evidence? Seems like confirmation bias to me.

>Get rid of all texture, and you might end up with cold, sterile designs that scare users away.

What's the point of making such statements that do not seem to be drawn from actual real world experience or data? Great, you have an opinion backed by what exactly? A personal emotional response to such designs? Do you actually avoid such designs? What is the value in making statements that have no backing data?

Did or does anyone say that Google's design might alienate users? It has always been one of the most sterile designs of any search engine or portal.

When people on the news make such statements, we laugh at them because we know they are just making these comments to get hits or views. They are trying to create controversy or lead people to agreeing with them when there is no evidence to back it up. It is analogous to fear mongering.

My biggest beef is people upvoting these types of posts. These posts are basically just piggybacking on general sentiments on Hacker News. Sure, at first glance, people tend to agree with them (see the +200 upvote count), and writing them may get the author some minor publicity, but when you attack them critically, you see they are not founded on any strong evidence. They are intellectually lazy posts.

And it isn't just you, it's all of the tech community that does it, and I am tired of it.

It's not that the article is wrong per se, it's that it states some fairly obvious ideas that are true in a broad sense (e.g. a user needs some visual guidance to make sense of a page; designing for looks at the expense of function is a Bad Thing) while being horridly weak in the details and specific examples.

Since there's little substance to the article it mainly serves as a kind of flag for taste preferences. People agree or disagree with the general sentiment, but when pressed to explain why most can't. I think this is why there was a such a reaction to "citation needed"; the annoying realization that one's opinions are merely anecdotal observations with no ready means of objective verification.

The question (perhaps rhetorically) was asked if posting "citation needed" ever lead to a worthwhile follow-up discussion. I'm thinking probably not.

Anecdotal observation: It's occurred to me that when people make obviously non-personal assertions, and they have some backing evidence, they tend to post it with their comment. If you don't see the citation it's likely because the poster hasn't any, and asking for it will be met with silence (or possibly derisive dismissal of the idea of being asked for evidence).

I attribute this to people asking for supporting links often enough that many posters think it's expected of them. I would like to think this is true.

If you said the world was flat, and someone asked for evidence, would you also ask that where is your evidence that you need evidence?

Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me such a beautiful piece of clay to work with.

If I said, "the world is flat!", and it was around 400 BC, you, being an educated fellow, might say, "but what do you make of Pythagoras then?"

If I said, "the world is flat!", and it was circa 100 BC, you, being a clever and worldly fellow, might say, "but what do you make of Eratosthenes then?"

If I said, "the world is flat!", and it was the 1400s and you were friends with sailors or were yourself a sailor, you might say, "well, then why do the sails appear before the ship on the horizon?"

If I said, "the world is flat!" and it was the 1600s, you would think I was an idiot, because by now Magellan's voyage was well known and trade had begun to circle the globe, so you might just bite your thumb at me or ignore me.

But if I say, "the world is flat!" and you say, "citation needed", that is the stupidest possible "skeptical" response.

See, I'm not saying it's wrong to ask for a citation for a questionable claim. I'm saying that we should do better than that -- a request which you are arguing so vehemently against that, by now, if you actually were interested in whether or not "the design can be flat!", you could have come up with some examples to argue with.

Every time you, or anyone, says merely "citation needed" without further thought or consideration or argument or inquiry or contradictory evidence, what you are actually doing is holding an enormously loud sign which says, "I am not smart or curious enough to ask you a good question about this, but I am suspicious of it anyway."

And that's really lame.

If you are claiming something, than the burden is on you to provide us with evidence. Not on us.

And, in case of your example, "citation needed" is the most valid answer in XXI century, when your claim goes against all common scientific knowledge. Saying anything more is not intellectual laziness, it's a waste of energy. Burden of proof, again, lies on you.

It is clearly a subjective, editorial piece. The infantile demands that every statement be prefaced by "In my opinion, " (where such is painfully obvious already) is a nonsensical tactic when someone simply disagrees with the subject matter.