The Role of "Experts" on diyAudio ( split from Cap thread)

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Re: Re: Re: Competent software users

Kuei Yang Wang said:
"Those who think they know it all really p...s of those of us who do...."

Ah yes, but those who really know it all, and not just think they
do, usually also know that they do, in fact, not know it all at all.

My wisdom is rather that the more you learn about a subject,
the more you know how little you actually know about it.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Competent software users

Koinichiwa,

Christer said:


Ah yes, but those who really know it all, and not just think they
do, usually also know that they do, in fact, not know it all at all.

Exactly....


Christer said:
Pinkmouse,

I started a new thread in the Digital forum for the digital
discussion, since Kuei didn't do as you ordered :)


Ahhm, sorry for that, but I was typing my reply and was assembling the zip file and all whilke pinkmouse posted his "no more -96db Dynamic Range CD Myth discussion...." post.

I suspect if we took a Terminator 2000 and send it back in time to terminate the person who felt the need to bring this old chestnut up again and to again present extensively this persons wrong argumentation and continue this argumentation in the light of much posted evidence then all of this would have never happened.... Or perhaps if that person had a little more of the least common of all senses....

Sayonara
 
diyAudio Retiree
Joined 2002
My initial impressions

"My wisdom is rather that the more you learn about a subject,
the more you know how little you actually know about it."

Yes, and when you actually learn SomEthing from a reputable SourcE you SEe how little "Some Experts" know about it.

Unfortunately Some Experts SEem to think it their task to "teach" othErS things they don't undErStand themSElves. I don't SEe much of this as a quEStion of credibility as much as recognizing the SElf-dEdeluSional. No one will Ever Straighten him out, but keeping othErS from being confuSEd by him SEems to require an large amount of effort better devoted to actually disscussing uSEful imformation. Of courSE I won't mention any namES.
 
Re: My initial impressions

Fred Dieckmann said:
"My wisdom is rather that the more you learn about a subject,
the more you know how little you actually know about it."

Yes, and when you actually learn SomEthing from a reputable SourcE you SEe how little "Some Experts" know about it.

Unfortunately Some Experts SEem to think it their task to "teach" othErS things they don't understand themselves. I don't SEe much of this as a quEStion of credibility as much as recognizing the SElf-dEdeluSional. No one will Ever Straighten him out, but keeping othErS from being confuSEd by him SEems to require an amount of effort better devoted to actually disscussing uSEful imformation. Of courSE I won't mention namES.

Well I do agree, in a sense, and I expect myself to be amongst
the people you are aiming at, not entirely unfair from your point
of view
, I admit.

However, you do miss an important point. This
is not a forum where a number of experts have signed up to
answer questions from other people. It would be wondeful to
have such a forum, but I suspect these experts would expect
some kind of favour in return, like money. Rather, this is a
forum where the majority of members neither are nor are
expected to be professionel EEs or professionally involved in
audio. If you are an EE and work professionaly with audio, like
Jonathan Carr for instance, you are, by definition, not a DIYer.
However, since most of us value the input of such people they are more than welcome as members anyway.

OK, so let's
assume we agree that only those who really really know what
they are talking about are allowed to answer questions. What
do you think would happen? Of course, there would be a number
of people who answer without really knowing, either because
they honestly but falsely believe to know, or because they
want to fool themselves or others that they do know. How do we
tell these people apart from those who do know? Sometimes
nobody really knows, which is why there is still science going
on in a number of universities, research labs and peoples homes.

For simplicity, count out those who answer without knowing.
Then I think it is a safe bet that a very small percentage of
questions would be answered. Even if there were people who
could answer all of them, why would they spend so much time
and effort on this task? So we are left with what we have in so
many other cases, for instance the usual situation at most
peoples work, namely an interactive community of people on
different, and often not comparable, levels where most people
honestly want to give something back in return for all the
answers they get to their own questions. People try to help
to the best of their knowledge, which sometimes go wrong.
However, one benefit of this is that instead of leaving the
job of answering questions to a few select members (who are
to select them?) the job is shared by everybody and
the "experts" can save time by answering only those questions they find interesting and otherwise just skim through other peoples answers to the "trivial" questions and jump in and
say "STOP" when the answer is wrong. Furthermore, trying
to explain something to somebody else is often a very good
way to clear your own thoughts. When trying to explain, you
have to think a bit deeper than you have maybe done before,
and if your explanation is wrong, because you had misunderstood
the concept, there is a good chance somebody will tell you you
were wrong, in which case you have learnt something yourself.
(I do, however, myself admit to having tried to answer questions
prematurely, without the proper dose of contemplation before,
at occasions.)

Further, you talk about credibility. Well, the problem is that the
people you consider credible may not fully coincide with those
I consider credible, so we really have no common set of credible
persons on the forum, I am afraid.

Oh no, this seems to be turning into another "novel" of mine,
so I'd better stop here, but as they say "a picture says more
than a thousand words", so I guess this is still shorter than
most of your posts Fred. :)
 
Re: Re: My initial impressions

Koinichiwa,

Christer said:

However, you do miss an important point. This
is not a forum where a number of experts have signed up to
answer questions from other people.

Expect such as proclaim themselves as such, on the strength of being VP Marketing (or some such - I cannot ever remember who is VP of what where - I'm way to V to bother with VP's or even VIP's) for some outfit ot the other....

Now if I constantly criticise other people views (in fact, if I seem to have to have nothing better do than that and if I on the slightest drop of the hat pull the most ancient, moldy and several time covered all over chestnuts out, simply because I figure I'll "score" a quick "win"), then I cannot POSSIBLY complain if people expect me to have my fact absolutely right and to be able to provide proof.

And it is that what is the point here.

You can only have a discussion if you actually exchange views. If platitudes, tautologies, trueisms or worse complete chemically pure horse excrement are being presented as fact and explanation and no matter WHAT kind of actual research, experimentation etc. is being presented, the same old guff is being spouted continously, then you do not have a discussion, you do not have even an argument, you have contradicton on the level of:

TF: I am right. Argument #536

LZX: No, you are not right and here is why.

TF: I am right. Argument #563

LZX: No, you are still not right and here is why.

TF: I am right. Argument #548

LZX: No, you have not grasped the essence and here is why.

TF: I am right. Argument #536

And so on.

It reminds me very much of the Monty Python Argument Skit, but my quota of Monty Python Skit Scrip postings per thread (2) is full....

Christer said:

If you are an EE and work professionaly with audio, like
Jonathan Carr for instance, you are, by definition, not a DIYer.
However, since most of us value the input of such people they are more than welcome as members anyway.

So, what are you if you are an EE, Computer Science (Business Information Systems in modern parlance) degreed guy who worked in industrial, military and audio electronics all across the board from design to servicing, if you have been working as sound engineer (studio & live) as well as as DJ, if you have run clubs and companies installing sound & light, worked in PA rental, webdesign and Network management and currently make your bread by running finanacial computer systems and occasionally design and build Audio, plus occasionally review commercial gear?

I mean apart from scizophrenic.....

Christer said:

OK, so let's assume we agree that only those who really really know what they are talking about are allowed to answer questions.

It is less the what, it is the how.

Christer said:

For simplicity, count out those who answer without knowing.

Which excludes all these self proclaimed experts who would failed EE101 with flying colours....

Christer said:

Then I think it is a safe bet that a very small percentage of
questions would be answered.

And the amount of utter nonsense and chemically pure horse excrements would also be massively reduced, the S/N ratio would start approaching at least dictation tape and we might get somewhere. Nah, that's too easy.

Sayonara
 
Re: Re: Re: My initial impressions

Kuei Yang Wang said:
And the amount of utter nonsense and chemically pure horse excrements would also be massively reduced, the S/N ratio would start approaching at least dictation tape and we might get somewhere. Nah, that's too easy.


Except, as I said, the very large majority of questions would go
unanswered, and those would be the questions from people
who are not and do not pretend to be experts but who want
to learn more or just get some help to build an amplifier or
whatever. The only discussions would be those that the
group of "experts" find interesting and it would all turn into
an exclusive discussion club for these "experts".

BTW, it is interesting to see that the previously so "vivid"
discussion on back-to-back caps has almost come to a standstill
after somebody, in this case yours truly, happend to sit down
and actually read one of the papers we were supposed to
already have read, and then tried to use a number of facts
from this, supposedly credible publication, in to steer up the
discussion. Or maybe it is just a coincidence?
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: My initial impressions

Koinichiwa,

Christer said:
Except, as I said, the very large majority of questions would go
unanswered,

Do really propose that getting a misleading or completely wrong answer to a question is preferable to "I don't know" or "I don't have time to answer now"?

Sayonara
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: My initial impressions

Kuei Yang Wang said:
Koinichiwa,



Do really propose that getting a misleading or completely wrong answer to a question is preferable to "I don't know" or "I don't have time to answer now"?

Sayonara


No, of course not. But instead of getting no answer at all in 99%
of the cases, people now try to answer, critisize each others
answers and discuss the matter, often coming to, if not a clear
answer, at least a better understanding of the problem. Further,
if a question gets the wrong answer and the above process does
not happen, then in most cases somebody who does know the
answer but didn't want to/were to lazy to/were to busy to/...
answer it in the first place will usually jump in and point out
that the answer is wrong. Most of them do it politely and also
provide the correct answer, others prefer to tell how incompetent
these other people are without even trying to demonstrate
whether they actually know the answer themselves.

Furthermore, how do you know if you get the right answer?
If you get no answer at all, you are safe, since you have with
100% certainty not got the wrong answer. If you get an answer,
you can never be 100% sure it is correct, and very often there
isn't even one single correct answer, but several equally correct
answers, perhaps neither of which tell the whole truth by
themselves. Myself, I prefer to get many answers, or rather,
answers from many people. Then I can try to analyze what they
say and how they motivate their answers etc. and then try
to form my own opinion on which, if any, of these people to
believe.
 
Re: My initial impressions

Fred Dieckmann said:
"My wisdom is rather that the more you learn about a subject,
the more you know how little you actually know about it."

Yes, and when you actually learn SomEthing from a reputable SourcE you SEe how little "Some Experts" know about it.

Unfortunately Some Experts SEem to think it their task to "teach" othErS things they don't undErStand themSElves. I don't SEe much of this as a quEStion of credibility as much as recognizing the SElf-dEdeluSional. No one will Ever Straighten him out, but keeping othErS from being confuSEd by him SEems to require an large amount of effort better devoted to actually disscussing uSEful imformation. Of courSE I won't mention any namES.

I must be really tired today. I thought it was unusually sloppy
typing from you, but when I happened to look back I suddenly
discovered the pattern. :)
 
Ex-Moderator
Joined 2003
What's the point?

I'm unclear as to the point (and direction) of this thread. If audio "experts" were truly experts then the whole untidy mess would have been well and truly sorted out, and the whole discussion would have stopped dead in the 70s with Quad's rather entertaining advertisements concerning electrons falling about laughing.

Surely, the value of this forum is to air views that can be criticised by engineers, who will then be called upon to defend their criticisms...
 
Re: What's the point?

EC8010 said:
I'm unclear as to the point (and direction) of this thread. If audio "experts" were truly experts then the whole untidy mess would have been well and truly sorted out, and the whole discussion would have stopped dead in the 70s with Quad's rather entertaining advertisements concerning electrons falling about laughing.

Surely, the value of this forum is to air views that can be criticised by engineers, who will then be called upon to defend their criticisms...

The point of the thread was to lift out a discussion from another
thread, since it went too much off-topic. I agree the moderator
choose a somewhat unfortunate name for the thread.
 
diyAudio Retiree
Joined 2002
I am not an expert but I play one on the web

" How do we tell these people apart from those who do know?" You don't that's why people who don't know what the are talking about post so frequently and so many others believe them. It's a problem in many areas of life. The real experts generally don't bother to post in forums such as these. I wonder why? the next best thing one can hope for is someone with the intellectual honesty to try and share what the have learned based on years of work and not there enthusiams for arguing. Some who is willing to point to references that with more knowledge on the subject than they profess to have is a good sign. To parphrase a famous saying the stupid we have with us always.

How many really rely on the forum for the final and complete word on any topic in audio? God help you if that is the case......
 
Re: I am not an expert but I play one on the web

Fred Dieckmann said:

How many really rely on the forum for the final and complete word on any topic in audio? God help you if that is the case......

I am afraid many do, in fact, and that is a general problem
for the internat on the whole. That is why, as I previously
said, it is good if a question get answers from many people.
Then one can weigh these answers against each other,
see what the arguments are, check references when given,
and then try to form ones own opinion. Some will be confused
by getting several inconsistent answers, but hopefully they
will then at least realize that maybe their question dosen't
have a clear simple answer they can apply immediately.
Many will get dissapointed, or even angry, others will be
spurred to try learning more about the subject.

Jonathan Carr recently posted in another thread his
suggestions for how to become a good audio designer.
One of these were (maybe not literally) "question everything".
 
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