Talk:Experts Exchange/Archive 1

Expert Sex Change
How about some mention about when it used to be at expertsexchange.com and brought hilarity/confusion to many?

---

I get the impression that this is an advert for a commercial venture. I beleive that it is not an article imparting any sort of useful knowledge, and that it should be deleted.

I personaly have nothing to do with experts-exchange, other than I'm just a free member of the service and have many of my questions answered. I found the mention in domain-name article and created it up. --Brajesh 08:56, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I have to say, this site is a real tease. Always #1 on google yet "sign up to see the solution". May as well be porn. ~
 * i agree.. i often find myself having to search with "-site:experts-exchange.com" appended to the search.

- wrong who posted the above comment!!! all you have to do is scroll down two see the answer without having to login! SCROLL PASSED THE ADS! they have to pay for the site somehow!

- Correction, sometimes you can scroll down, I think it is the first time you try, then you can't see the answers until you register.


 * Except that if you know where to look you can sign up for free. It is a usefull service, but they push the premium mebership too hard. 71.0.196.222 02:20, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Well if you're using google, just click on the 'Cached' page link, and you'll soon see what you were looking for ;) --59.167.165.157 09:50, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

This might be better placed under SPAM
If blatant ads for commercial sites are going to be treated like legitimate articles, then perhaps it will create a new occupation "Wikipedia Spam Optimizers". I operate a site that competes for some of the same market and several thousand other sites competes with them as well.
 * so your judgement is, obviously, unbiased. lol. 80.93.173.35 (talk) 09:08, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

It is one thing to have entries for prominent, unique or important sites, but if run of the mill, ordinary commercial "help" sites are going to become entries then one of the steps when creating a new site will be to make sure that you do the Wikipedia entry before you add you link to free directories and start spamming forums.

The entry is nothing but an ad and should be deleted; or at least charge them for the advertising.

199.243.198.98 18:50, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I can see some serious objections to this article. upto the community to decide. --Brajesh 20:15, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm one of the volunteer Administrators at Experts Exchange. As noted, it IS a commercial site; it is also MOSTLY administered by volunteers from the community. I certainly have no objections to the removal of the article; I'd rather that than have anything inaccurate said about the site. Sorry... should have signed this... Netminder 04:28, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

--Moorhouselondon 20:26, 31 May 2006 (UTC) I feel that I am one of the EE community. I help answer some questions and so gain the right to ask questions. There is no necessity to pay if you contribute. In any case, as mentioned above, Googling gives the ability to look at the answers - that is how I got hooked: when I had a problem I googled for it, and 9 times out of 10 there would be at least one useful link in there that pointed into EE.

If only software publishers and hardware manufacturers had technical support resources which matched EE in scope, EE would not be required. As it is, commercial organisations get you to buy their stuff and then do not provide adequate support for it. EE is providing a service that is required, in exactly the same way that Wikipedia is providing a service. Both are phenomenal collaborative machines that run largely on consensus. As an exercise, think of a few big names (Hardware and Software), and see if some of them have full blown Wiki articles. EE is a commercial entity, yes. Microsoft is a commercial entity. The question is: Where does one draw the line as to what should be a valid Wikipedia entry, and what is not? EE does hold patents on some of the technology used in its design, and hence deserves some kind of article for its' innovative ideas. Should other similar sites have entries? Yes I think so if they have some unique qualities of their own.

--Brett M. Johnson As an expert on EE with multiple certifications, I can attest that it is not a SPAM site. I feel I am providing valuable mentoring assistance to those who ask questions. Non-experts pay a $10 annual fee to ask questions, but that fee is waved if you can answer a sufficient number of questions for others. This encourages contribution to the community to avoid excessive leaching, while providing sufficient funds to maintain the site. Unfortunately EE must rely on external search services (such as Google), because the built-in EE search engine is completely useless (its crap) - it rarely returns results of any relevance.

Correction: "Non-experts pay a $10 annual fee to ask questions", that fee is on a monthly basis.

Neutrality
I severely question the neutrality of this "article". Too many subjective words and phrases are used, such as "this great website" and "prices are steep for home users". The list goes on.

I have added a NPOV template to flag this. 81.155.146.0 16:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Eric (aka Netminder) that it should be removed. As it stands it is just going to become a battleground and a spam magnet. If it does stay then it needs substantial cleanup to turn it into a simple description of a site with a patent to do what is being done on many other sites in violation of that patent. If it is going to be a puff promo piece including the price list, then it needs to be balanced with the darker side of it history and its relationship with the volunteers.

If it is going to be a historical piece then people like me who spend time on the inside need to be part of the process. If Eric wants to work on developing a proper descriptive or historical piece we can collaborate as we have in the past on other things.

Whether people like or hate the site has no bearing on whether or not it is significant enough to warrant an entry. There are sites that have large detailed entries because of their social or cultural impact. I would be hard pressed to find any significant impact from Experts-exchange existing. However if it is going to stay it needs to be cleaned up.

Cd&

Roy Marchand (aka COBOLdinosaur) COBOLdinosaur 01:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I do NOT think that this article should be removed. EE plays an important even a historical role in web based KB management field, several large IT communities on the web are actually based on the concepts developed and practised by EE, such as Baidu Zhidao, CSDN, Iask and Yahoo Answers. EE is also currently maintaining a large database of PAQs (Previously Answered Questions), and its answers often appear at the top of google results. EE lives for more 10 years. These are facts.


 * Yes, I am an EE member, but I do NOT want to say something NOT objective. The article history proves this. I have restructured the article content and removed some of it that seemed to be advertisment such as words like "great" and the prices, though actually they were just different points of view or feelings.


 * User:Bbao


 * Agreed. EE is equally or more deserving of its own article than Yahoo Answers. Alksub 02:31, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Well the first 5 years of history up to 2001 is fine, but it is hardly complete if you stop there. So I have add some of the more recent history. COBOLdinosaur

I also have corrected th opening paragraph to indicate that it is a fee-based site rather than the misleading and inaccurate description that it is free. COBOLdinosaur

VGR I don't think this article should be removed; It is a perfectly neutral and onjective relation of what is EE.com and Netminder, being involved in EE.com, has no right to ask for its removal. In ***here*** it's a democracy, not an autocracy as he likes it.

I was part of the "useful idiots" that largely helped EE during 2002-2003 (I stayed one year). My profile http://www.experts-exchange.com/M_786948.html is certainly a good representation of the said Wikipedia sentence "changes in site management policy resulted in a large number of the highly rated and qualified experts leaving the site for what they saw as mistreatment and abuse." (false humility set apart)

Almost 50% of the TAs are obsolete (pre-2001 stuff for dead technologies). I accounted for 1% of the useful points/TAs total and earned two Guru "levels" in one year.

Now I help any people for free on various other collaborative sites and don't pretend to achieve "levels" any more. Let this article be.

Eric Peterson Netminder  Please note that I did not ask that the article be absolutely removed; I said that under the circumstances, I would prefer that there be no article rather than one which is either factually erroneous or a blatant advertisement, both of which are contrary to the goals of Wikipedia. I am also completely disinterested in getting into some of the editing wars that have plagued Wikipedia over the years; frankly, I don't have the time. I have thusfar demurred from editing the article (except for certain verifiable factual errors); given that while I have insight and historical information not available to many other people, I also have an obvious perceived bias and some contractual restrictions that I prefer not to violate.

Roy: http://www.experts-exchange.com/registerFree2.jsp -- it is still free, and always has been. That the owners prefer to make money, as opposed to blowing through $5 million in venture capital with nothing to show for it, should not be a predominant (i.e., leading paragraph) feature of a Wikipedia article. I have no issue with you being critical of that -- you have the right to your opinion -- but it isn't something that belongs in the lead, and possibly not in an unbalanced article at all. After all, Apple wants to get paid for its products too; are we supposed to be critical of it because of that?

Having said all that, I would certainly enjoy working with you again.

Maybe there should be comments about Usenet vs. EE. Usenet is free and open while EE is not. Personally I detest EE. 74.112.47.179 22:22, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

--COBOLdinosaur 01:04, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Eric: What is inaccurate about:

`It's a fee-based online "ask an expert" site for computer related questions, with limited free access also available.`

It is free in the same way that a lock demo of software is free.

On most sites with "premium" services, they provide the free service with an option to upgrade. On EE user's are presented with premium paid services and have to look around to find the free version, which is limited in the extreme to force users who cannot afford the cost to provide slave labor.

When a handful of us helped Austin to bring the site back from bankruptcy he made commitments to maintain basic free access and services. Did he lie? Of course not, he just changed the definition of basic free access. The fact is the site is fee based. They have done a great marketing job managing to sell Google generated content that is free to any who want it all over the 'net. They could probably sell pet rocks at a premium too.

As for working together. You know where my site is and you have my email address; but I have not change my position that integrity has to come ahead of everything else or there is no victory no matter how well you do.

Cd&

--behenderson, 2 February 2007:

The comment 'and is adept at using search engines, which are the source of the majority of responses from the top experts.' should not be included. The statement is inflammatory and has not been established to be true. It would be accurate to say that there is a lot of content at EE that has been copied or linked from other sites or sources and not all content is original. That is a valid criticism that does not give the impression that the 'Top Experts' do not know anything. That comment looks like it may have been written by a former 'Expert' who felt that without them the site did not have any experts any more, which is simply not true. That comment is not a neutral statement.
 * Thanks for your contribution.huji— TALK 18:56, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I see Eric has found someone to send over from EE: "'That comment looks like it may have been written by a former 'Expert' who felt that without them the site did not have any experts any more...'"

So a current "Expert" does not like a reference to a common method of supplying answers. I will agree that is was not as well put as it could have been so I have re-worded the reference so as not to offend and Googledroids who come upon it. The use of search engines and the posting of "answers" that are nothing but SERPs is a fact that can be verified by simply looking at a selection of PAQed threads.

As for some former experts; there are some that even after a year and a half of absence remain high ranked in multiple TAs, and in the HOF; while there are some who will never come close even with the much easier game rules and high volume of max point questions. COBOLdinosaur 20:37, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

--behenderson, 13 February 2007: "'I see Eric has found someone to send over from EE'" I do not know who you are and I do not know who you are referring to. Your comment "'and is adept at using search engines, which are the source of the majority of responses from the top experts.'" was hardly an honest attempt to make a neutral statement. I believe that I proposed a fair alternative that did not have the same level of venom in it. I think that your criticism of me calls into question your objectivity. You certainly propose to know something more about me than you do and you have gotten it wrong. I have no idea who you believe I am affiliated with but I made a fair criticism of a blatantly loaded statement that was very easy to spot. I made the criticism on my own and it was made because that statement spoke for itself. I am not sure what a googledroid is but it seems to be loaded language that really is not necessary.

The qualities that make the EE worthy of an encyclopedia entry are the involvement of a large segment of users across the Net. People worked hard and for free which is rather unique. I think that to maintain neutrality every effort should be made to allow the history from EE during the 2002-2003 period. If a user provides a link to a profile at EE that was active during the 2002-2003 period they have direct experience that should make their statements carry weight. They are a source of information. They are a source of information that may be contradicted by other equally valid sources, but a source nonetheless. Controversy distinguishes the article from an advert. Controversy can be described without slamming the current participants. Qualitative statements regarding EE are subjective and should be screened very carefully.


 * Summary: it's a puff piece. There's no place for articles like this on Wiki —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.125.166.56 (talk) 23:08, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

EE Stuff
Should we add anything about EE Stuff? This was added in July 2006 (per this) as a way for experts to be able to upload files to include with their posts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Soapergem (talk • contribs) 07:41, 13 December 2006 (UTC).

What is significant or special about adding a limited version of an upload capability that other major forums have had for 5 or 6 years? There are off-the-shelf freeware forums that offer direct uploads with no fuss or extra authentication steps. Even if it wasn't lame, it is still of no importance to the article which should center on what is unique and special about the site; if in fact, it is special and not just another forum with a lot of traffic.

Cd&

COBOLdinosaur 19:42, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Roy,

EE-Stuff is related to Experts Exchange in that I own it, and in that with permission, we use EE's logo and an abbreviated version of their style sheet. It was created originally as a repository for information and tools that were scattered in domains operated by other members; it seemed to make sense to put everything related to the administration of the site by the Moderators, Page Editors and Cleanup Volunteers in one place. Since I was also maintaining an archive of newsletters, we put those there as well.

In efforts to make our jobs easier, we created the File Upload and Pointer Question tools. Their use is not required of anyone, and while they are condoned by EE, we have told EE repeatedly that if and when EE builds something that replaces them functionally, we will be happy to remove them.

But it is inappropriate to complain about EE-Stuff in the context of your disagreements with Experts Exchange. If there's something at EE-Stuff you don't like, well... you know where to find me.

Netminder 16:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

NPOV flag
The neutrality of this article is disputed, just as the neutrality of comments posted here by Netminder and COBOLdinaseur is disputed, at least in my point of view.

EE's innovative method which has leaded in motivation of experts to a point, where majority of questions are answered in less than one day, and the quality of answers offered there, which has leaded in its pages being referenced by others to a point that they appear in the top 10 results of Google searches in many cases, are enough reasons of why there must be an article about EE. In my point of view, discussions about whether this is free or not, or whether the free access is really limited or not, have nothing to do here. What should be discussed is facts about how EE works, and how this special method has resulted in the achievments I mentioned a few lines above.

So if nobody is going to object, I think we should remove some parts of the article, change the first para, change the focus of article to EE's mechanism and achievments. Also, as we never mention the reason why a celebrity divorced from his husband, there is no reason to mention why some of the top members of EE has left it, specially because any reason gave there is completely subject of NPOV arguments.

How many people agree with me here, to rewrite the article and clean it up?

huji— TALK 11:07, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Eric:

There is no criticism of EE stuff, and I applaude the effort. The criticism is the idea that it is somehow needs to be included in the article. There is nothing special about members of a community extending their site with off-site supporting tools; with or without the co-operation of the site owners. EE-stuff is, in fact, not the first time that EE support has had to be done off-site because management failed to respond to the needs of the community. This is really no different than the way we evolve the FAQ and site documentation. Contributions from me and others was consolidated on your site and made available to the community for many months until EE managemnt finally allowed it to be consolidated. EE-stuff is no different.

Huji:

I have no objections to a re-write if it is balanced. If it continues to be nothing but a spammy attempt to promote the site then it violates NPOV and I will continue to raise issues.

If EE deserves an entry, it is because of its patent. That is the only thing that makes it special, and it is the application of that patent to develop the practical application that should be the focus. The description of that practical application would not be balanced without considering the game portion of the delivery of service because the competitive aspect is a key part of the patent.

At issue: It was an issue for it to be called a free site because that is not accurate.

If there is going to be promotional language about how many experts are involved and have answered questions, then it is not balanced without mentioning the high turnover of top-experts; and I don't know how you do that without giving at least general reasons for the defections.

You cannot cut history short, and if you are going to talk about the people involved in growing the site up to 2000-2001 then you also have to deal with the fact that they ran the site into bankruptcy with loose spending and destruction of the code base. Then you have to carry through on the history and credit some of the people who dug in and re-built. Either that or get rid of the history section all together.

As for the criticism section. The Greasemonkey script is a fact. The description is accurate. That negative response to EE pages in Google SERPs is one of the things that makes EE special and unique. If that is negative, then balance it with something related that is positive... or do a seperate article about the script and the reason that its users consider EE pages SE spam.

If the article is to be about the technical aspects of a patented site, then there is no need for promotional language and puffy descriptions. If it is just going to be an ad for EE, then I will treat it like any other spam I find and try to discourage it.

COBOLdinosaur 18:37, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * If the article is to be about the technical aspects of a patented site... Have a look at eBay article. It can be called a patented site too, and there are criticism and promotion on its article, but neutral point of view is (if not 100%) maintained. What would you think about an article of that kind?
 * You cannot..., ... you also have to ... Let's try to be more positive . huji— TALK 08:56, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


 * About creating another article about the Greasemonkey script, I reckon that could be called a POV fork. The NOPV of mentioning Greasemonkey script can be discussed here. Is this greasemonkey script important to people other than those valuable members who left EE, and those others who have been under the impact of their comments or opinion? Unless we have verifiable references that the Greasemonkey script is being used by numerous people from the general population, we have to minimize (if not totally remove) the description about it, regarding WP:NPOV. (Read the example there about Flat Earth.) In the same page it says "views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views." I'm afraid that the views about EE Admin's bad temper or whatever it is called, are held by a tiny minority of EE members, so "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it is true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not." I'm aware that you may object my previous interpretation of the number of people with that view as an "extremely small" minority, but I'm afraid we don't have any verifiable sources against it.


 * huji— TALK 09:40, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion: This my suggested new content for the article Link. I would be glad to have comments. Please notice that this is about the content only, and I'm hopeful we can modify the structure, and add more sections as well. huji— TALK 11:35, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Roy,

I have no issue with your suggestion that the article be limited to what makes EE unique (i.e. the patent).

I don't even have a problem with an inclusion of the history of the site, although I question whether anyone involved here is in any way capable of writing an article that would meet the NPOV standards; I doubt that I could -- and if you read my initial comments here, that was my reasoning behind agreeing with the suggestion that it be removed. Personally, I doubt that unless such a history were in context, it would be an irrelevant addition to Wikipedia, and I doubt that someone who is NOT biased about EE (myself included) would really give enough of a damn to do a good job.

I am also in agreement with you regarding the mention of GreaseMonkey scripts, user-created applications, and secondary sites. EE Stuff has just under 2,000 files uploaded by about 500 users, and about 500 questions have had "pointers" created for them; QuickPost was downloaded about 300 times during all of 2006. That's not a lot, given the number of new questions that get asked every week.

Netminder 16:29, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Netminder,
 * 1) Regarding your comment, of course you may be aware of some pieces of information which others do not, just because you have been an EE admin. However, as you know, those has no place in a Wikipedia article, since they are hardly (if ever) verifiable, and, reporting them here as the first location would be an instance of "original research" which is not allowed in Wikipedia.
 * 2) Regarding the phrase "who is NOT biased about EE", this is the role I'm trying to play here. I'm not an stakeholder in EE, nor I'm supporting the people who left EE in early 2000's and those supporting them. I will also do my best to keep myself within the bounds of NPOV.
 * 3) Did you occasionally take a look at the page I linked above (I link it here again)? Would you please comment on that page?

Huji,

I thinks your re-write is an improvement over what we have. Leaving Greasemonkey to a mention and link is appropriate, and I would have no problem balancing it with mention of EE-stuff; or even better the history of experts assisting opertions of the site with external support sites and citing EE-stuff as a current example.

The history on the other hand leaves a lot to be desired. The final entry is for 2001 and with some top-experts leaving for mis-treatment by admins. That is completely inaccurate. Yes a lot left in 2001, but that was because the site tanked and went into bankruptcy, and many experts were involved in downloading the knowledgebase to make sure it was preserved.

Most or those experts came back when Austin and Randy bought the site out of bankruptcy. Some of those members agreed to help guide the site back to financial stability as the Experts' Advisory Board which served from February 2002 until August of 2003. The EAB was disbanded by site management in August 2003 because of differences between the board and management concerning changes to enhance Premium membership through the allocation of unlimited points.

In terms of historical balance, bringing the site out of bankruptcy and re-building is at least as significant as bankrupting it in the first place. If the history is to be left as inaccurate and distorted as it currently is then it should be removed completely. To mention Keith McCurdy, and the Advisory Board that Took EE into banruptcy and leave the rest of history blank, really invalidates the everythng that happened from 2002 through 2004 and beyond. That inaccuracy results in ignoring the most important factor surounding EEs survival while many other dotcoms disappear forever. EE survived becasue it was the will of the experts that it be continues, and without the community of experts and volunteer admins the site would have no history beyond 2001-2. Outside of the patent, that is the most important thing about EE, and the article does not address anything about what the site was and is.

As for experts leaving because they were unhappy with admin abuses, that happened much later. Really starting in 2004 as admins tried to balance the demands of paid customers and the needs of an unpaid volunteer workforce. There has always been a turnover of experts for one reason or another. What was significant about the 2004-05 period was Admin/expert friction as a result of the paid subscribers becoming the primary source of revenue and making demands on voluteers, and complaining about the performance of volunteer experts.

Eric,

I have no problem with keeping the article, if we just stick to facts. You are right in your assessment of the inability to write the history of EE without bias. We were both involved in most of the pivotal events from 2000 through 2005. The problem is perhaps that is is not possible to accurately discuss events without that experience, but it is also not possible to be unbiased having had that experience.

I have no problem with Huji trying to make a usable article out of it as long as it is accurate and balanced. COBOLdinosaur 03:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with COBOLdinosaur's comment and would like to emphasize that the leave of the old experts should be included in the article as it was the "force" of the old EE that these old experts were teaching the new ones how to comment properly. The loss of this mechanism and the fact that experts scoring points with simple Google links aren't corrected anymore by these old experts is a true loss for EE. Nico5038 22:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Dear all,


 * First of all, I would like to thank you for accepting my invitation and contributing here. Secondly, I'm happy to see that you have a very complete understanding of where and how you are biased about different aspects of EE. It is valuable to be frank in such cases, and I appreciate it.


 * Eric (Netminder), what you mentioned in your last post, no matter how correct it is, needs to be verifiable. If it is easy to be verified by every visitor of the article, we don't need to mention a source for it, but if not, we do need to add references. I would be grateful if you would do me a favor, and direct me to some online resources mentioning about the EAB and other important facts you notified in your last comment here; things like EE questions in CS topic area, etc.


 * COBOLdinosaur, I'm grateful to have your supporting words behind me. :) I'm aware that you have some points of view, which are some times in contrast with Eric's, specially regarding the part of article addressing members who left EE in the past few years. I would like to request you to direct me to the evidence as well. Hope you will oblige.


 * Nico, I'm in agreement with you that the newer tradition of sending Google search links for the answer, is a loss of quality of EE answers to some extent. However, I don't know how to materialize it in terms of current article about EE. We need some objective (rather than subjective) measures to show its effect. Are you aware of any relevant information?


 * By the way, please don't hesitate to add colons before each paragraph of your comment, to make it indent and stand out. (Double colon if you are answering an originally indented comment, like mine.)

- huji— TALK 10:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * huji,


 * I don't know what you are looking for in the way of verification. This article crossed over in to dealing with internal issues at EE and most of the "verification" is spread across thousands of EE threads.  Expert Advisory Board (EAB) is mentioned in probably several hundred threads.  There are several thousand where there is discussion of experts leaving and probably hundreds more involving direct confrontations and actions that resulted in experts leaving.


 * I have no intention of digging through to find them. There is also some documentation (one-sided on suspendedExperts.com, Experts Round table, and dozens of other technical help sites but it is a family squabble.  I am not going to spend time documenting a load of dirty laundry that does not belong in a Wikipedia article.


 * Eric and I can find hundreds if not thousand of links on and off of EE to support our various positions. It does not accomplish anything except to fuel a pointless debate. For example is the Greasemonkey script an isolated thing?  Maybe not:
 * http://www.illtemper.org/2007/01/07/tip-googling-for-technical-information/


 * Now Eric or one of his minions can post something favourable and we can continue to waste time on non-productive efforts. One thing is certain.  People have very strong feelings about EE. Some love it.  Some hate it with a passion.  Some have been disappointed by it and some have been "damaged" by their association.


 * If they deserve an article then it is because of the patent. Everything beyond the straight technical facts is going to be debated and challenged.  I have no probelm with an article that deals with the technical facts, but I will edit anything that is not accurate, and either all the history will be presented or none of it; even if I have to get barred from Wikipedia to defend the integrity of the article.  And when I go there are others ready to continue the fight.  This can either be a technical article done through collaboration, or it can be a battleground over spam articles, one-sided presentations, and the internal dirty laundry of EE.


 * Verification is worthless if you have to post links to EE because anyone reading the article will not be able to access most of them unless they pay EE for the privilege.


 * So in the end you are left with the patent.


 * 
 * EE has a patent to do what thousands of other sites do without a patent, but they have a points and rating system system that makes them unique enough to charge for a service that involves posting a list of links from Google.


 * I would love to explore the rich history of EE and some of the people who built it by being real expert who did their own prgramming, support, and research, but that is not possible if we are going to get a one-side presentation of the management version of what is important about EE, and what should be in the history.


 * It seems we cannot even agree and whether it is a fee based site with some free services or a free site with premium services available; so I doubt we wil agree on much of anything.

COBOLdinosaur 05:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

COBOLdinosaur,

You have repeatedly said in your previous comments here, that you believe either the whole EE history should be mentioned here or none of it. Unfortunately we don't have such a rule in Wikipedia. Only those information which are notable and verifiable are mentioned here, and with an encyclopaedic tone.

Regaring this, and regarding the fact that I don't know any sources veifying that the Greasemonkey script is being used commonly, or there are few websites with such scripts developed for them, I'm going to remove the whole Greasemonkey part.

Also, I will remove parts related to people leaving EE on early 2000's. You may add this later when you can provide a verfiable source. If you are too busy to search for those sources, you can leave it for another editor which may add it later in the future. But please don't add it without providing enough references. And as long as you provide comments made by such members in EE as the reference, plase keep bound to writing like "the reason X mentioned" or "the reason SOME OF THEM mentioned" for their leaving was this or that. Neither of us is not in a point to generalize it and say "the reason was [actually]" this or that.

Thanks - huji— TALK 19:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Roy,

Your comment, in essense, supports my initial post here: that the article on Experts Exchange is inappropriate for Wikipedia, if only because it violates the NPOV standard on any number of levels. We disagree over whether the site is pay- or free-based (although there is no disagreement that the owners are trying to get people to pay -- just like the New York Times does). We disagree over the reasoning behind the disestablishment of the EAB (Austin gave me and others, in a conversation in San Luis Obispo in May 2004, his reasoning -- he said that what it became wasn't what he had intended). We agree that much of what people call "history" is more like "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" -- and therefore hardly "notable" in Wikipedia's terms.

For the record, I have no minions in any sense of the term, nor do I have any reason to recruit any. Experts Exchange is a website with a number of devoted users, and I count myself among them -- but it is of much greater concern to me that my 7th grade basketball team is learning how to conduct themselves as individuals and as members of a team.

huji,

Personally, I find the inclusion of the Greasemonkey script link irrelevant, for several reasons. First, Greasemonkey scripts are used by people who use a specific browser, whether or not they have ever visited Experts Exchange; one could easily modify the script to remove any links to the Yahoo Answers or Wikipedia or anything else if one were so inclined. Second, there is at least one Greasemonkey script that is designed specifically to work with EE (see http://www.experts-exchange.com/M_248814.html), which is just as irrelevant, and of course, there are at least five other user-created tools and two user-created websites that are not included. That's not to say they should be included; it is to say that they really have no bearing on an Experts Exchange article.

I did look at the article, and corrected one error in fact (the minimum points is 20, not 50), and some spelling and grammatical errors. Such is the life of an editor... *grin*

Eric AKA Netminder 18:47, 21 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Eric,
 * Thanks for the corrections. I'm going to remove all the parts with the "citation needed" label, unless I can find an exact verification of them somewhere. Some parts (like that saying about 60K real experts) can be referenced to some of ameba's posts on his site or on EE. As I'm going to be busy for the next few days, could you please try to spend a few minutes in her posts (I'm under the impression that ameba is a her, but not sure) for relevant statements?
 * huji— TALK 21:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Sections of the text are going to be deleted
I have tried my best to find evidence supporting and criticising EE on the web. The result, as you can see, is the gathering of 19 references for different parts of the text of the article. Still, there are few parts which remain with a "citation needed" message after them, because of a lack of reference. No matter how true they are, they have no place on a wikipedia article, unless verifiable strong sources are cited.

I am going to remove all these unreferenced sections from the article in a week or so. Please post here for any objections, or better even, add references for those sections on the article itself. huji— TALK 09:27, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I think there should be no issue with removing the unverified statements (positive and negative) now that the promotional spam has been removed or rewritten to NPOV guidelines. As long as the EE admins and drone keep hands off, then I suspect critics of EE will do likewise. However if spam is added it will likely trigger a response that will screw the thing up again.

If Eric agrees to stay out of it and keep his editors out, then I will stay out and keep my editors out.

COBOLdinosaur 16:06, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Dear COBOLdinosaur! Unless you have verifiable sources that Eric has "his editors", what you said above can be interpreted as accusation. Regarding wikiepdia's guidelines, none of you are needed to stay out of it, but also are not allowed to fight or vandalize here! If someone makes an edit which is inappropriate, revert it (go to the page History -link is above- and compare the last two versions, and you will see an "Undo" link appear) and mentiond why you did that on the talk page. If the other guy has a good reason he will respond here. Otherwise, other people like me will notice this, and help you stop vandalization.
 * Thank you for labeling the restul of my current efforts as "the promotional spam has beeen removed or rewritten to NPOV duidelines." huji— TALK 19:33, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted te edits made by 193.231.23.241 (no userid given). I think the article was being nicely managed by Huji, and the change that was proposed just starts taking it back to being a puff piece. I don't think we need to do all that again. If 193.231.23.241 wants to discuss the edits, I am sure all involved here would be happy to hear the justification for the edit. Given the amount of editing and near deletion of the piece, I think it is wise if we discuss changes before making them, or at least indicate what we have done and why.


 * The above statements were written by COBOLdinosaur on 02:36, 27 February 2007. (COBOLdinosaur, please sign your posts by adding huji— TALK 17:51, 27 February 2007 (UTC) to the end of them.) In this case, I'm supporting his opinion. This article is a debating and chalanging one, at least for now. I believe any change which seems not to follow the NPOV should be reverted, unless previously discuessed on the talk page, and accepted by the involved people like me, COBOLdinosaur and Netminder


 * Regards, huji— TALK 17:51, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about forgetting the signature. I think this is the place to pre-edit so we don't end up with and endless list changes in the history and a lot more work than should be necessary. COBOLdinosaur 03:14, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems huji has some vested interest in Experts Exchange and thus feel is not in a position to make modifications to this article. I added two negative things to the article which I feel were well founded, but huji felt it necessary to remove them both. One was that Experts Exchange servers and unusually high amount of ads and popups which is true; go to EE and then go to any other community support site to see what I mean.. Why this requires a source or is POV is beyond me. Experts Exchange is a community effort, as anyone can join it with no regard to qualification. Secondly was the issue about cloaking, a well established fact that EE is guilty of. Experts Exchange does NOT treat search engine bots the same as they treat regular visitors.


 * The above paragraph was a comment made by 71.112.193.201 (a user who has not decided to create a user account in Wikipedia, and whose two recent changes to the article have been both reverted, by me.) In response to it:
 * Dear 71.112.193.201! It is out of my hands! Wikipedia requests us to limit ourselves to verifiable facts, and this is translated as providing valid sources for every statement. I am not a supporter of EE, although I have been a member of it for some years. I tried my best to find criticisms for EE on the web (for example, from well known magazines, or such valid and valued sources) but I failed. The reason I reverted your recent changes was, you were providing them as facts, without sources. As soon as you can provide sources better than "go to any other community site and see what I mean", I will be glad to add those criticisms to the article.
 * Why things require source and a NPOV (Neutral Point of View) is beyond none of us! If we cannot obey such Wikipedia standards, we should not edit in it.
 * I suggest you to start finding sources confirming that EE web site is really cloaking its contents.
 * Regards, huji— TALK 21:38, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

71.112.193.201 Your comment questioning Huji's motives bordered on a personal attack. Please do not question Huji's motives. He has been the the best contributor to the article through diplomacy and skill in a very difficult circumstance. The nature of EE is such that anyone who knows much about it has have participated in some way. If participation is a bar from contributing here, then the article would have to be written by someone not capable of understanding the complexity of the site or the community around it. I support the edits Huji carried out, even though I agree with your observations; because your statements are unverified, and we have had enough problems getting this article cleaned up without starting down another road that leads to deletion.

We have to follow the rules even though they are difficult. There is nothing I would love better than to expose EE for what it is, but it takes independent sources to support the truth; and teh threat of lawsuits tends to scare off the mainstream media. Instead the only sources available are the ones that take payment or future considerations for positive reviews. COBOLdinosaur 02:12, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

C&d,

Your statement "There is nothing I would love better than to expose EE for what it is" makes me curious. (Feel free to drop me a line)

huji,

Would love to have a part about suspension added to the article. I'm now a "suspension expert" after being suspended from the site since 19th of December 2006. Even the site owners refuse to respond when I request for a clarification. The fact that there's no "court of appeal" when experts are suspended and the fact that you can't edit your personal data in your memberprofile when suspended, is a fact that should be known to site visitors.

Nico5038 21:19, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I just want to add that I think article sounds biased. Some sections seem to put the site in an overly positive light and others (mentioning controversy or shortcomings) seem to skirt the issues. 216.254.91.114 13:38, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

About suspensions
Nico, I was also suspended from EE once. But unlike you, I think this is a rare event, so there is no indication for it to be explained to every visitor, except by EE on its own help pages. Also, I don't see a reason for such a thing to be added to "Wikipedia" article (and encyclopaedic article) about EE. You may write reviews for EE in this regard in your own blog, or better even, you may try to publish them on journals or web sites. But even if such statements are going to appear in this Wikipedia article, they shouldn't appear here as the first place. We need verifiable sources about each of the statements. Best, huji— TALK 03:23, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Google cloaking etc
Has anyone noticed when you google Experts Exchange you get obscured text, but answers if you scroll way down to the bottom? But on refresh these 'hidden' answers aren't there. Surely something should be said about this in the article... --Christopher 17:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Christopher,
 * I posted a blog about the blurring of EE (and much more) at:

http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,2000342184b,00.htm To unblur you can use the code from: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/8614 Nico5038 17:42, 21 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I use Firefox on Linux (at work) and Safari on OS X (at home) and I have no problems viewing the solutions at the bottom of the page, no matter how many times I refresh the page, re-visit the site etc.. I also never get redirected to a login/sign-up page.  I'm going to add something to this effect in the section on Google cloaking 213.143.4.68 (talk) 14:02, 2 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Added a citation in "controversies" section to the Google Webmaster Guidelines where "cloaking or sneaky redirects" are expressly mentioned as bad practices (Aaronshaw (talk) 00:53, 7 September 2008 (UTC)).
 * I formatted your message a bit, Aaronshaw. huji— TALK 16:18, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

ROT13
I found that you can view the greyed out text by disabling the CSS, and running the garbled output through ROT13. Why they would do it this way, I am not sure. --Terrible Tim 20:09, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality of Praises and Criticisms
Primarily the phrase "the majority of the professional community has shunned it for its perceived unethical practice of providing content to search engines that is not available to users without paying a fee". If this is true this needs to have references, otherwise it should be rephrased or removed under weaselling.  Mattie TK  19:53, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Some content in this article seriously puts into question neutrality: "It is quite easy to cancel an account ..." I have been a free member until a few days ago and canceled my subscription on the last day of the free trial. EE charged me and refuses to undo the payment, pointing to the free trial agreement, which ambiguously (and against common industry practice) states: "Your free trial ends on 12/5/2007. You can cancel any time before then and your account will not be charged."

The majority of external links point to EE pages, greatly increasing the PageRank of the site, while many other sites with free high quality content (e.g. The Code Project, The Scripts) have almost no Wikipedia presence. Links to "free registration" are SPAM and do not belong into a Wikipedia article! User:Raphaelhoffmann:Raphael 7 December 2007

Re-nominate for deletion
It appears to me that Experts-Exchange is a profiteering enterprise, that re- distributes public domain and generally available information for a fee.

The entry should be modified to reflect that fact.

216.227.1.72 (talk) 23:50, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not quite sure if this a correct understanding of how Experts-Exchange works. Aside from that, I cannot understand why such an arguement should be titled "Re-nominate for deletion". huji— TALK 20:18, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

GreaseMonkey script
I undid a recent change to the URL of the GreaseMoneky script. Even if there is a newer version of this script available, it is the old one which shoud be cited in this context (because we are talking about how critics reacted towards EE, not about how they have changed orupdated their reaction after about two years). huji— TALK 20:17, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Some recomendations for improvement
This isn't a GAN review, just some quick recomendations for improvement.
 * Web references need the author, publisher, publishing date and access date.
 * External links only belong in the External links section.
 * The lead should adequately summarize the content of the article.
 * Citation Needed tags need attending to. Epbr123 (talk) 10:03, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comment. I moved/removed all external links, except for the one to the US patent used by EE. Do you think we should move it to references section or external links section?
 * For web references, I'll try to add the authors and dates where available.
 * About the lead section, how do you suggest it should be completed?
 * Most of the citation needed tags are for claims which are not verifiable. I'm considering removing them. Do you have a better idea? huji— TALK 11:05, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The US patent link should be changed to a ref. Keep the text the same but add a cite after "U.S. Patent 6,064,978".
 * The statements with Citation Needed tags do need citations. If references can't be found, the statements will need to be removed.
 * The lead needs at least one sentence to summarise each section of the article. Epbr123 (talk) 11:24, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Can you review it again. I think I've done the best I could so far. huji— TALK 12:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

GA Review
I have decided to fail this article. Here is my reasoning:
 * 1) There are large paragraphs in the prose that are not sourced. (e.g. History section)
 * 2) Lack of inter-wiki linking... Where is it?
 * 3) In the prose it talks about "work arounds" for viewing EE answers without paying - more needs to be said about this and appropriately sourced.
 * 4) As User:Epbr123 mentioned above, the lead section should be a bit more concise and clear cut.
 * 5) Something was written about the 2 millionth question, who asked and answered the 2 millionth question? Something should be written about that.  Scarian Call me Pat  21:49, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

What's in it for the experts?
The article doesn't say what's in it for the experts. Surely they don't give their answers for free when users are paying a subscription? Do the experts get paid for each answer or what? --kingboyk (talk) 21:20, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Nope, they are not paid. They compete in gathering "points" instead. Points are an arbitrary form of currency in Experts Exchange. huji— TALK 09:57, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Seems strange to me that the site gets paid but the experts don't, but I fear that's beyond the scope of this talk page! Thanks again for the reply. --kingboyk (talk) 16:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Name and URL
A section was added to the article twice, with the following content: 

Name and URL
Originally, the name and URL of the site was expertsexchange.com but this created confusion and ridicule as many users intrepreted it as Expert Sex Change as opposed to Experts Exchange. Subsequently, the URL was changed to experts-exchange.com  I removed it both of the times. The reason is, I can't find a valid reference for this, and if we really want to convert this article to a "good" article some day, we should avoid "fact"s in the article. huji— TALK 09:40, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

there are HEAPS of places in this article where there are no references. For example, this bit

Experts-Exchange went bankrupt 2001. Austin Miller and Randy Redberg took ownership of Experts-Exchange afterwards and the company was made profitable again. Experts-Exchange has more than 2 million solutions now.


 * I think specifying a number like that is more reference-worthy then when there was a name change. i don't think a name change requires a reference, but i have included a reference now.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.121.65.133 (talk) 07:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I've moved it down to the History section where it belongs. huji— TALK 22:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Membership
I have a problem with the following statements:

"As of late 2007, it is also necessary to be a member to view the solutions. People who are not signed in are redirected to a page where they can sign up, when they try to visit any Experts-Exchange page beyond the first page."

As far as I can see, the above is only true for users of Internet Explorer on Windows, but I would like to invite a discussion before going in and modifying it.

I have tested the site on Firefox 1, 2 & 3 on Ubuntu Linux (Gusty Gibbon and Hardy Heron releases) and Safari on OS X Tiger and Leopard. At no time have I ever been re-directed to a sign-up page, and I have always been able to see the solutions at the bottom of the page, no matter how many times I vist the same page, refresh the page or go to other areas of the website. This makes the first statement above untrue, and the second only partially untrue. M0thr4 (talk) 14:12, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Experts-Exchange uncompetitive business tactics
Experts-Exchange claims the solution is not available without membership, but it is. Search engines can find the solution text. In the seamonkey browser, the full solution text is visible at the bottom of the page, below a very long list of directory or search terms. In other browsers it's not. This misleading form of tricking the user to visit the page through search engines that can search into the solution puts experts-exchange in a rather negative light.

This Wikipedia page is way too positive instead of neutral about this website. There may be a small paragraph about the "controversy" at the bottom of the article, though overall the article is way, way, way too positive.
 * Everyone is allowed to add negative (and positive) parts to the article, as long as they can provide appropriate sources. Personal claims have no place in an encyclopedia. An example of personal claims is what you just said about search engines and seamonkey. You can easily test and confirm that, with any browser, if you go from a Google's search result page to an Experts-Exchange page, you will see the comments and asnwers (just as the search engine crawler) sees. I'm still looking for a valid source who has reported this fact tho, so I'm not adding it to the article. huji— TALK 07:43, 11 October 2008 (UTC)