Please have some panelists

[Siddu]

Dear Moderator,

Is it possible for you to have/nominate some expert panelists on this forum.  What I have noticed is - anybody answers anything.  This leads to confusion regarding authenticity and reliability of the answers to the queries.  If you have panelists then questions can be directed to concerned expert panelists only. We too can rest assured that answers are coming from responsible and reliable persons.  This way the forum can be made more meaningful I guess. 

I dont intend to say other  members of the lislinks should not express their views. But that should only be done as an opinion; not as an authentic answer. It is therefore better if queries are answered by expert reliable and authoritative panelists only.

[Dr. Badan Barman]

Dear Veeresh,

Yes. But you also consider it other ways. If that information would be available in print format, it would have take years to know the truth. Since wikipedia is an open and available for all, so the mistake was detected much earlier. :-)

[Veeresh Hiremath]

Yes you are right.  But the issue here is not about the format - print or electronic.  It is about the dangers of such open platforms devoid of proper moderation.  Anyone and every one can produce and publish articles in wikipedia.  This is what happens in such a scenario. Had there been a proper control and had it been produced by an expert or an authority, the mistake would not have happened in the first place at all!

 

[Dr. Badan Barman]

Dear Veeresh, Are we heading towards wrong direction? Both Wikipedia and LIS Links goes through moderation. LIS Links would never have been at the present position without moderation. We constantly receive approx 6-10 spam post in a day, and we weeded them out periodically.

See the growth of the sites that are open for all... facebook, wikipedia, twitter, lislinks? and compare it with the sites that are managed by experts (scholarperdia and others). All open sites have some kind of moderation in place and always receive and sometime pose problem, but they are evolving.

[Veeresh Hiremath]

Dear Barman,

We both are heading in the right direction but the difference lies in our perception/definition of the term “Moderation”.  Moderation I guess is a much more proactive activity than stopping the junk or the spam.  What I say is - posts should be pre-reviewed by experts (for inaccuracies, inconsistencies, fallacies etc) before they appear on the forum and not post reviewed by peers or subordinates (or by experts even for that matter) as is happening now.  Because by then the damage will already have been done.  Prevention is always better than cure!

E.SUTHANTHIRA DEVI says “. if anyone give wrong answers professionals who watch this discussion will suggest their opinion”.  This will always not be possible for several reasons – may be for oversight or for the fear that it may result in pitched battles (win/lose ego battles) which has happened with several posts if you have watched them carefully.

Further Siddhartha sir says:  ”Had the war episode appeared in LIS Link, I am sure it would have taken less than 12 hours to modify it!!”.  I don’t know what is the underlying reason for such a hypothetical assumption because Wikipedia is much much bigger with millions of users transcending language, national and geographical borders than our LIS LINKS with (10-11 thousands members). This is just a wishful thinking.

I certainly agree with him on the difficulty of finding competent panelists but there definitely should be a way out of this. We should not simply take this as an excuse for the present impasse to continue.

Coming back to your point on the growth of all open sites Wikipedia, Facebook , twitter etc. I have already cited an example of Wikipedia.  Don’t forget the mass exodus of North-easterners from Bangalore , Hyderabad and other parts of the country thanks to Facebook and twitter!!

If these sites are moderated you claim, then I would say we need much more better moderation than is in place. Or, if you say such dangers are essentially inherent with such open sites and thus should be ignored looking at the potential for quick growth of these sites then please think again!

Let us not in our hurry to harness the tangible benefits of these open culture forget the intangible harms they bring along.  Let not the effectiveness of our site (LISLINKS) be defined by the confusion multiplied by the number of members but by the maturity distilled by the reviewers we have on our panel!

If you don’t agree then let us agree to disagree.

That’s it.

[Dr. Badan Barman]

Further Siddhartha sir says:  ”Had the war episode appeared in LIS Link, I am sure it would have taken less than 12 hours to modify it!!”.  I don’t know what is the underlying reason for such a hypothetical assumption because Wikipedia is much much bigger with millions of users transcending language, national and geographical borders than our LIS LINKS with (10-11 thousands members). This is just a wishful thinking.

12 hours! We used to make correction within an hour, unless my cell phone, or dongle is out of order! I think people who contacted LIS Links are aware of it. In every two hour, LIS Links receive one spam attack, but if you go through LIS Links at any time, you will hardly notice any spam post. This is as because of the activeness of our members. I dont know about wikipedia underlying policy, but we know ourselves.

I certainly agree with him on the difficulty of finding competent panelists but there definitely should be a way out of this. We should not simply take this as an excuse for the present impasse.

There is no problem in finding out a list of panelists, but it will quite delay the appearance of information over web. Further we used to always moderate the content of Primary post (but we cannot moderate the replies). If we used to moderate the replies, it will be a huge burden. I hope nobody would like to take so much burden of remaining online in most of the days and nights. Even at this moment we cannot pay for such an activity and hire a person to do that, though we are making a little bit profit. We plan to spend the profit in different kinds of awards and promotion.

[Siddhartha Shankar Ray]

Dear Sri Veeresh Hiremath,

Thanks for your post.

I too have seen the Wikipedia matter. Here , as I personally feel about the difference (of wikipedia) with LIS Link is that the instant supply of several information. Once a post appears, suggestions/comments often rush in. Had the war episode appeared in LIS Link, I am sure it would have taken less than 12 hours to modify it!! Nevertheless, selection of panelists is a tough and complex matter as I see about it. What should be the Criteria? This issue is extremely debatable. Some will say that people  who earned Doctorate are competent by virtue of their Degrees. However, you will probably agree with me that knowledge & Degrees does not necessarily match always. None of my teachers in Library science were Doctorates when they taught us.But they were so rich in knowledge and wisdom!!

Pradon me for writing it, I am in no way, trying to demean their hard earned degrees, but we witnessed posts from many of our colleagues in this forum who are Doctorates but when one goes through their post it is often observed that many of them are rather uncomfortable to express themselves in English! and, above all, their ways of expressions to clarify things/issues are quite clumsy!! On the other hand I observed many youngsters so rich in knowledge and so well structured & compact to explain issues that I often get confused how could they explain complex things so easily!!

Last but not the least, the forum with its unique feature of openness, encourage people & especially those who are not so expressive to come forward freely and openly to pen their feelings out. By this way, they develop an extremely important art; the art of writing!! as a library professional this has a far reaching effect. A couple of weeks ago, one of my friends sent me a CD with a note congratulating me for the LIS Link Scholar Award 2012. When i played the CD, I was extremely surprised to listen to it as it was recorded more than a decade and a half ago in Japan when I first presented my paper in an International Conference abroad!! I admit that in my speech emotions were more than convincing contexts! But there is no denying that it gave me enormous courage and confidence to write and speak in various forums in later years. As such, I personally feel that let this forum be in its present form.

With Regards,

Siddhartha S. Ray, Calcutta

[Mithun Raj]

Dear Siddu,

Consider LIS links as social networking site for LIS professional like facebook. This is a platform to convey ones opinion or information. We should not expect it to be an authentic source for information. 

Traditional media is still out there to bring authentic/ verified information in distilled form, but they are unable to handle the rush of information from various sources. Best example can be the Times of India report on Supreme court order on NET. As our friend Badan has pointed out moderation, censoring and dictating doesn't go well with the culture for Internet particularly social media. In social media, we let the free flow of thoughts/info and the traditional role of editor has to be done by each of us. 

Ya, new users might find it difficult, but I am sure they will learn it in course of time. One thing I always keep in mind, while reading comments is to cross check the info with original or other sources. You also might have seen our friends asking for source of information in this forum. And overtime one will be able to spot some authentic members, whose words can be almost taken for granted (like Siddhartha Shankar Ray) 

Compared to moderated LIS forum, what I like here is the active member community. Though you may come across numerous spelling/grammer/conceptual mistakes, it is heartening to see that so many young members from all over India are actively participating in discussions despite all language barriers. Let us don't stop that energy with gates of moderation. :)

With regards,

Mithun

[Siddu]

Dear Mithun,

You hit the nail right on its head.  This is precisely what I was trying to say.  You need to have people as panelists whose words you can take for granted, whose guidance you can rely on. "moderation, censoring and dictating doesn't go well with the culture for Internet particularly social media" - this I agree.  But do not ignore the perils on account of ignoring/diluting them. 

What I was implying was - replies by common LISlinks members be refrred to suitable experts, let they be checked for correctness and then be allowed on the forum. 

Exposing members to incorrect/unvalidated information and asking members to check for the validity of the information for themselves is something which does not augur well for our community as a whole. Why cant there be a centralised system where the accuracies of the facts and figures are verified before they are fed to everybody.  This may delay the process but atleast we can remain assured of the correctness of the facts and figures.

This is my honest opinion and I do not intend to score any points over anybody.

[Siddu]

Disagreement on views is natural and perfectly acceptable as long as conveyed in a dignified and civilized way. In an exchange of ideas a proper response to an argument is a counter-argument.  Here I got to see both. Let us value the difference.

I thank all the participants of this brainstorming session.