What makes someone knowledgeable ? Do you need a qualification ?
No qualification needed but some evidence of knowledge required e.g. from someone nominating you or from external society etc. I ask the person if they would like the badge and if they would then they get it, some people say they would prefer not to have the badge and instead just show the ‘earned’ reputation from the normal reputation system.
You for example could have knowledgeable badge in almost every group if you want as people on iSpot widely recognise your expertise. Think I have asked you if you want these in the past but you have preferred not to have the badges, I could add them now if you want.
One of the reasons it is good to have these knowledgeable badges is that new people understand that the person giving the ID is widely recogised as having expertise. Of course this does not mean they will never get things ‘wrong’ especially as the groups on ispot are rather wide and a person may know about one part of the group but not about another e.g. I have a badge for the group fungi and lichens and I know quite a lot about fungi but not much about lichens.
Incidentally another practical reason for the given reputation, at least at the start of ispot, was to get the reputation system going as it can’t start working without at least some people with this given reputation. That is the origin of some of my badges and where I started off as an expert in birds but this was reduced once the system was going and people pointed out that my knowledge of birds was not up to the leve of an expert. One issue about being an expert or knowledgeable is that you tend to know the limits of your knowledge e.g. I do not offer identifications for most lichens as my expertise does not extend there and I have never been able to learn them despite trying.
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Thanks just interested in the process
No need for me to have knowledgeable badges as they carry no more weight than 5 icons, that’s my understanding anyway. There would be no advantage gained. Thanks for your time.
You don’t need the badges, Chris. We all know that you are very knowledgeable in many areas.
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One also learns with time that it’s better to add a comment rather than to ‘agree’ to an ID.
Sometimes, years later, when older and wiser, I think that my agreements might not be correct after all - and those agreements were used to influence the status of the other observer - is this still the same now?
You can test that theory easily (it IS the case)
Open an observation where you have an agreement, open that USERS reputation in another tab.
Remove and replace your agreement, it alters the score. You may need to refresh between tests.
I can say with some experience that you will not remove an icon (nor knowledgeable badge) in the process. BUT your original agreement did help award the status.
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