Over the last month or so there have been productive questions surrounding citation (When to use citations, how to combat unreferenced answers).
In a recent answer regarding bad eyesight there was a line that I don't think has any supporting evidence -- the author disagreess. The author provided a reference, however it didn't exactly support the statement in question. The comments lead me to believe that the answerer thinks that the statement has merit. This situation has come up a few times with me before, and I'm sure others - a partially unreferenced answer has an author that disagrees with a reader about the legitimacy of a citation. This hasn't really been covered in the aforementioned meta posts.
Assuming that one has downvoted and engaged with the answerer, what can/should be done to resolve the disputedly referenced statement. As I see it here are my options:
- High road the author and remove the line myself
- directly conflicts with what the answerer thinks is an important line
- Flag for moderator attention (and deletion/banner)
- overkill for answers if there is another option
- Do nothing more; future readers can evaluate the comments and merit of the answer for themselves. (Agreeing to disagree is not ideal!)
- it's not entirely fair to expect readers to read through extended commentary
Any thoughts?
