Suggestion: Have academic flair for qualified users. PhD etc..
I think this idea strongly aligns with Tildes philosophy of promoting "quality content", what is more quality than knowing a poster is qualified to make their claims. It separates the pseudo-science from the science.
I understand it is perhaps a cumbersome process to verify qualifications but the reward in return for having verified experts validated is hard to overstate.
I propose the flair be global and not restricted to within a group(as opposed to reddit) because if we're certain the individual has credentials that still remains in effect when they comment across disciplines. It also removes redundancy and allows the individual more freedom to branch to other communities.
The idea being if someone has a PhD in math they can flair their name with something like "PhD: Math" per post if they wish. As this is a voluntary addition (not collection) of user-data I don't think it goes against Tildes philosophy.
Let's not. Just because someone has some letters behind their name doesn't mean they should be treated with more respect or that their opinion should weigh more outside of their field of specialty. If you're aiming to replicate /r/askscience, then it may make sense, but it shouldn't have anything to do with ~movies. There are also non-PhDs such as engineers, technicians, graduate students, nurses, etc who may be very knowledgeable but not have a fancy title.
There's also the issue of verification, which is inherently incompatible with anonymity. Even the acknowledgement that one has a PhD in a certain field can narrow down the number of possible people in the world quite a bit. Cross-check that with location and the person is nearly doxed. Some people wouldn't care. Some people who might have viewpoints out of the norm might. "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?"
Agreed on all points. As soon as you start flairing PhDs, you're inherently diminishing the viewpoints of doctoral candidates / grad students and professionals in the field, as well as PhDs in the field who want to remain anonymous (timely, given that there's a front-page discussion right now about why privacy is important).
I would also submit that flairing 'expert' posters promotes intellectual laziness on the part of users and could actually harm the goal of quality discussion; it may be more interesting and useful to have a conversation among 15 interested amateurs that goes on for hours with dozens of comments than to have that conversation cut short off the bat by a "correct" response to a prompt presented by a flaired expert.
As my fiance likes to say, she is probably the leading expert in the world on subject "xyz" , but is functionally illiterate on near everything else.
Now she can do research and get to an answer quicker than I can, but general knowledge she is not better than you or I
I wouldn't trust someone with a PhD in Biology, on a maths question based on their credentials. Which is why I said the poster could make their flair visible on their post if they wish(and if applicable).
It would and should be frowned upon to be flashing qualifications irrelevant to the topic.
I would not trust someone with a PhD in legal history of Mesopotamia to handle my FOSS licensing questions (and vice versa).
Agreed. Moreover, this practice may also diminish the viewpoints of people who have a fairly deep understanding of a field outside of their expertise. For example, if someone is a journalist but has extensive programming experience, it wouldn't necessarily make sense to devalue that person's comments on programming versus someone with a PhD in Computer Science.
I'm less inclined to agree with this argument, though context is important. While a conversation among amateurs may be more interesting or useful than a single expert comment, not using any flair would allow this behavior across the board, and in cases of highly contentious topics (cryptocurrency comes to mind), this may drown out the expert comment or even provide outright misinformation.
Honestly, highly contentious topics are where I'm most wary of expert flairs, though I'll add the caveat that we may be using slightly different definitions here and we may not actually disagree. To use an example that I don't think the majority of users would be particularly likely to fall for, imagine if there were a discussion about human-driven climate change and that one of 100 scientists in a relevant field who disputes the consensus of their peers happens to be the one user here with a PhD flair, and they start hammering people with that flair.
Again, in that context it doesn't sound too worrisome, because surely most people would see through it. But now imagine something similar where there's a deep division in the field, and a strong plurality of flaired users here happen to share the same viewpoint (accidentally or otherwise). Now we have a conversation that's being driven by a group of legitimate experts in their field who aren't necessarily representative of the breadth of thought on the subject. I can absolutely see a community starting to close out dissenting views shared by non-flaired users, even links to other research, based on the number of flaired experts denying the value of the opposing viewpoint.
I agree that this scenario would be a problem, though I suspect that such a lack of breadth would arise as a result of omission, rather than an active ignorance of part of a field. It would take a special kind of malicious behavior for an expert in their field to try to suppress the fact that part of a field is even under contention.
What I worry about is a situation in which non-experts voice an opinion that seems more reasonable than an expert in the field, thus crowding out the voice of reason. Because I've followed the cryptocurrency community over the past couple years, I've seen examples such as computer scientists and economists discuss cryptocurrency design from two different but well-principled viewpoints, only to have their voices drowned out by people who are in it for the hype and who don't understand either field well. At best, this scenario results in misinformation, and at worst, it can result in efforts to spread incorrect fact with malicious intent.
I agree with your first paragraph completely. It's unlikely that we would see an active attempt to suppress a portion of the research in a field, but it could definitely happen that the members of a field who are likely to join tildes happen to slant one way or another. Or, as in your crypto example, that only members of one field would join up and discuss a topic where multiple fields have input and varying opinions.
I'll admit that I don't pay much attention to crypto, so while your example makes sense it doesn't mean much to me beyond what's on the screen. I guess my stance is that I actively dislike having (edit: flaired) experts involved in the conversation because it can shut conversation down, and what I would rather see to combat what you describe (and any number of other unintentional ills) is for a culture to develop here where anything that's not purely an opinion is cited. I think that makes for better discussion all around, and adds more depth for after a discussion, when anyone who's interested has a head start for where to look for more information about a subject.
There’s also contextual and regional expertise. An experience teacher in the US has a lot of skills that can’t be transferred to the UK, never mind Thailand.
Sure their words don't hold more weight on everything they comment on, and even within their field not everything they comment on. But for specific questions within their field. It's on an appeal to authority, it's an appeal that this isn't someone just making up garbage or that this person isn't using pseudo-science. Anyone can make up facts, misquote, use pseudo-science etc.. but it's far less likely that someone within their field will do such.
I get the appeal of a level playing field but Tildes is aiming for 'quality content', I think this in effect embodies it.
Except if someone is watching interstellar and they ask a physics question and they get someone with PhD in physics reply they probably know they're not talking out their ass and that it's not going to end with "about tree-fiddy".
That's true, there's nothing saying they can't verify themselves as well. Not that they're compelled to.
Well of course, anyone verifying their identity is going to be overly cautious what they say with that username. It's likely that those people are only going to make safe/professional comments using the verified account, probably posting with an alt-account if they don't want their identity tied to it.
I agree. Plenty of people with advanced degrees are completely ignorant outside of their area of expertise.
Knowing eveything there is to know about the mating habits of left handed mosquitos in southwestern Portugal doesn't mean you automatically are trustworthy on any other topic.
I have mentioned lobste.rs and their "hats" before which I think is a really great idea that is well executed. I definitely think at some point in the future if/when ~ has the resources and manpower to do so, having a similar mechanic here could be pretty awesome as it would allow experts in their fields to identify themselves when talking about something they are intimately familiar with.
I'm unfamiliar with lobste.rs, how are the hats determined, and who gives the hats to users? Does the admin(s) do it themselves?
It could be interesting to see something like this eventually worked into the trust system, as some sort of special title awarded based on their earned trust and proven credentials.
Well given that I have mistakenly assumed things and put my foot in my mouth in regards to lobste.rs once already I will refrain from definitively saying anything, but I would assume they are admin verified (although they have nothing about the process on their wiki that I can see). But you could always ask @pushcx who is the lobste.rs sysop. :)
Can I get a flair for my Graduate Diploma in IT? :)
What if I have a Certificate 1 in Food Handling? What about my high school graduation certificate? What about my First Aid Certificate?
Why are these things relevant to my discussions here on Tildes about topics like whether a baker should be allowed to refuse to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple or whether Willy Wonka should be played by a black actor?
Because lord I hope the topics have more depth than those.
You think a discussion about a Supreme Court's decision regarding discrimination is not an in-depth topic? You think a discussion about minority representation in mainstream entertainment is not an in-depth topic?
Wow.
I withdraw my previous statement, sorry half asleep, read somthing-something bakery.
Though I don't really care if a black actor plays Willy Wonka, there wasn't anything about Willy Wonkas character that tied him to being white. Unless they try to hamfist black culture into it, that's kind of altering the character fundamentally though movie makers can do as they please.
I think that more generally having flags bound to users+group is something that we should have.
That I'm a Software Engineer yada yada it's irrelevant in ~music probably, but can be useful in ~comp.
This needs to be a verified statement of course, how, I don't know unfortunately. Things like a PhD are easy to verify with a certificate picture or link etc. Anything else... eh... there are "software engineers" and "Software Engineers" unfortunately.
I'd be okay with this in a less-official capacity. Like a community-given flair for someone who is known for giving good answers in the history of banana cultivation sounds GREAT to me. If their expertise in that field comes from having a related degree, having that be in the content of the flair makes plenty of sense. These users shouldn't be immune from criticism / disagreement, of course, but I fully believe that who someone is is a worthwhile part of their contributions. I like community tools that allow conversations to skip past the basics if they want to. In a lot of ways, in-depth conversations are held back by questioning even generally accepted foundational ideas, which you see happening a lot on Reddit. While obviously banning that questioning would do more harm than good, having someone who can cut through and firmly establish those foundational ideas can help a lot. It gets iffy because you don't want "look who I am" dick swinging either, but imo it's worth trying to find a balance.
Though I would be a little more uncomfortable if it worked so that a new user could prove they have a degree and immediately have that flair. While that context can be important, I would like to see people at least contribute using that expertise before they have it stuck onto them.
Is trust going to be global or per community? As if it has a community component then I'd think that would sort of achieve the same thing.