Reacts have been in use for some time now. Having seen various posts and comments with reacts, and how they’re being used, I think that the “I checked, it’s false” react, and probably also the “I checked it’s true react” are net-negative. Basically the issue (which I’ve seen mostly with the “I checked, it’s false” react) is that a lot people are using it as basically equivalent to a “disagree”. (As a rough estimate, I’d guess a least a third of usages have this problem.) Despite the fact that the description says “I looked up sources, did empiricism, checked the equations, etc.”, I frequently see it used on statements of opinion, where there are not really any authoritative sources, empiricism might be wildly expensive, unethical, or otherwise impractical, and there are no equations to be found. Even in cases where it’s possible to look up the answer, I frequently find myself suspicious about whether or not the person submitting the react actually did so.
But there’s no way to ask people who use an “I checked” react to provide their sources/reasoning. Like, do I send a private message? Do I leave a comment under the comment with the react, but addressed to the person who used the react? In practice, I’m not going to do any of those things, and probably most other users won’t either, it’s just not worth the effort. But it also seems bad to have a bunch of “I checked it’s false” tags lying around the site, attached to statements like “beans taste good” or “technological progress will likely stagnate by the year 2100 due to exhaustion of possible discoveries”.
If one has actually checked a statement by experiment, by checking the literature, or by mathematics, I think the natural thing to do is to post a comment describing the experiment, linking to sources, or walking through the mathematical reasoning. It’s more valuable to readers not to compress this intellectual work into a single opaque react. And if my experiment is flawed, my mathematical argument has a hole, or I cite Deepak Chopra in a discussion on quantum mechanics, the fact that I left a comment means that people can point out my error.
Reacts have been in use for some time now. Having seen various posts and comments with reacts, and how they’re being used, I think that the “I checked, it’s false” react, and probably also the “I checked it’s true react” are net-negative. Basically the issue (which I’ve seen mostly with the “I checked, it’s false” react) is that a lot people are using it as basically equivalent to a “disagree”. (As a rough estimate, I’d guess a least a third of usages have this problem.) Despite the fact that the description says “I looked up sources, did empiricism, checked the equations, etc.”, I frequently see it used on statements of opinion, where there are not really any authoritative sources, empiricism might be wildly expensive, unethical, or otherwise impractical, and there are no equations to be found. Even in cases where it’s possible to look up the answer, I frequently find myself suspicious about whether or not the person submitting the react actually did so.
But there’s no way to ask people who use an “I checked” react to provide their sources/reasoning. Like, do I send a private message? Do I leave a comment under the comment with the react, but addressed to the person who used the react? In practice, I’m not going to do any of those things, and probably most other users won’t either, it’s just not worth the effort. But it also seems bad to have a bunch of “I checked it’s false” tags lying around the site, attached to statements like “beans taste good” or “technological progress will likely stagnate by the year 2100 due to exhaustion of possible discoveries”.
If one has actually checked a statement by experiment, by checking the literature, or by mathematics, I think the natural thing to do is to post a comment describing the experiment, linking to sources, or walking through the mathematical reasoning. It’s more valuable to readers not to compress this intellectual work into a single opaque react. And if my experiment is flawed, my mathematical argument has a hole, or I cite Deepak Chopra in a discussion on quantum mechanics, the fact that I left a comment means that people can point out my error.