Screwfix item reviews..

[kevnurse]

From my perspective, as an experienced DIYer, if advice isn't challenged or contradicted within a day or so, it can be assumed to be reasonably acceptable advice. Therefore, it doesn't matter what the advisor's history is. Like all online forms of this nature, the reader has to make a judgment on the quality of the information presented. However...

I would suggest, if a contributor is highly qualified and experienced, that he should use his own name within the forum of his speciality. Put your reputation where your mouth is. Specialist consultants are named in newspapers and on TV, so why is the web any different?

Happy New Year
Regards

Kevin Nurse

 

[gcol]

...if advice isn't challenged or contradicted within a day or so, it can be assumed to be reasonably acceptable advice.

That's a bold statement. There are plenty of posts that go unanswered for various reasons - it could be that the OP has asked too many questions and to reply would take a long time; or it could be that the question asked is so unusual that no one seems to know the answer. It wouldn't be too far a stretch of the possible that a post would only have one reply and it be an incorrect one. If we had a system in place that could instantly show that a poster has given a degree of good advice in the past then surely that could only be a good thing?
I'm not suggesting that after a post has been replied to that the OP should take the first piece of advice given by a poster with a good amount of feedback; just that they know that that person has given plenty of valuable advice previously. Think of it a bit like a product rating on Amazon.

I would suggest, if a contributor is highly qualified and experienced, that he should use his own name within the forum of his speciality.

You wouldn't get many members doing that Kev. And if you did, that wouldn't tell you much. I've read plenty of rubbish on certain pages on here by professionals. (Professional in the sense that they gain an income by their "profession".) Of course, if you had a system that would show that a poster had a history of dishing out good advice then that's a different matter.

Why can't we adopt something that's utilised on other forums? What harm could it do?