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A comment on Bard uses a Hacker News comment as single source to say that Bard has shut down. Parent comment

Re:Bard uses a Hacker News comment as single source to say t... by dahart on Wednesday March 22, 2023 @10:36AM (#35261708)
It certainly is a citation. What makes you say that referring to a specific paper via the name of the authors isn’t citing it? That’s the definition of the word. It’s not a formal academic citation, but it is a citation.

I’m well aware of the shorthand, and that is more or less exactly what I’m talking about. People also tend to claim that excessive confidence signals low competence in the name of DK, which may be implied in the comment above. Both of those concepts are basically incorrect, DK didn’t measure what people know or don’t know, nor did they measure confidence, and when it comes to normal topics that people get college degrees in, followup research has shown the effect disappears and sometimes reverses. The DK paper essentially measured how well people can guess their rank amongst a small set of peers (Cornell undergrads), which unsurprisingly isn’t perfect because it’s a guess. This is why DK is probably only measuring a regression to the mean [1], and not uncovering anything interesting about human behavior.

[1] https://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning-...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Bard uses a Hacker News comment as single source to say t... by vba616 on Saturday March 25, 2023 @08:19PM (#35309097)
>It certainly is a citation

That, to me, is a statement about someone else's intent.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Bard uses a Hacker News comment as single source to say t... by dahart on Sunday March 26, 2023 @12:10AM (#35310829)
I have no idea what you mean, would you like to elaborate?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Bard uses a Hacker News comment as single source to say t... by vba616 on Sunday March 26, 2023 @09:43PM (#35321905)
I believe a formal citation (APA style) looks vaguely like this:

  gonzo41. (2023, March 22). Bard uses a Hacker News comment as source to say that Bard has shut down (By cryptoz). 
        Hacker News. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35256223
Sorry if I screwed it up; that is just for the overall look.

I'd agree that a citation doesn't have to be formal, but if it isn't, then the meaning of a passing mention of names has to be more inferred from context.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Bard uses a Hacker News comment as single source to say t... by dahart on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:22AM (#35336256)
Right, we’re not talking about a formal academic citation, so the format is irrelevant in this context.

Why does it matter if the meaning has to be inferred? An informal citation or reference is still a citation or reference to something by speaker intent, and is not defined as such by whether or not the audience understands the reference, right?

In any case, citations, references, mentions, and uses of the DK effect are almost always wrong. I’ve seen a lot of them on HN, almost always to imply someone is incompetent, and I’ve yet to see one that’s correct.

[ Parent | on HN ]