A few months back, /u/NMW made a fantastic post on what it means to post a good answer in /r/AskHistorians, and our resident librarian mod, /u/caffarelli, followed up with an equally fantastic comment on different kinds of sources and their uses when providing an answer here. I've linked both posts so I don't need to regurgitate what they've already put so eloquently, and if you haven't read either in your time here, I highly encourage you to do so.

Anyhow, I've noticed as of late, a bit of a trend with how sources are sometimes cited/used in both initial responses to a question (not so much of an issue here) and responses to followup questions regarding sources or scholarship pertaining to the original answer or topic.

Now typically when a question is first answered, I don't think any of the mods or other users including myself expect everyone to cite their sources using MLA/CMS, etc. That'd be a bit too demanding for what I think we're all trying to accomplish here and I don't think we want to discourage good answers by requiring their authors to follow rigid source citations in every post that they make.

However, I do think it's a bit important that when we are answering questions, we should be prepared to explain our sources and expand upon them to give readers a more accurate idea where they can corroborate/find this information for themselves if they choose to do so. If they are primary, why they are important. If secondary, what primary or scholarly resources were used by their authors to reach their conclusions, etc.

I've frequently seen in the past few months users ask follow up questions in regards to how a particular source came to the answer or conclusion provided in the initial respondents post, or what primary sources or data-sets a particular historian or book used to reach their conclusion, only to either be ignored, down voted, or told that sources were already provided. This is an entirely fair line of questioning to ask anyone who has taken the time to respond to a question, and ignoring it or merely pointing out that you've already cited sources (especially when it's a secondary or tertiary source), does not necessarily answer the question, nor is it intellectually honest at times.

The underlying point I'm trying to reach is this, It isn't always enough to just name a book or an article you've read when providing an answer. Not every answer needs a source citation with page numbers or a in-depth analysis of the historiography surrounding a topic. However, one should not balk at providing further explanation behind why a particular source was chosen or what specifically that historian or source used to reach their conclusion.

I am aware there are definitely times where I've seen users ask for sources as a strategy to discredit a particular answer or cause mischief (and it's certainly something to be wary of as well), but I think our mod team does a fantastic job of stopping that stuff. It's rare for that kind of thing to happen without a mod or another flaired user assisting you in pushing back against people who are obviously not interested in whatever explanation or sources you can provide them. Intellectual honesty goes both ways here, and obviously questions (both initial and followup) that aren't intellectually honest, aren't the ones I have in mind when I say that expanding upon ones sources is something that one should be ready to do here.

Anyhow, this is just one man's (and semi-research librarian's, which explains my orneriness with this issue :P) opinion. I could be completely in the minority here (and that's ok!), but I think a discussion about how we use sources in our answers here is a good one to have in any case. So let's discuss this, and in the process, hopefully we can all help each other to becoming better historians and students of history.

TL;DR: I think it's essential that when providing answers on /r/AskHistorians, we are prepared and willing to expand upon and explain our sources when necessary, but have noticed a lack of this effort lately.

EDIT: Guess you can't link in the title? here's the link: http://www.bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology-exodus-date-1440bc.htm