3 ms·

I personally find it hard to think of things that I'm an expert on, but have no connections to. I probably know more about the sources and articles about the un

by tibbon 16y ago

I personally find it hard to think of things that I'm an expert on, but have no connections to. I probably know more about the sources and articles about the university I attended better than I know or read about UC Davis for example. Also, since I have never been anywhere near UC Davis, I have little incentive to write on it. Could I take random articles and potentially find things to cite for them? Sure, but would they really be the best citations? That I'm unsure of. I'm not close to them and I'm not really qualified to write on them or choose sources. For example, if I wanted to write on Neuroanatomy, I could find plenty of citations, but they might be from shitty journals. But I don't know the difference between the good journals and the bad ones because I'm not in this field. It is entirely possible that I could write a very well cited article with plenty of citations that is complete bunk. Yet my girlfriend is working on her PhD in Neuroscience, so she would be much better qualified to write on it. Yet, she's perhaps too close to the subject?

powellc 16y ago
It's like quantum mechanics for information. You can know about something, but then you've likely gotten personally connected too. Keep your distance while trying to be informative and you just look like Terry Gross on Fresh Air: a pseudo-specialist who gets charmed by the likes of Brian Greene and the "multi-verse." God help us all if the multiverse wikipedia entry quotes Gross' interview with Greene and counts towards "notability."
_delirium 16y ago
How close is too close is a bit of a gray area, but a whole subject isn't really off-limits. I'm a computer scientist, for example, and write CS-related articles. But it's best practice for me not to write articles on algorithms or concepts I've personally invented, and ideally not those my advisor or other close associates have invented either. But something Knuth invented is fair game.

by tibbon 16y ago

powellc 16y ago

It's like quantum mechanics for information. You can know about something, but then you've likely gotten personally connected too. Keep your distance while trying to be informative and you just look like Terry Gross on Fresh Air: a pseudo-specialist who gets charmed by the likes of Brian Greene and the "multi-verse." God help us all if the multiverse wikipedia entry quotes Gross' interview with Greene and counts towards "notability."

_delirium 16y ago

How close is too close is a bit of a gray area, but a whole subject isn't really off-limits. I'm a computer scientist, for example, and write CS-related articles. But it's best practice for me not to write articles on algorithms or concepts I've personally invented, and ideally not those my advisor or other close associates have invented either. But something Knuth invented is fair game.