General > General Technical Chat

Designated "Expert" Forum Users?

(1/98) > >>

EEVblog:
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.
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 think it's an interesting idea in principle.
It's possible in the SMF forum software to have additional categories that where members can be allocated into groups which shows up under their username, just like we currently have for Frequent Contributor, Supporter etc.

Of course the posible problems are obvious:

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".

2) Being an expert in one area does not make you an expert in another area, and that's certainly the case when it comes down to something that it's just personal opinion. So maybe some avenue for possible abuse here? Although if it's just a label and the Expert was given no extra moderator power in the forum then maybe that's moot. But I could imagine some getting the label and then it going to their head somehow.

3) It could lead to infighting about who gets the tag, "they aren't worthy of it any more, see this post" etc.

You probably couldn't have just "Expert" on it's own of course, that's kind meaningless, it would have to specific like "Analog Expert" etc.

Anyway, thoughts please...

ataradov:
I can see a lot of fighting on what constitutes "an expert". Many things have multiple fundamental approaches (scientific rigor vs engineering winging it). Both are valid in some cases, and an a theoretical expert's opinion may override a more practical approach for a given situation.

I see it going better the other way - marking people that just rant and don't contribute anything of substance or conspiracy nuts. It is a less positive "badge", so exposing it publicly may be controversial too.

amyk:
Where's the "I like it, but only if I can be one" choice? :P

More seriously, I usually pay less attention to who posted something, than what they posted. From that perspective, emphasising the former wouldn't be a good idea.

(I think you're missing a "not" in your second problem.)

Cerebus:
Hmm. Generally I don't feel very easy about it.

Some random thoughts. Note that this is not a thought-out analysis, but just some things that immediately come to mind.

Who decides who is 'expert' or not? If the expertise is narrow enough there may not even be anyone else around who has sufficient relevant expertise to act as a confirmatory "Yup, he's an expert" or a "Nope, he's a fool".

There's a little too much possibility for self-promotion here too. An observation I've made is that anyone who chooses a user name that includes words like "export", "wizard", "master", academic titles, and other such like terms is usually (but not infallibly always) a walking talking example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. i.e. Knows enough to be dangerous and over-confident in their own abilities, but actually has at best half a clue. So self nomination is right out in my book.

But if people are nominated by others then there's a risk that they may not want that nomination. That would need handling carefully to avoid all round embarrassment.

Also it could push a lot of work in the direction of nominated 'experts'. I don't think I particularly stand out from the crowd as one of the 'go to' guys but I already get the odd PM out of the blue from other forum users along the lines of "I saw you'd written several times about X and I've got a related problem Y, can you help". Generally if I can I do, but the requests are few and far between. Now if, god forbid, I got the tag of "Go to man for turbo-encabulator expertise" I can imagine that the PMs might flow thick and fast. It needs some thought about how to handle this to prevent people ending up with a part-time unpaid consultancy gig. It's one thing to chirp up in a topic if you're in the mood and have useful expertise to impart, and if you're not in the mood you can just pass. It's not quite so easy if you've got a personal appeal for help sitting in your PMs.

ataradov:
An another issue would be karma farming that a lot of people can't resist for some reason. It risks to turn into stack overflow situation.

I personally don't want to be in any special groups like this.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

There was an error while thanking
Thanking...
Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod