Peer reviewed articles
 

We should have a forum only visible to people with a designated "expert" mark. Expert just means you an expert in some field. People who post articles can (but don't have to) submit it to us so we can review it before going live. Articles that are peer reviewed will have a mark saying so.

I like the idea, but how do you consider someone a "expert"?

Hand picked. They shouldnt be too hard to spot when they come.

No one else has thoughts on this? I truly think this would set our articles apart from the millions of other ones out there. When review by experts, it will be far more accurate, error free and informative.

Basically you're suggesting a pre-emptive wiki for the articles?

Tis not a bad idea, I don't think, but are there enough articles coming through here to make it worth it?
-m

No, no one can edit it; we put our opinion on it and any errors or imperfections that we may find. It would be a board.

Hahah, don't get me started on "committee's". But yes, that's why I said pre-emptive. You wouldn't be able to edit it after the fact, but it's a way of having your panel of experts edit it before the fact. If necessary.

I mean if you could get a panel formed I'm sure it could be useful in a few ways... you could have them review articles from a single source before being submitted, or people from it could get together and co-author articles from the ground-up too.
-m

I'm honestly not sure we have the required number of experts to make this viable. Don't get me wrong many people here really know their stuff but enough around regularly, with enough time to dedicate to a project like this? Like I said, I'm not sure.

However, one of my misgivings with the current article system is that the bar isn't set particularly high (which can be a good thing!) with regards to what we allow and what we don't. We've refused articles from being published, for reasons we don't need to go into, but only a couple at most.

I'd love to set the bar high, being an academic-type I adore the value in peer-reviewed work, and it would be a good aim to get something like this in motion. We can always start small and see where it goes?

You are probably right there, but its not like we get many articles every day.

This whole thing wouldn't be required, if you want other's opinions on it you can submit it for review. What do we have to loose? If it doesnt work we can just scrap the whole thing.

I would be willing to take initiative in this, if given the authority to do so.

Maybe to line up more articles people could be approached to write an article, say for instance we need more articles on Jquery or something. Then a Mod or Admin can ask people who they think are good in that field to write an article. If they say they can't then no harm done, just ask the next person :-P

Isnt a pre-emptive review system already in use? I waited for a week or 2 for my article to be published. Thought it might be that it was being reviewed by the mod's. Anyways im all for it, quality over quantity ;-). I know my way around PHP security if you guys might need some for that type of moderating...

I dont know how they are processed, but I know they aren't reviewed like I am proposing.

I am an expert on the print command. You can use double quotes, single quotes, and it needs a semi-colon at the end. Can I be in the shiny expert area?

This is kind of a cool idea, but I doubt people would like their work being edited. It should be an area where the writer and the review team brainstorm ways to improve the article before it goes live. The writer is the only one who can make changes. Once the article is live, the instance is deleted.

Also, instead of experts, just take competent volunteers. If they give advice that is useless, give them a few ways to improve their advice, if it continues, ask them to not respond unless they know what they are talking about. Finally just take them off the list if it gets bad enough.

I would really like to see something like this! It would give the community something to do.

Also, why not a wiki-like list that gives people a list of articles that others want to have written? I would have written several articles already if I knew what to write about.