I think the key part is whether it’s being done in good faith or bad faith. Sometimes I ask a stupid question on Lemmy, but because I am honestly curious and not trying to get into a fight, and I usually accept the reply to me and don’t take it as an invite to get into a debate, I think people can tell I’m not sealioning.

If I replied “source?” for your comment right now, I’d be trolling. I almost certainly know that it is a bad idea to discourage sourcing information, and that should not be something I need a cited source for. That would probably be sealioning. Someone asking for a source on a meme I posted is probably genuinely curious and not sealioning.

And as per usual, judging intent can be difficult, especially when people (including me) come into a forum with my own sets of biases, pieces of knowledge I have that I incorrectly assume that everyone else knows, and absence of knowledge that others incorrectly assume everyone else knows. So people who are not sealioning might get mistaken for it just because they want a source on something they do not know that most people do. I see where you are coming from.