General > General Technical Chat
Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
<< < (26/98) > >>
nctnico:

--- Quote from: Zero999 on February 16, 2022, 12:46:40 pm ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on February 15, 2022, 01:10:38 pm ---
--- Quote from: PKTKS on February 15, 2022, 12:09:20 pm ---
--- Quote from: RoGeorge on February 15, 2022, 11:14:54 am ---- The most important counter argument is that science does not work by voting.  Science is not a democracy, and it is not about what people like or what people think.  Science and its derivatives, like engineering, are independent of crowd's belief.
(..)

--- End quote ---

That would be funny if science would resolve itself by voting....  ::)

--- End quote ---
Actually it kind of is. Science is truth by consensus.
--- End quote ---
No it's not. A consensus on a theory doesn't always mean it's right. The astronomer Galileo was proof of that. In the last two years, there are plenty of things which were believed to be correct, by a large number of scientists, yet are now widely contested.

--- End quote ---
-off topic-
And how it that not truth by consensus?  ;)

Truth by consensus means that a previously proven theory is regarded as being true until someone comes along and proves (by using new/better methods and insights) it is not. That is how science works and always has worked for centuries. In hindsight it is easy to say 'look, those idiots where wrong all that time' but that is just hindsight. And then there are cases where it is better to be cautious and accept a safe theory that is not fully proven / disproven yet.
tautech:

--- Quote from: Zero999 on February 16, 2022, 01:50:03 pm ---
--- Quote from: Cerebus on February 16, 2022, 01:27:17 pm ---
--- Quote from: ogden on February 16, 2022, 11:14:11 am ---How about showing number of unique users who "thanked", in particular topic.

--- End quote ---

Speaking as the 4th ranked "most thanked" user on the forum I have to tell you that would be misleading.  :) All it tells me is that I'm not too out of step with the milieu here, and I make people laugh occasionally.

If we were to use any kind of "thanked" rating it'd need a different button "Mark as useful technical answer" or somesuch as the current "thank" button serves as many things: "nod of head in agreement", "this made me laugh", "that post agrees with my political views", "that fella isn't as much of an arse as the man he's arguing with" etc. etc.

--- End quote ---
Unfortunately the thanks button gets abused. I wonder how many people in the top 10 thanked users list, only got there because they made loads of replies to treez's/Faringdon's threads? |O

--- End quote ---
How is it he's even still here ?  :-//
xrunner:
Those thanks mean nothing. I just thanked Tautech's post. But why?

Was is because I liked the information in the post?
Was it because I like him?
Was it because I clicked the "thanks' by accident?
Was it to prove that "thanks" mean nothing?
Was it because of some other reason?

I'm not going to say, and you cannot derive the reason either.
Ed.Kloonk:

--- Quote from: tautech on February 16, 2022, 01:49:15 pm ---
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on February 16, 2022, 01:38:36 pm ---
--- Quote from: MK14 on February 16, 2022, 01:29:53 pm ---
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on February 16, 2022, 01:16:41 pm ---Until both of you can agree on such lofty philosophy, you can at least agree that you know how a transistor works or even a 555. I'm saying put your energy into helping people understand that. Fill the gaps.

 :)

--- End quote ---

Not everyone, has the patience, inclination and other factors. To help beginners. For example, some people are happy to supply quick 1 or 2 line answers, to help them continue their experiments/learning/projects. But don't necessarily have enough patience, to put the time in, to help them further.

E.g. Your electrolytic capacitor, probably exploded because you put it in the wrong way round. Please carefully check the polarity next time. Which way round they are inserted, does matter.

Rather than a detailed technical explanation as to why electrolytic capacitors have polarities, are often used despite their many weaknesses, and tips on how to reduce the likelihood of such mistakes in future.

--- End quote ---

Yep. I agree. So maybe we do need to elect an individual who is prepared to work the beat, so to speak.

Just going by the dick waving in the thread (not you), I'm starting to think that Dave is right. The forum could use a person assigned to the task. But how do we keep the dicks out of a walled garden?

--- End quote ---
Don't build it in the first instance.  :P

No place like this is perfect but EEVblog is generally head and shoulders above the rest of the bunch.

A few years back I thought I'd better go and see what help I could be at AAC and posted some scope screenshots in a reply to help a member only to have the post vanish as mods thought it was advertising as the scopes brand was plainly visible in the screenshot.  ::) I mean how outta touch are these plonkers so I engaged with them and all of a sudden all mods were copied in and we had quite a civil conversation and of course I was open about our allegiance and the wish to primarily provide support.
But even funnier was to come as they offered me a mods position which I immediately declined and explained their membership would see that as putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

--- End quote ---

A bigger question I have for you is why aren't you in bed?  ;)

No sane person accepts a mod position. I understand that.

What I am proposing is perhaps an enthusiastic intermediate instead of a jaded 'expert'.

I posted the 'expert' video on an earlier page for shits and giggles. I have in my professional capacity assumed nearly all of those roles and quietly chuckled to myself the whole time. I'm suggesting, as an expert ;) , that the forum is ready to take this next step.

The problem is that the chosen person needs protection from 'experts' with a bad attitude. It needs to be understood that an intermediary is there to encourage beginners and reinforce their own understanding without the fear of being publicly humiliated.
Cerebus:

--- Quote from: emece67 on February 16, 2022, 11:33:05 am ---Each user can see who thanked him (it is nice to know who are one's friends, isn't it?  :) ), but statistics about thanked/found-useful posts for each user are not public.

--- End quote ---

Yes they are, but as usual the SMF user interface is less than helpful in guiding you to find them. Summary statistics are hidden at the bottom of the forum index page, and you can see any users 'thanked' count by looking them up in the members list.

You have been thanked on average 0.27 times per post whereas I have been thanked on average 0.77 times per post. That to my mind conclusively proves that any metric based around thanks is worthless because while I like to hope I'm a useful contributor from time to time I most certainly don't think I'm the über contributor that statistic would seem to imply.

There's also the issue you allude to but don't express directly: "Any metric once created will be gamed". Someone will play in such a way as to inflate the metric rather than to behave in the way the metric was supposed to measure positively for, wasting time trying to bolster the metric rather than doing something useful to produce the outcome the metric was intended to measure. I don't think anybody is currently gaming the thanks statistics, but if they were given prominence they would almost certainly become "gamed".

If anyone needs any more convincing that "Thanks" as is currently implemented is a useless metric, here it is. This is the top 10 most thanked people, as spat out by SMFs stats. I've added number of posts and calculated a "Thanks per post" ratio as a percentage.
User       ThankedPostsThanks to post ratiomed6753    1063410178104.48%bd139      1040420506 50.74%EEVblog    860033942 25.34%Cerebus    7288 9403 77.51%mnementh    604515133 39.95%tautech    492623059 21.36%james_s    440416959 25.97%BU508A      4012 3803105.50%T3sl4co1l  368018610 19.77%tggzzz      353114611 24.17%
Note how that puts Tim (T3sl4co1l) at the bottom of the ranking by "Thanks per post", one of the most useful contributors (arguably the most useful) on the forum and Mounty (BU508A) at the top, who while being a sterling chap, and very generous to boot, isn't in Tim's league (Sorry Mounty). (Note, these are only the top 10 thanked, so the ranking on the ratio of thanks per post is only out of these 10 posters, not the whole forum.)
Navigation
Message Index
Next page
Previous page
There was an error while thanking
Thanking...

Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod