Re:It’s not an electric bike craze. You’re looking at the fu...
by throw310822 on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @05:37PM
(#37228859)
> the quote ... which links to another article on the same website(!) ... which has a link to some other blog post that has the quote ...
This is the norm everywhere nowadays, including the most respected newspapers. I think it deserves a name- maybe something like "pretend citation" or "Chinese links". I think its popularity is due to the impression it gives of factual accuracy coupled with nonchalant confidence; someone who simply turns a sentence into a blue link has done his homework and dares you to doubt him. In fact usually the links point to other articles- often from the same publications and author- wherein one can find, buried somewhere, a similar but different statement, which in turn can be either totally unsupported or again link somewhere else, to even more remotely related factoids.
This is the norm everywhere nowadays, including the most respected newspapers. I think it deserves a name- maybe something like "pretend citation" or "Chinese links". I think its popularity is due to the impression it gives of factual accuracy coupled with nonchalant confidence; someone who simply turns a sentence into a blue link has done his homework and dares you to doubt him. In fact usually the links point to other articles- often from the same publications and author- wherein one can find, buried somewhere, a similar but different statement, which in turn can be either totally unsupported or again link somewhere else, to even more remotely related factoids.