# Encouraging expertise **URL:** \ **Category:** Community Building\ **Created:** [February 16, 2021, 11:29pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/encouraging-expertise/179961 "2021-02-16T23:29:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 4
**Author:** ![Mevo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/mevo/32/187732_2.png) [@Mevo](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mevo)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2021, 2:13am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/encouraging-expertise/179961/4 "2021-02-17T02:13:00Z")
@sujato The real question is: What is it exactly you want to achieve? Not annoy the expert? Not annoy the readers? Hide all the “stupidity” of the world? (who decides what’s “stupid” and what isn’t? Who are the “real experts”, and who aren’t? etc.). You’re putting forward “encouraging expertise” in the title: I’m not convinced any of this will “encourage” anything. Not discourage, maybe. I’m not even really sure of this. From an expert POV, is it better to have more participation, with what comes along with it, or less, because it’s highly curated? (You also raise the potential answering to “lower quality” posts privately. Here, it really feels as some “hiding”, more than anything else). > [@sujato](#): > > No-one wants to study a subject for decades, only to be told at length how you’re wrong by Random Internet Person #274 If you want to remain with only other experts, this seems to be a call for a closed topic or category. With “expertise” checked at the door (with all the potential problems to do it). Now, from my POV, a really good expert wouldn’t have much problem with being told he’s wrong by anyone. As an expert, you consider what’s told, and if you’re 100% confident you’re right, being told you’re wrong isn’t that big of a deal. Where the real expertise shows (along with some other skills) is to be able to demonstrate clearly and an easy to understand way, why you are right. Not because you’re a labelled “expert”, but because you can demonstrate it, explain it, and make it understand to pretty much anyone (of good faith and intentions. Things which may lack a little from some people these days, that’s true). > **If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.** -Albert Einstein. If it’s a “quantity” problem: The solution seems one closed category or topic where only the expert(s) and some “moderators” are allowed. Another category or topic where all the questions/comments are made by anyone. The “moderators” choose and pick the comments and questions to pass to the other category (manual curating). [Note: @simon describes a “one category” system, but you could easily do it on a “2 categories” basis]. It is also some kind of “I, the expert, am so above you all, you can’t address me directly because a lot of you are not clever enough compared to me”. It has some kind of maybe unlikable aspect to it. Maybe the experts should remain between themselves then. **Mixing (experts/non experts), or not mixing, that is the question. Maybe it’s best to decide to do one or the other, and do it all the way.** --- _[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/encouraging-expertise/179961)._