General > General Technical Chat
Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
wilfred:
I would have considered members such as Mikeselectricstuff, free_electron and Hamster_nz to give consistently well considered answers on a variety of topics. To me they are quite expert. One way to pick the "experts" is to note their lack of participation in the frequent forum bun-fights. And I'm quite sure others exist in good numbers who participate in discussions in topics of less interest to me.
It's not hard to pick who is worth listening to after a while. No-one needs to be labeled.
JohanH:
I don't think this is fair.
I'm an EE in my paid job and specialist in a certain area. I'm not paid to post on this forum. I'm just here for my hobby, which is another area that I can't consider myself a professional expert in.
If you bring up titles and professions here, it sounds like this is becoming some sort of professional support forum. What would the companies that you work for think about that? Feels awkward to me. If you are self-employed (or unemployed or retired) it is probably different.
Then it is another thing that the Internet has no lack of armchair-experts...
jpanhalt:
--- Quote from: EEVblog on February 15, 2022, 03:45:38 am ---Essentially, people could nominate and/or vote on who are known "Experts" in a particular field and give them an "Expert" designator tag. e.g. Analog Expert, Acoustics Expert 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.
--- End quote ---
Please don't do that. In my experience, it has ruined every forum that has adopted such practices. Look at All About Circuits (AAC). It used to have no rep in distinct contrast to ElectroTech Online (ETO), which not only had rep, but the amount of rep received was proportional to the amount of rep the giver had. Anyone remember ETO's green and red squares?
New ownership at AAC decided to add rep. It went downhill from there in terms of quality. At AAC, it's become a comedy contest. Those with the most "likes" (excepting moderators) post YT videos, FB cartoons, and are just plain silly. The number of likes has absolutely nothing to do with content. AAC even gives trophies . Yuck. One of the moderators, who was obviously aware of the demise of content and had experience at ETO, suggested adding a rule that only the original poster could give rep for responses in a thread. That might have helped, but was rejected. That was years ago.
ETO eventually stopped that original nonsense, which had become more destructive than helpful. There even seemed to be competitions to give a new poster the most red squares. After new ownership woke up, it doesn't even put rep ratings under a user's name in posts. Still, most "positive" ratings are for sarcasm, insults, and comedy.
Stackexchange has something similar to what is being suggested here where merit is judged by certain anointed members. That system has resulted in some very good and contributory members leaving. As an unintended consequence, the up/down grading of responses can even be hilarious. How will the judges be appointed? What difference will it make? Most important, will the risk of damage offset the advantages?
EDAboard has/had a very complex system of rep. Moderators had a lot of control. In practice, it was no better than any of the others and allowed moderators to go unbridled. Edaboard is now owned by the same group that owns ETO (or at least was). It seems also to have gone downhill.
Personally, I like the status quo here (EEVBlog). You have the ability to thank someone without filling up space with an otherwise empty response. Thanks are not emphasized. That is, you have to go to a posters profile to see them. I do like "thank" rather than "like." Most of all, please do not allow negative rep. That is more destructive than email fights.
EDIT: In no way is that comment meant to reflect on the moderators involved in those forums. I won't mention any names, but each of those forums has some superb moderators who always try to help posters. It is testament to their patience that they continue to work as hard as they do.
RoGeorge:
--- Quote from: EEVblog on February 15, 2022, 03:45:38 am ---A forum user brought this up and I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea.
Essentially, people could nominate and/or vote on who are known "Experts" in a particular field and give them an "Expert" designator tag. e.g. Analog Expert, Acoustics Expert etc.
...
--- End quote ---
- I find that one, nominating experts, one of the worsts ideas.
- Any explanation that starts with a filling/emphasizing word, like "Essentially", to me is an alarm indicator, but maybe I'm too paranoiac and here is not the a case of mind conditioning.
- 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.
Not everything can be voted upon. Voting is about the power of many taking over everything else, including taking over correctness or truth simply by numbers, and completely disconnected from reality. There is an old saying explaining why that is bad: "A million flies can't be wrong, eat shit."
The propaganda must be terrifyingly intense these days if people are now starting to think we should vote for everything, including scientific truth, or even engineering truth.
This is to me an example of brainwashing, just like any cult is completely mind-condition its followers into believing even the most absurd claims. Keep in mind brainwashing can be intended or unintended. No matter how it came to be, nobody is immune to it, including myself. This is not about being gullible. Even the smartest people can be changed.
Oh, and all the above is not about you Dave, I'm a big admirer of your work and achievements. It's about our world today. Internet made the repetition possible very cheaply. We, as humans, were not ready for such a sudden non stop exposure to connectivity.
It's about an issue happening as we speak, IMO. I don't know if it's happening by itself or as a driven attack, but to me it is clear that it's destroying the western world and it's values.
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This is how I think it works, told as a tale about training neural networks, where the neural network is the human brain. Our minds keeps changing/learning/adapting to whatever we are exposed, whether we want it or not. This feature of continuous learning (that can not be controlled by our own will) could also turn us into brainwashed zombies.
If people are repeated the same thing over and over, no matter if that thing is good or bad, people will start obsessing about it, and will eventually start acting as if it were true, and turn it into "social norm", or a "social fact". (See for example religion).
It's like in the old saying "Anything repeated 1000 times becomes truth". Could be a screaming lie, doesn't matter, still works, the lie will be believed in the end as a true fact. But I'd like to rephrase that in terms of neural networks (NN).
A neural network is carved by the predominant signals it is exposed to.
Sometimes called NN training, sometimes propaganda, or mind conditioning, or even brainwashing when the training is brutal and meant to kill the existing NN paths in order to replace them with some other desired drone behavior.
The only way to resist brainwashing and propaganda is to avoid its repetition and patterns. Even when fully aware, nobody can stay exposed to brainwashing and remain the same, or escape being annihilated. The only way to cope is to not get exposed. Either kill the brainwashing signal, or shield from it.
Same dog can be trained to guide, or to kill. Reality is irrelevant. Truth is irrelevant. Unless it strikes one dead in an instant. But usually it takes time until the reality and the truth catch up with the neural network mis-training. Meanwhile bad things and suffering may happen.
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TL;DR
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One can only vote for the laws of our society, but can not vote for the laws of physics, therefore voted "experts" is a bad idea.
PKTKS:
--- 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.... ::)
however.. some esoteric religions already had god nomination polls...
Paul
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