Timeline for Who are the experts? Not us. We've grown a philosophical bezoar - let's work this through!
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
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| Jun 18, 2020 at 8:28 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
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| Apr 24, 2017 at 12:02 | comment | added | Buffer Over Read | @Gallifryean Checked the community wiki checkbox by accident on the old one. Cannot be reversed, I think, so I made a newer one. | |
| Apr 24, 2017 at 11:04 | comment | added | Gallifreyan | Why did you post two answers and deleted one? It seems to me you could've just undeleted the old one. | |
| Apr 24, 2017 at 2:34 | comment | added | Buffer Over Read | @Hamlet If I said I read some book, does that make me an instant expert on it? No. Answers are ideally given by those qualified enough to answer. The identity of the answerer doesn't matter insofar that you should not upvote based alone on the identity of the answerer, not that any random person can answer anything he wishes to answer. | |
| Apr 23, 2017 at 17:59 | comment | added | user111 | The philosophy of Stack Exchange is that the identity of the answer shouldn't matter; the only thing that should matter is the quality of the answer. Anyone theoretically can answer a question; the important thing is whether their answer is a good one. I say "anyone who read the book" because if you read the book, then presumably if you have an opinion on how to answer a question, you can support that opinion with evidence from the book. | |
| Apr 23, 2017 at 17:57 | comment | added | user111 | that's not true: detailed literary analysis questions have been successfully asked and answered many times on this site. Probably the best "literary analysis" answer we've gotten so far is here: literature.stackexchange.com/a/1854/111. Again, I'm not even sure if being a "site for academics" is a useful goal to have for the site. I think a far better goal is to is to be a place to discuss how to interpret/understand works of literature. | |
| Apr 23, 2017 at 17:53 | comment | added | user111 | I personally think of the site as a place to ask questions about how to understand literature. This can be simple fact-based questions (did [character x] murder [character y]), or it can be more complex analysis questions. As to who is welcome to participate in these questions: in my opinion, anyone who has read the piece of literature asked about. One of the strengths of this site is that it allows for multiple perspectives/interpretations of the same passage. | |
| Apr 23, 2017 at 17:50 | comment | added | user111 | Also, if someone writes an incorrect answer, it should be downvoted and called out in the comments. The identity of the person writing the answer, whether they identify as an "enthusiast" or an "academic", shouldn't change that. Of course, in practice incorrect answers get upvoted, which might be where not having people formally trained in the study of literature hinders the success of the site. | |
| Apr 23, 2017 at 17:46 | comment | added | user111 | However, I don't like the word "enthusiast". It can mean very different things. Different enthusiasts have different goals. One enthusiast might just be interested in reading books and nothing else, another enthusiast might enjoy reading academic-level-analysis of books, even though they have no formal training in literature. So for this answer to be useful, you have to at least define who you mean by "enthusiasts." | |
| Apr 23, 2017 at 17:44 | comment | added | user111 | I don't think we should explicitly have a goal of attracting academics to the site. For one thing, we don't have any academics right now, and it's hard to attract people if people like them aren't there in the first place. | |
| Apr 23, 2017 at 17:15 | history | answered | Buffer Over Read | CC BY-SA 3.0 |