There were a number of assertions made by moderators in the ongoing pitting of GED. It brought to the surface a whole host of issues that I am/was just a bit uncomfortable with. So far I think the outcomes have been healthy for the board & I invite you to discuss it further with me here.
I guess first I would point out that by views and posts Comments on Staff Reports (COSR) is by far the lowest use forum (after the new 3 week old Game forum) and I think there are a number of reasons for this. The biggest is that an anonymous science advisory board writing reports on the internet is a preposterous idea in 2008. It is not something that we would do designing the Board today. [this is meant as an illustrative example and not a pitting] We are told by no less an eminence than **Colbri **that GED has “specialized knowledge” who contributes “100 times more” than Squink. How on earth do we know that? How do we know that the SDSAB aren’t a bunch of flim-flam (wo)men who conned the Reader or Ed Zotti or were the brother-in-law of a Mod and now, with a degree in English from Elon, are writing Staff Report treatises on bridge failure?
Isn’t the whole purpose of this message board to have a place for like-minded people to discuss the Straight Dope Column and Cecil. Then, to have a General Questions forum where the Internet does what it does best – democratically throw up all the information up there and let the GQ process - which is unique and works well- to vet out the crazy or erroneous information. This happens to me all the time Truly it happens to everyone because no one, no matter how much they want to pretend they do, knows everything about anything. This works & I would suggest it is a collaborative format with the same benefits but that works much better than a traditional wiki .
Why screw with this process by having people credentialed as super secret “specialized knowledge experts” when there is no way to determine their expertise, level of experience or (in most cases) whether they are even specially qualified to comment on the issue at hand? Bluntly I think this is something built for 1999 before the wiki, on-line collaborative culture was accepted in the Medical, Technological, & Intelligence communities as an important research tool.
I know this may end up in the Pit or be taken personally by the SDSAB members and I am sorry about that – some of them have been nice to me and helped me/taught me stuff. I just think it is time to drop all the non-Moderator titles (necessary to monitor behavior and keep discussion on-track) and throw the anything in the mailbag that Cecil isn’t going to answer in the Column to General Questions where the answers will end up by and large being more accurate and complete anyway. Failing that I would respectfully suggest that there needs to be a sticky in COSR that says for each SDSAB member:
F.Dos.Rondi :** Male, Phd. In Electrical Engineering, taught EE at the University level 5 years, Private Industry EE 15 years.** Then we could usefully use what they put out, knowing that this was a person who knows their stuff regarding EE issues but, without a cite and speaking ex cathedra on Napoleon this SDSAB really IS the functional equivalent of Squink weighing in.
**Colibri ** specifically said “Q.E.D. does have a great deal of specialized knowledge that he contributes to the board. He does far more than just Google. While I agree that Q.E.D. would be better off being politer when he responds, he’s worth 100 times more than an ass like you.” in response to Hostile Dialect
The Game Forum already has 38,600 posts, compared to only 17,532 for Staff Reports (as of around 2:14PM EST) However, some of those posts are from older threads with hundreds of posts that started in MPSIMS.
Okay, nitpicks out of the way.
Many of the SDMB have helped in researching for Cecil. I know at least **Una ** has been specifically mentioned. I see nothing wrong with the **SDSAB ** title and I think the expansion of it to **Straight Dope Science Advisory Board ** should clarify things for those that got confused.
The Staff reports are still interesting and good reading. The detail that the staff writers go into, generally exceed what comes out in GQ and they go into good detail on the footnotes, which is rare in GQ.
I guess I am saying, that I don’t think the SDSAB should be retired.
The problem here is that you are asking them to basically give up free content. While some of the articles really aren’t much more use than a quick Google search, they still allow the SD front page to have something new to read every day. That’s a draw for certain internet addicts, like say the poster above me.
Thanks What Exit re Hostile Festus. I apologize Squink.
I phrased the least used bit it that way because I thought as soon as I said the COSR was the least used forum (as I originally had it) someone would say But there are less Threads in the Game room but I see your point - I overstated.
As to the footnotes - sometimes but certainly not always. Further in GQ we should always be asking for a ‘Cite’. I find that it moderates itself pretty well on that score
re helping Cecil we rarely know what that means - he always credits some expert - he never says I know this based on being Cecil - but I spoke to What Exit about life in Jersey. To some extent that happens in COSR but not always usually they are speaking as SMEs. But even then, I guess I wonder why they can’t do that in GQ, rather than posting all over the Board on many different subjects with a Title that should mean nothing - but clearly does carry weight.
I get you Carnal K. If that is it, that it is free labor, then why not provide the paying membership a way to discriminate the information that is being passed out by people the board has given Official Titles by giving a broad big picture CV of who these folks are.
Sorry **Czarcasm **I thought about ATMB and the Pit & wasn’t sure, looks like I made the wrong call!
Guilty as charged as a good point on the free content.
Sorry for the nitpicks, I just thought if I did them in a neutral manner, they could not be thrown in your face later as irrelevancies. That and I thought Squink should not have his name dragged in by mistake.
Actually, I like your points about the SDSABs having their credentials listed somewhere, but I also see where that would quite probably eliminate their anonymous status. As it is, I probably know too much about someone like **Bricker ** and if he provided any more information, it would be easy to figure out who he was for those that might have ill intent. I don’t know if it is fair to ask them to write for free and provide a bio. I imagine that would reduce the pool of volunteers even further.
I saw mention that retired moderators also get the SDSAB title, it seems to me they should have a separate title instead, probably Moderator Emeritus.
I agree but I always assumed it was this way because Jerry was leery of adding another user group for fear of crashing the servers.
I also wonder how they choose whom to leave a “guest contributer”/ordinary poster and who gets the impressive title and free membership for life. I can think of 2 long time members that have both written 2 articles, with all the articles requiring a fairly low level of expertise, and one got the payoff and the other didn’t.
If you think throwing all questions into GQ and expecting more accurate and complete answers, at least without wading through hundreds of joke posts and just stupid misinformation, then you need to actually read some General Questions threads.
samclem Male, BS in Chemistry, taught Chemistry and worked in an industrial lab for a total of six years, and who knows nothing about Chemistry today. But, who writes articles on etymology, and knows a bit about it, but tries to learn even more every day.
[sub]Also, in real life, I’m a dog, but have written some reports as a SDSAB member. [/sub]
I know you are mostly joking, but an extra user group would add no appreciable overhead even to the SDMB database. I believe that is the real issue now anyway is just the tired old database on a tired old version of vBulletin (Version 3.0.7)
At this point the key to improving performance I think is only tied to allocating time to migrate the currect DB to the newest version of vBulletin. I think I also just wandered off topic. Sorry.
You’re kidding, right? The whole board started as a by-blow of the Cecil Adam’s “Straight Dope” newspaper column. An anonymous column written under a fictitious name.
While it’s obvious to many readers that I have past professional experience and education in law, how would knowing that help you discern the accuracy of my reports on eye black for athletes, Che Guevera, telephone exchanges, or gambling odds for blackjack?
We’re encouraged, as SDSAB authors, to NOT be “one-trick ponies” in the areas in which we author reports. I’ll admit that I have difficult time leaving my comfort zone, which is why you’ll find a fair number of legal-themed reports from me… but it’s not anywhere close to 100%.
The key elements for SDSAB do not necessarily include professional expertise in the subject area of every column. Mad writing skillz and decent research ability is of more importance; nothing in my “eye black” report came from personal knowledge. I list my sources at the end of the report for that reason.
What, a Ph.D. in Biochem, and a hefty pharmaceutical patent portfolio isn’t enough to suit you?
Colibri’s “100 times more than” comment was a reference to Hostile Dialect.
I merely had some fun with it.
SDSAB is a useful category, although Bricker should really be part of the SDLAB- if there were such a thing.
It might be better to create a seperate SDAB category for the non-sciencey contributors.
I am absolutely sure that that would happen. There are scores of research papers written on the subject. Maybe the GQ mods could tighten up on the jokes?
It would tell me that unless you source your works on on eye black for athletes, Che Guevera, telephone exchanges, or gambling odds for blackjack that you really have no special expertise in that area. Doesn’t mean you are wrong or don’t know what you are talking about - but it does say Lawyer writing about gambling odds vs. Phd. mathematician writing about gambling odds.
I hope you don’t take that personally - but it seems to me a no brainer that if the SDMB is going to dish out honorary titles and claim to be a fairly hard science accurate board - the paying membership has a right to know what stands behind the titles.
I know - but he is a guy with a Newspaper column in a real live newspaper not someone with a “witty” name on a MB and he almost always sources - I really respect that.
Further, really to my point what I am saying is that we are in a situation where a fictitious man has a no-rules-to-be-a-member “Science” Advisory Board - that carries special weight and weighs in on all types of topics. QED ( :rolleyes: ) your post makes my case that is crazy.
I have yet to see Staff Report where sources were not cited. What difference does anonymity make? If I read a research paper, I am interested in the content and how it is supported, not who wrote it.
**Karen Lingel, PhD, Physics. ** Sixteen years research experience at four US National Laboratories. Ten years experience in semiconductor metrology. Co-author of over 150 peer-reviewed articles in particle physics and semiconductor metrology. Photographer of over 200 pictures of icebergs.
Truly it happens to everyone because no one, no matter how much they want to pretend they do, knows everything about anything. This works & I would suggest it is a collaborative format with the same benefits but that works much better than a traditional wiki .