Poll

What do you think about having designated "Expert" forum users?

I don't like it
126 (71.6%)
Maybe
26 (14.8%)
I like it
24 (13.6%)

Total Members Voted: 174

Author Topic: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?  (Read 51845 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Online tautech

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 29810
  • Country: nz
  • Taupaki Technologies Ltd. Siglent Distributor NZ.
    • Taupaki Technologies Ltd.
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #175 on: February 17, 2022, 04:56:53 am »
Ah mnementh, our tame TEA dwagon. He likes to engage and thank replies, please don't hold that against him.
Avid Rabid Hobbyist.
Some stuff seen @ Siglent HQ cannot be shared.
 
The following users thanked this post: MK14

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 39026
  • Country: au
    • EEVblog
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #176 on: February 17, 2022, 09:23:38 am »
IIRC there is an option for the Thanks system where it displays under the username. I think we turned that one on once and it was voted off the island!
 
The following users thanked this post: MK14

Offline Brumby

  • Supporter
  • ****
  • Posts: 12413
  • Country: au
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #177 on: February 17, 2022, 09:34:03 am »
First it is important to understand what the intended objective of any change is:
This could potentially help newbies or generally just anyone asking a question to perhaps be more confident in a technical answer if it comes from a designated "Expert" in that field. Help weed out the weat from the chaff so to speak.
This needs to be consistently kept in mind as ideas are floated - and these ideas need to be closely considered as to how they will achieve that improvement.

What usually comes next is the discussion of how this could be achieved, which we have seen.  However, I feel it is important to not completely ignore the current situation.

First is the nature of the community and "the vibe" we have here that has developed under the existing conditions:
These sites are fundamentally different. Stack Overflow/Exchange are question-answer services run by peers. EEVBlog forum is a discussion forum. It's a nice, even desirable side effect if the OP gets a straight answer to their exact question, but it's not the primary point.

Second, we should remain mindful of what it offers:
Firstly determining who is (not) worth listening to is a valuable life skill for many reasons and in many circumstances. Newbies might as well learn such discrimination ASAP.
This is no small thing in itself.  It particularly deals with the concept of critical thinking and people taking responsibility for their own actions - instead of just blindly following whatever they believe they read.  There is an argument for helping a beginner with those first stumbling steps - but that is available right now.  All it takes is for a member to take a little time.


I'm not going to speak to how effective any given change may be as I feel there is a far more important aspect to be considered:  What can go wrong.

Anyway, going back to this, for sure, any kind of metric needs to be chosen very, very carefully.  Never underestimate the psychological will to make line go up.  As soon as you make an indicator a metric, it is no longer a good metric
"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.
This is a certainty.  There are many examples reported and I have witnessed exactly this in KRA/KPI evaluations.  Pretty much guaranteed to screw up any system.

As has been said before, as well as the direct impact on anyone with such an "Expert" badge - which could drive them away - the dynamic would most certainly change:
The problem I can foresee is that people may skip the non experts advice and only take notice of those deemed knowledgeable.

This would stop many people bothering to try to help as they are ignored, and those really knowledgable people would effectively have a full time job just answering questions.

I often learn more from a thread where two or three people have different opinions on how to do something properly than one person giving the “correct” answer.

There are other issues - but I'm going to stop there.


So, the question is - as I see it:  "Will a change provide improvement or risk destabilising what we already have?"

To me, the risk/reward equation falls clearly on the side of not changing - at least as far as the "Expert" badge proposition is concerned.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2022, 09:39:40 am by Brumby »
 

Offline thinkfat

  • Supporter
  • ****
  • Posts: 2161
  • Country: de
  • This is just a hobby I spend too much time on.
    • Matthias' Hackerstübchen
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #178 on: February 17, 2022, 09:58:21 am »
IIRC there is an option for the Thanks system where it displays under the username. I think we turned that one on once and it was voted off the island!

I don't think the "thanked" counter is an appropriate measure for expertise, but it is the only available data that is readily available and without personal bias. "Expert" badges on the other hand will require setting up rules and procedures for people to elect an "elite" caste and I generally dislike any approach that is not truly merit based.

I also don't think it'll do anyone any good to stop thinking for themselves and rely on a display of "rank" instead. Experts can be wrong.
Everybody likes gadgets. Until they try to make them.
 
The following users thanked this post: MK14

Offline RoGeorge

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7012
  • Country: ro
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #179 on: February 17, 2022, 10:13:54 am »
Sounds like "Social score" pilot test for EEVblog.   :-DD




Joke aside, we are talking HR language here, "potentially help", "more confident", etc.

This could potentially help newbies or generally just anyone asking a question to perhaps be more confident in a technical answer if it comes from a designated "Expert" in that field. Help weed out the weat from the chaff so to speak.

I'm not aware of this being a problem on EEVblog, but maybe I didn't pay attention.  From my own memory, each time I was wrong, other more knowledgeable users corrected me almost instantly.  So again, what lost beginners are we talking about?

Can you, Dave, or maybe the proposer of the initial idea, please give 5-10 links to such threads where the beginner was lost, but a score or a badge would have helped the beginner?

Without some examples, we are just talking words.
 
The following users thanked this post: Gregg, MK14

Offline rpiloverbd

  • Regular Contributor
  • *
  • Posts: 157
  • Country: bd
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #180 on: February 17, 2022, 10:41:42 am »
Not bad.
 

Online Ranayna

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 986
  • Country: de
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #181 on: February 17, 2022, 10:52:09 am »
Well, off to go post cat pictures to get my counter up :D
Note to self: Get a cat first :P

As long as non technical posts can get thanks, this is a meaningless metric.
 
The following users thanked this post: MK14, HobGoblyn, magic

Offline madires

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 8276
  • Country: de
  • A qualified hobbyist ;)
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #182 on: February 17, 2022, 11:00:39 am »
Please let users think for themselves and develop their own opinion about who might be an expert, troll or whatever. Posh badges would only hurt this forum's great community.
 
The following users thanked this post: ledtester, MK14

Offline magic

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7453
  • Country: pl
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #183 on: February 17, 2022, 11:17:50 am »
Many forums display similar counters so maybe it's not completely crazy.

But it triggers me that it doesn't follow the post count immediately and appears below the country flag :scared:

And it should be one of
Code: [Select]
Thanked 1049 times
Thanked: 1049
Thanks received: 1049
Thanks: 1049
And so on. As is, that colon just ruins it.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2022, 11:22:29 am by magic »
 

Online jpanhalt

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 4003
  • Country: us
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #184 on: February 17, 2022, 12:22:53 pm »
IIRC there is an option for the Thanks system where it displays under the username. I think we turned that one on once and it was voted off the island!



Maybe it's time to vote if off again?
 

Offline RoGeorge

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7012
  • Country: ro
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #185 on: February 17, 2022, 12:23:45 pm »
But I don't want a thanks counter attached in my avatar box.

@Dave, @EEVblog, why are we doing this?  Only a few posts above you wrote attaching the Thanks counter was rejected, yet I see since today the thanks counter is displayed.

Is somebody forcing you to make such changes?

What's all this bullshit about "protecting the beginners"?  Who came with this request?  Where are any links with proof of damage to beginner?

What is happening here?

Online Zero999

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 20360
  • Country: gb
  • 0999
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #186 on: February 17, 2022, 12:42:10 pm »
But I don't want a thanks counter attached in my avatar box.

@Dave, @EEVblog, why are we doing this?  Only a few posts above you wrote attaching the Thanks counter was rejected, yet I see since today the thanks counter is displayed.

Is somebody forcing you to make such changes?

What's all this bullshit about "protecting the beginners"?  Who came with this request?  Where are any links with proof of damage to beginner?

What is happening here?
Well it's Dave's forum and he can jolly well do what the hell he likes.

I admit, I'm not a fan of the thanks counter either, but if Dave wants it, then so be it.
 

Offline RoGeorge

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7012
  • Country: ro
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #187 on: February 17, 2022, 01:45:42 pm »
If that were to be Dave's wish/idea, I wouldn't argue against, but it is not his, the idea was induced to him.

Dave just wrote showing the thanks counter was not liked and until yesterday, he respected users wish and didn't display that counter before.  Also, all this shitstorm is not coming from a Dave's idea, as written in the OP:
A forum user brought this up...

Am particularly sensitive to any attempts of social score, social stratification and alike scores, especially nowadays.  Social tagging is the next nightmare to humanity, and if you didn't noticed it already begun, look, random example from this week:

Later Edit:
------------
I've copy pasted a wrong video from youtube, my bad sorry, the one I meant to copy was this one, about the ESG Score (Environmental, Social, and Governance risk):  https://youtu.be/diVXYzN-X1k 

I don't want to add to social tagging on a place like EEVblog.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2022, 02:08:12 pm by RoGeorge »
 

Offline ogden

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 3731
  • Country: lv
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #188 on: February 17, 2022, 01:48:34 pm »
As long as non technical posts can get thanks, this is a meaningless metric.
As long as total number displayed-yes, perhaps meaningless. I was offering to display thanx number for particular area of expertise, together with total or not.
 

Offline Refrigerator

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1593
  • Country: lt
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #189 on: February 17, 2022, 01:52:15 pm »
Can't wait for my "Building projects that blow up multiple times expert" badge  :-DD

But if anyone wants to let others know how much of an expert they are they can just write it down in their forum signature.  :-/O
« Last Edit: February 17, 2022, 01:56:36 pm by Refrigerator »
I have a blog at http://brimmingideas.blogspot.com/ . Now less empty than ever before !
An expert of making MOSFETs explode.
 

Offline eugene

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 497
  • Country: us
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #190 on: February 17, 2022, 02:53:33 pm »
As long as non technical posts can get thanks, this is a meaningless metric.

If we don't see a user rank, but only the number of thanks received by a particular post, then the metric can be meaningful.
90% of quoted statistics are fictional
 

Online MK14

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 4987
  • Country: gb
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #191 on: February 17, 2022, 03:43:01 pm »
As regards the topic, Designated "Expert" Forum Users?

I think NOT having any significant expert rating system, is the best course of action. Getting perhaps three answers, from users with varying levels of experience/expertise, is useful, in my opinion. For beginners, intermediates and experts asking the questions, alike.

Hypothetical question (and answers are FICTIONAL): Why do MCUs need clocks, such as 48MHz ones ?

The intermediate user, can give a nice explanation of how baud rates need to be generated, how interrupt timing occur, and other practicalities.

A beginner themselves, can say they had the same query, and can recommend this very good internet link about it. Link supplied.

A top expert can say, well actually computers didn't always need to have clocks. There are asynchronous ways of implementing the central processing unit. But such designs rapidly became unpopular, and were soon mostly abandoned. Except for some very rare memory access systems, which benefited from the lack of need to have fixed access times.

So, the various levels of expertise, from total beginner (answering the question with links they found useful, and helpful youtube videos on the subject area), intermediate people chiming in, and the odd real top expert here and there. Can make an interesting, education and useful answer. Perhaps spanning a few forum pages.

Turning this forum into some kind of 'expert' only (for the best answers), or voting for the best answers, doesn't seem like a good idea to me. There have been some very interesting threads, created here in the past. I'm convinced, changing the personality of the forum, may change all that.

On the other hand. Sometimes new concepts do need to be at least tried out. Otherwise, this forum would still be (exaggerated fictional statement follow, for dramatic effect) text only, using a 110 baud dial-up, clip on phone handset modem unit, on a computer from the 1980s.
 
The following users thanked this post: HobGoblyn

Offline T3sl4co1l

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 22436
  • Country: us
  • Expert, Analog Electronics, PCB Layout, EMC
    • Seven Transistor Labs
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #192 on: February 17, 2022, 03:49:38 pm »
Going back to the notion of making things slightly (subtly?) more difficult --

What if the "thank" function were harder to use?  More information could be attached to it, for example:

"You wish to Thank this post. What did you like about it?"
Funny
Polite
Insightful
Technical
Well explained
etc.

Maybe even adding traditional 1-5 scores or something.

Those data wouldn't necessarily even need to be used anywhere, the point being just to give the thanker something to think about before clicking the button.  Obviously there's nothing forcing that to be the case every time -- but in the average case, people do tend to do what the thing says.

And so, it's no longer just a throwaway action, it at the very least demands enough attention to click through these things, and it can be that the answer is only accepted once enough options have been filled out.  Even if one clicks through mindlessly, that can be correlated against e.g. per-user stats (low-value thankers get in a habit of ticking all 5's or what have you?), per-post or thread stats (is a post/thread just consistently bad -- in constructive ways? or is it being brigaded? Or, conversely, is a post/thread consistently good and perhaps worthy of automatic labeling as such?), and this provides a statistical mechanism to infer experts: those that are frequently reviewed, positively, in technical subjects (it could further be clustered by topic), by users that frequently give quality (high entropy?) reviews.  Thus, the scientific method of consensus, but formalized algorithmically, independent of users' egos (hopefully).

Obvious downside: someone has to add those columns to the database, and write and run the evaluation. (Which might run incrementally per post, or be totalized periodically, and whatever cache awareness / synchronicity has to go with that, etc.)  So, unless someone's already written a plugin to this effect, doubt it's going to happen here.  And the value functions aren't the most obvious, and would require testing many variations to arrive at the most useful stats.

And then, Idunno, if it ends up written as an SMF plugin kind of thing, could that be sold in turn as a package to other customers?  Maybe there's a value proposition in there.  Maybe the value isn't anywhere close to what is needed to justify that amount of work (some months of development at least, I would guess?).

As for honest indicators, real financial barriers tend to be representative.  Something of the neoliberal dream, put your money where your mouth is, quite literally.  This might resemble for example Reddit's awards system.  Which is generally not very highly rated as I understand it; but clearly, not so poorly that people don't use it.  And, again, whatever financial liabilities the site would have to undertake to manage that.  Maybe there are ways that e.g. Paypal can streamline such interactions, maybe there's just too much work to do (including international transactions!) that it's only ever feasible for the biggest players (i.e. Reddit themselves).

Tim
« Last Edit: February 17, 2022, 03:52:10 pm by T3sl4co1l »
Seven Transistor Labs, LLC
Electronic design, from concept to prototype.
Bringing a project to life?  Send me a message!
 
The following users thanked this post: SeanB, MK14

Online MK14

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 4987
  • Country: gb
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #193 on: February 17, 2022, 03:59:10 pm »
"You wish to Thank this post. What did you like about it?"
Funny  1/5
Polite 4/5
Insightful 5/5
Technical 3/5
Well explained 5/5
etc. -2/5

See post above.

EDIT: Sorry. But I think it would be a real pain to fill out information like that, for every 'thank' issued.
The fact you just have to spend a couple of seconds to just click it, makes it VERY convenient.
It's just that a few members here click the thank button way too frequently.
(I'm trying to NOT overuse the thank button, but do seem to supply quite a few).

For example, ebay have quite a few fields like above, to fill out, for sellers you have just dealt with. It is a bit of a chore to fill it all out. Having the same chore, just for other peoples forums posts, seems like a bind to me, even if you liked and want to thank their post.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2022, 04:11:40 pm by MK14 »
 

Offline rstofer

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 9964
  • Country: us
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #194 on: February 17, 2022, 04:13:24 pm »
Going back to the notion of making things slightly (subtly?) more difficult --

What if the "thank" function were harder to use?  More information could be attached to it, for example:

"You wish to Thank this post. What did you like about it?"
Funny
Polite
Insightful
Technical
Well explained
etc.

Maybe even adding traditional 1-5 scores or something.


And now you have placed quite a burden on someone who just wants to thank someone.  Now they have to score it, mentally justify it or, more likely, walk away.  Somebody better keep a tally of the 'Entire Board Thanks Per Day' over time.  I'll bet it goes way down!

No, I'm not a fan!  Probably because I have no particular skills and stand in awe of those who do but nevertheless...
 
The following users thanked this post: tom66, MK14

Offline tom66

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 7334
  • Country: gb
  • Electronics Hobbyist & FPGA/Embedded Systems EE
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #195 on: February 17, 2022, 04:17:28 pm »
Hey, at least we don't have a way to buy "thanks" points.
 

Offline bdunham7

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 8175
  • Country: us
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #196 on: February 17, 2022, 04:17:38 pm »
I admit, I'm not a fan of the thanks counter either, but if Dave wants it, then so be it.

It's making me a bit queasy....I hope it goes away.
A 3.5 digit 4.5 digit 5 digit 5.5 digit 6.5 digit 7.5 digit DMM is good enough for most people.
 
The following users thanked this post: jpanhalt

Online MK14

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 4987
  • Country: gb
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #197 on: February 17, 2022, 04:27:24 pm »
It's making me a bit queasy....I hope it goes away.

Maybe the thanks system and/or displaying it, on all forum screens. Should be a selectable option(s), that can be enabled or disabled. Under user preferences. Then whoever wants to can just opt out of the thanks system and other possible future changes/additions.
 

Online jpanhalt

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 4003
  • Country: us
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #198 on: February 17, 2022, 04:31:02 pm »

Maybe even adding traditional 1-5 scores or something.

Why?  Before making any change there should be a reason for it, and the advantages weighed against the disadvantages.  I outlined some of the disadvantages in my first post on this topic.  I see no advantage in a score or even keeping track of thanks.  Maybe you do.
 
The following users thanked this post: MK14, HobGoblyn

Offline T3sl4co1l

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 22436
  • Country: us
  • Expert, Analog Electronics, PCB Layout, EMC
    • Seven Transistor Labs
Re: Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
« Reply #199 on: February 17, 2022, 04:44:49 pm »
To clarify, I don't expect much, or care very strongly, about such a feature (see my first comment in this thread).  Just speculating on methods that might be useful, given one is interested in adding such in the first place.

This is, more or less, motivated in relation to the one social stat we currently have, so I'm rather abusing the nature of it above.  It would certainly be renamed to something more meaningful -- "Review this post", say.

In which case, we could still have the "Thanks" function, and not even worry about tallying counts per user, because -- as we already know -- it's not a very meaningful/useful signal at all, more just an acknowledgement that people appreciate something about some posts.  It's useful under a given post, and not really beyond that.

So, given a prompt of, "that, but usefuller", that's kind of my angle on this.  Speculative, brainstormy, nothing should be read as "it will be precisely this way and no other".  I mean, hell, I'm pretty fucking far from having any kind of authority to implement such a thing, come on. ;D

...Speaking of "reviews", there's also the "report this post" function.  Which as far as I know, is nothing more than PMing a mod.  Having some built-in statistics could save some mod effort (assuming they need the assistance -- which as far as I know, hasn't been any kind of issue).  Another way to think of it is, providing more of a sliding scale from "praise" to "meh" to "factually incorrect" to "actually spam, mods pls".  Maybe there's value in the proportionality of the rating?

Idunno.  Again, I'm just an electrical engineer, not a social one. ;D

Tim
Seven Transistor Labs, LLC
Electronic design, from concept to prototype.
Bringing a project to life?  Send me a message!
 


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf