I love the Staff Reports; they constitute a fair amount of the value of this place to me. If you don’t like them, don’t read them. If you don’t trust Cecil (and Ed) to vet experts, why read anything here?
Wikipedia and the wiki research model are excelent projects, but they aren’t the be-all-and-end-all of internet research models. I think having a variety of models to meet various needs is necessary. If the SDSAB disappeared the Internet–and certainly this site–would be much poorer for it.
Don’t forget one hell of a lurker! 
Seriously though, that’s impressive. Hats off.
What are you talking about? First off, there most certainly are requirements to become an SDSAB member–you can’t just walk in off the street and start writing Staff Reports. Ed Zotti undoubtedly scrutinizes a candidate’s initial efforts–he almost certainly does a fair degree of fact checking, particularly at the outset. If your writing is sloppy, your research is shoddy and your facts are dubious then you will surely get the boot. Furthermore, what does my post have to do with the price of rice and why are you rolling your eyes at me? I didn’t deliberately misspell your name. Twice.
So do the Staff Reports. Why no respect for them?
It carries as much weight as you let it carry. Judge a poster by his words, not his title. (Except when moderators are moderating, of course.)
Well I understand why you say that. What I actually was doing was speaking to contrapunctual and saying literally quod erat demonstrandum – a piece of his post argument made mine. That was a dumbass thing to do, try and be funny/hip in a thread I started where the cr^p was sure to fly and I was on the 5 yard line with you anyway. The eye-roll was at me for the lameness & not you. I re-apologized to you at the end and do it again.
Are you really saying though that it doesn’t matter, at all, when you read a paper if the person has I dunno, say 150 peer-reviewed articles in particle physics and semiconductor metrology vs. the guy just whipped something up on his Dell? Really?
The whole basis of publish or perish would be upset if the world thought like that. I would just submit that isn’t really how the world works.
A. Thats alot of maybe’s i.e. almost certainly’s*, undoubtedly*‘s and *will surely’ *s that I’ve never heard spelled out by anyone at the SDMB
B. I thought retired Administrators carried the Title? Is that not true? Might they not be cool folks who helped out in the early days who are now “Science” advisors?
Look you don’t say this Q.E.D. that but rather than start another post on this:
If the board won’t do away with this all together for whatever reason, I want to be clear that am not asking to remove the mask of anonymity from the SDSAB. I am saying:
**
USER NAME: Male, Phd. In Electrical Engineering, taught EE at the University level 5 years, Private Industry EE 15 years**.
Why is that so shocking?
Out of curiosity, why is gender so high on your list of important facts to know that you put it first? What difference does it make to the credentials of SDSAB members?
Ah, misunderstanding then. No worries, and apology accepted. 
Well, that’s an extreme example, but to follow it through, if the first guy wrote an article citing no sources at all, and the second guy wrote one with meticulous methodology and citation, yeah, I’d go with the second guy.
Admittedly, I am not well versed in the “whole basis of publish or perish.” Does reputation count more than how well constructed the paper is? If so, I see no great loss in having it upset.
Where did you get from my post that someone “just whipped something up on his Dell?” I don’t believe I said anything like that, and it speaks ill of you to imply that I did.
One aspect of both Cecil’s columns and Staff Reports are that they are focused on general readership, not on a specialized audience. Take some of Bricker’s articles on some legal quirk – sure, you could find the peer-reviewed articles in law journals, but they’re written in legalese, in technical jargon, for a specialized readership. I find Wikipedia often has the same problem, articles are written for an academic audience. Staff Reports are often aimed at making complex issues accessible and understandable to the average (educated and intelligent) reader.
And, Staff Reports often tackle questions where the answer is too long for Cecil to handle in a column. Cecil’s columns have a fixed, limited amount of space. Staff Reports can be longer.
We’re also not usually looking at original research here. Your particle physicist writing a peer-reviewed paper is doing original research. Neither Cecil nor Staff do that, except on fairly rare occasions.
While most members of the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board do have impressive credentials, they’re not really relevant. I have a Ph.D. in mathematics, for instance, but what’s that got to do with my research on why does water make the Wicked Witch of the West melt? While we each tend to have a specialty, the main criteria for membership in the SDSAB are (1) ability to do thorough research in a variety of areas, (2) ability to write well, and (3) ability to convey complex ideas in a simple, straightforward, non-academic manner.
When I went to school, undoubtedly and will surely meant “you betcher sweet ass.” Do these words and phrases mean something different to you?
I am not understanding this at all. Cecil is a fictious name of a non existent person with no known credentials other than being self titled world’s smartest man. But you have no problem with that. “He” doesn’t even answer (mostly) any questions about his columns in the forum dedicated to questions about his column.
And yet you have a problem with columns that are written by real people (with fake names of course) that we interact with daily. People who show their work. Who are available to answer to any questions you have in the forum set up for that purpose and who will defend any arguments directly. No we don’t have an eye black expert. We have people who write well. Who research well. And who are willing to do it for free. Sure the information is out there somewhere on the internet or the library. The columns are there so I don’t have to do the research on eye black or whatever. I don’t understand your problem with it.
If you have a problem with the science in SDSAB, I always thought it was tongue in cheek. Most of the columns have nothing to do with science.
And an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.
Out of curiosity, why would think the order of his list is all that important? Desperate for a battle of the sexes, are you?
I guess it should be remembered that Cecil/Ed Zotti is not an expert in anything. He’s just a researcher, and in fact sometimes in the old days he used to go on usenet and for answers to questions.
So Q.E.D., you seem familiar with the vetting process so I’ll spell out my question: why was Ms.Robyn given SDSAB status but not EddyTeddyFreddy? Both produced 2 articles that Ed signed off on with, as I remember it, at least one of them not getting a “fair degree of fact checking”. It seems to me that someone with a suspicious mind might think that the SDSAB might be given out for less than noble, e.g. clique-y, reasons.
But the Math PhD came in handy for the calculations you made for Who’s richer, Bill Gates or Scrooge McDuck?, right?
I really couldn’t tell you; I’m not privy to the decision-making process. I only know what I’ve been told about the process both from things Ed or Dex have told me directly and from things they have posted from time to time. The person to ask would be Ed himself; I don’t know if he’d give you an answer but I doubt he’d be annoyed with you for asking.
My two cents’ worth (or 75 satang at the current exchange rate): Keep the staff reports, please.
Well, if Ed happens by I’d appreciate his reply.
I see where jimmmy is coming from but personally, I don’t think there is any reason to get rid of the staff reports but I think they should take it down a notch. Don’t give anyone any special, or at least permanent, title and just give a free year subscription for every couple reports you write. For me, it just seems kind of screwy that someone wrote a research paper or two 3 years ago and they are still going around as an SDSAB. Similarly, I agree with a change to a “Moderator Emeritus” type title for former mods. It’s sort of lazy tossing them in the same user group as staff writers.
A little bio may occasionally be useful when introducing the Staff writer, depending on the subject.
Our internal rule is that you’re supposed to write one staff report per year to retain your SDSAB status. We’ve been lax about enforcing that - in looking through the list I notice we’ve got people on there who haven’t written for us in years. It’s likely we’ll be trimming some names soon, including most of the mod alums. I agree it confuses matters to lump them all together. Be that as it may, the SDSAB has made some wonderful contributions, and we have every intention of retaining staff reports for as long as we can find talented people willing to write them.