General > General Technical Chat
Designated "Expert" Forum Users?
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MK14:

--- 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 see this particular forum, as being a hobbyist, fun with electronics, but especially INFORMAL forum. Where many electronics people (as well as pure hobbyists) hang out.

Implementing the TITLES system, would in my mind change the personality of the forum. It could then end up falling between two stools. Too unprofessional to count as an official source and yet too formal, for people to leave casual/quick answers.

If someone needs professional electronics internet places, they already exist. I see this forum, as being a sort of half-way house between such places (but the professional ones can be too formal, difficult, inflexible, on-topic-only), and forums, where complete mayhem seems to exist (at least in some areas of such places, e.g. Open Political Discussions).
rstofer:
From the Topic OP's point of view, once an Expert replies to his query, the subject is closed.  Who will give a better response?  Auto close the thread?

From other respondents' point of view, once an Expert replies there is no reason to add content.  The Expert solution is now known.  All other solutions are of lesser value.

We could save all the titles and troubles by just limiting replies to Experts and skip over all the enthusiasts.

I left a forum where I had participated for many years when they changed the board to include the concept of "Trophy Points" and "Trophies" for the number of replies and, I believe, Likes.  That seemed rather juvenile for a very serious forum so I bailed.  I'm not in the business of gathering up trophies.

No, I'm not a fan of the Expert concept but it would shorten up a lot of threads.  Maybe that's a good thing, probably not.
MrMobodies:
I may look at a member's footer, see what they say, do some of my own research of my own to form my own conclusions and trust them that way.

I see many experts for all sorts of things on this board especially what they put on their footers.

What I wouldn't like to find are arguments between such people on who insists they are always right based on some nomination alone but I am sure expect they'll know better than that.

I was thinking what about having such people on a call in basis but then that might devalue other members here.
fourfathom:

--- Quote from: rstofer on February 15, 2022, 05:41:57 pm ---No, I'm not a fan of the Expert concept but it would shorten up a lot of threads.  Maybe that's a good thing, probably not.
--- End quote ---

Definitely not a good thing.  The OP is not the only audience for a thread.  I, for one, appreciate the follow-on questions, alternate approaches, and technical digressions that come from an extended discussion.  The thread dies when people are no longer interested in it.  This is a big reason why I hang out here, rather than on Stack Exchange.  EEVblog Forum is where we go for a good technical discussion, not to rack up ego-points.

FWFW, I still visit Stack Exchange when I have a specific programming or HDL question.  I do a Google search, and if Stack Exchange pops up I check it out.  But I have stopped actively answering questions there.
SiliconWizard:
I agree with pretty much all points made by Dave, in particular this one:

--- Quote ---1) It could be seen as an "appeal to authority" which is not how science/engineering is supposed to work. The best technical argument is supposed to "win".
--- End quote ---

Well, almost. Except that in many threads, there *isn't* just one answer that "wins". That's not how science works either, and engineering even less so. In many cases, there's a bunch of equally valid answers, given from different perspectives/requirements/constraints/... That's what makes a discussion "rich", but is also the only reasonable way of dealing with forum topics IMHO, as the OP's questions are often subject to interpretation, so judging there is only ONE valid answer would assume that the question is 100% unambiguously understood, which is rarely the case.

And then, that would just make it annoying for people not getting the 'expert' tag to answer, and that would probably drastically limit the discussions.

Whoever would get to vote for the status? Following the whole logic, experts should be voted by experts. Doesn't look like it would be practical. "Lambda" people voting for the status would be way slippery (as we can see with any kind of large-scale voting): would make it likely that the "loud ones" would get more votes, just like with any other vote.

Finally, that's also a bad idea in that it would give users asking questions the wrong idea about how to find information and how to learn.
That's unfortunately a trend, looking for the ultimate "truth" and for information ready for "immediate consumption".

If you want a taste of what it could look like, just go to Stackoverflow. If you think that's what a forum should be like, go right ahead! (But lets' not forget to make a difference between a purely independent and *free* forum, and a web site that is a commercial service with free but limited access.) So, just my 2 cents anyway.

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