I think I'm with Tom on this one...? Assuming I read him correctly.

I myself have read a lot of junky posts, and I have written a lot of my own blogs and articles that I HOPE are not AS junky.

To elaborate, but not to belabor the point. I hate it when people just offer some off the cuff opinion without backing it up with some kind of definitive source for said remark. Since I hate that, I generally TRY not to do it. So, in my blog, I'll usually go about my dialogue and throw in references to other articles/sites that I think are "of use" (often to Nasa original unedited source pages like http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod picture/new releases). Though, I'll also often throw in my own commentary on it, and MY interpretation, which will often be at odds with their interpretation (evidenced by the fact that their interpretation/caption is often "we'll we're really not sure WHY this happens, it's actually kind of weird/unexpected, but here's our THEORY"). But the way I figure it, this is useful 'cause it at least illustrates my point rather than just making an assertion ex cathedra and saying "and that's just the way it is." I at least try to expose my thought process. But at the same time, to some degree, I expect my audience to at least casually flip through a couple of the links and actually READ them. Else, why did I put them there to begin with, if I didn't think they should be looked at, either as an example or as an alternate interpretation to my own.

So, to some degree I DO find it lazy when people come back and say, "well, I didn't look at any of the links or pictures, but I think XYZ..." I mean that's just laziness. If I took the time to find the links, put them in there, I've made it clear there's a REASON I put them there. So, it's the least the reder can do to actually VISIT the links and try to understand the relevance (whicih I often, but not always) do my best to explain for any link(s). I know that not everyone wants to wade through 20 links in an article, so I suaully sumarize. But the links are usually there to make a specific point, so looking them up, in my opinion, would be useful to the reader in understanding the argument.

So, I guess that's my stance. Of course, I don't think I'd ever just put a raw "Here" link without any explanation before or after, or without any context whatsoever.

I guess I also subscribe to the more-is-better camp too. IE, I do't like just one slanted opinion, I prefer to offer a few articles from different sources, especially if they all kind of say the same thing in unison. So, I can understand if one or two of them get skipped as redundant. But to just gloss over all the links and then wave dismissively is both rude and lazy on the part of the reader, considering the effort the writer went through to compile the resources, in the first place. And generally sourced statements are better than unsources "opinion" statements, so the reader can view the same source material and either come to the same conclusions themselves, or feel that the writer was biased and misrepresented the source materials... Little lesson from Wikipedia on Notability.