2 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Announcement: New Rules, Guidelines and Flair System
I love this sub and people here patiently clarified many things for me, so I really hope this doesn't sound confrontational, and I absolutely don't question that the vast majority of people who are flaired here are very knowledgeable. But I wondered about the same thing in /r/askscience and similar subs:
Are 'flairs' really worth a whole lot if mods don't ask for any proof whatsoever because of privacy concerns?
/u/ADefiniteDescription (thanks for your work) said:
The panelist tags are not for you to show off your knowledge. They are, as stated in the post above, for readers' use to figure out how much weight they should give your testimony (amongst other types of evidence of course).
I don't really understand how that works if flairs are based on what a user says on the internet about his/her own level of education. I believe that /r/askscience asks users to point to a high-quality post of theirs. But it seems if I read a couple of books and papers on a very specific topic, I might give a high-quality answer but I probably shouldn't be able to effectively label myself a PhD by saying I'm a PhD. I just don't see how I can determine how much weight to give to a post, if that's decided by the user who wrote the post him or herself, via saying 'I'm a...'. Seems quite circular, in the same way everybody who writes an answer probably thinks it's the right and appropriate answer.
Again, I hope that doesn't sound rude, just asking for clarification and to give some feedback.
Comment by TychoCelchuuu at 06/11/2018 at 14:15 UTC
3 upvotes, 2 direct replies
It's relatively hard to convince people that, say, you have a PhD in the subject unless you consistently give answers of the quality one would expect from someone who has a PhD in the subject. My impression is that flairs are not awarded for life: they can be taken away if there's reason to believe someone lied. And it's not easy to keep up a lie.