Posted by Adam on August 30, 2000, at 13:18:30
In reply to Re: credentials, posted by Dr. Bob on August 27, 2000, at 14:37:38
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> It's tricky.
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Yes, I suppose it is.> "Convincing" I guess is in the eye of the beholder. On the one hand, I think to some extent posts can stand on their own and readers can judge for themselves what to make of them. Especially if they're from a regular poster. And at the top of the main page, I do link to some information on the quality of information:
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> http://www.dr-bob.org/quality.html
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> which I hope increases awareness of the issues. From this perspective, good information is good information, and credentials are secondary. Someone could not have credentials and provide good information, or someone could have credentials and provide bad information.
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Which makes the whole issue all the more discouraging. We are advised to give the words of non-experts a giant chunk of salt, but we cannot assume a certified expert should get our full confidence, it would seem. I suppose credentials plus pointers to various accolades might be a confidence booster, but since we are unlikely to get either, much less an anonymous expert poster of some sort, one still may be stuck doing a lot of research on their own, often without knowing quite where to look or how to begin. I guess I'm somewhat of a malcontent at times, but I just feel like things oughtta be better, and it probably wouldn't be that hard to make improvements (not referring to this site). But, again, I'm no expert ;).> The problem with someone simply saying they have certain credentials is that they might not. Though it would be easy just to accept what they say, it could be risky, too. To me, to be convincing, credentials would need to be verifiable, and to be verifiable, the person's identity would be necessary.
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> I think if someone says they *don't* have certain credentials, however, there's less risk in just accepting that, and that does clarify the situation.
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> BobGood advice. Thanks!
poster:Adam
thread:42703
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000822/msgs/44089.html