149

Qualified experts of Lemmy, do people believe you when you answer questions in your field? (lemmy.world)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by essell@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

184 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The internet has made a lot of people armchair experts happy to offer their perspective with a degree of certainty, without doing the work to identify gaps in their knowledge. Often the mark of genuine expertise is knowing the limitations of your knowledge.

This isn't a social media thing exclusively of course, I've met it in the real world too.

When I worked as a repair technician, members of the public would ask me for my diagnosis of faults and then debate them with me.

I've dedicated the second half of my life to understanding people and how they work, in this field it's even worse because everyone has opinions on that topic!

And yet my friend who has a physics PhD doesn't endure people explaining why his theories about battery tech are incorrect because of an article they read or an anecdote from someone's past.

So I'm curious, do some fields experience this more than others?

If you have a field of expertise do you find people love to debate you without taking into account the gulf of awareness, skills and knowledge?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 14 points 7 months ago

I kinda feel like a fraud with all the experts here, but I work in CGI and am quite active on some forums to help out people with their technical issues. The vast majority of people are good willed and are either happy to use a solution I -or someone else- provided, or respectfully dissatisfied with the efficiency of said solution. Which is fine because sometimes there aren't solutions, only workarounds.

But once in a while... there's gonna be a guy... and it's always a dude, of course- there's gonna be a guy who just demands a solution to a problem he doesn't even care to explain fully. And he weaves into his question a bunch of unfounded attacks towards the developers of the software in question, which he didn't pay for, because it's free and opensource. And more often than not, he will not try the proposed solutions, instead questioning 1.your legitimacy and proficiency 2.your understanding of his issue 3.your very presence on these forums, etc It's crazy. When it starts to look like one of these, I don't bother going in anymore.

[-] essell@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

I hope one day when countries start passing laws banning children from the internet or smartphones, it includes the people like this

[-] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 3 points 7 months ago

"Article 7 : (...) are therefore prohibited to surf the web : children, man-children, and people who are generally a huge pain in the ass"

[-] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 4 points 7 months ago

Those are always funny to read after the fact. The whole post and replies of him digging himself deeper into the shit, while people try to help at first, but then bury his ass for being so difficult and stubborn.

[-] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 3 points 7 months ago

Absolutely exactly

this post was submitted on 16 May 2024

149 points (96.3% liked)

Ask Lemmy

27281 readers

1374 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

6) No US Politics.

Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.