Is Expertscolumn under siege? There is talk among writers on Expertscolumn that this site is attacking itself and thus jeopardizing its ability to sustain itself online. These writers are like freedom fighters, but actually freedom writers more adeptly defines their cause. These writers seem to want to write their articles and publish them free from much oversight on Expertscolumn’s online publishing platform.

What are their gripes? First, they do not seem to want work on Expertscolumn to be reviewed and held to some minimum qualitative standard. Second, they seem to believe that columnists on this site have the right to not properly source or cite their references in their columns. These freedom writers in essence believe that the published word in Expertscolumn should be taken at face value without much regard to the quality of the work or to the authenticity of the claims that are made in columns.

I too believe Expertscolumn is under siege. However, I do not believe Expertscolumn is attacking itself. Rather, it seems as though the freedom writers are trying to take Expertscolumn hostage by advocating for the continuation of poor writing and articles that are not properly referenced. If they succeed, Expertscolumn will fall. As this article goes online, I believe that unless Expertscolumn steers it ship in a radically different direction, it will soon sink into the sea of irrelevancy as many of its writers continue to spew mindless drivel and gibberish while acting as if they are above the appropriate and accepted protocol for writing columns, reports or articles.

Ironically, a writer named facevalue who frequently publishes on Expertscolumn became the torch bearer of sorts for these freedom writers. Facevalue is a bit of a success on Expertscolumn. As of this moment she has published 783 columns on the site. This places her in eighth place in terms of total published column count on the site.

On August 27, 2012 in her column, “Expertscolumn Are Killing Themselves. Big Problem On Expertscolumn,” facevalue hurls a heavy complaint upon the shoulders of Expertscolumn. First, she complains about Expertscolumn deleting her columns without notifying her in advance. She claims that she does not have an issue with Expertscolumn requiring references in medical related articles. However, it is only recently that she began instituting this practice. Additionally, she believes that a good portion of columns are written from a general source of knowledge and that therefore precludes the need to provide sources for those pieces. I do not wish to pronounce judgment on all of her columns. However, since she is going to take up the cause of the freedom writers, she draws closer scrutiny to herself. Her portfolio serves as a great reference point for discovering columns that are not properly sourced. In addition, this article itself is not even titled correctly in terms of style and grammar. The body of the column itself also contains many grammatical errors and various odd phrases. She is certainly not alone in producing less than ideal content. There are many examples of this sort that plague Expertscolumn. I recognize that I too may have erred in my own articles and I probably will again in the future. Though I don’t always like to know I have made errors, I do appreciate when people point them out and I try my best to correct them.

Recently, I assisted with some moderating on Expertcolumn. For me, this meant reviewing columns. If a writer did not cite their sources, particularly in a medical/health related article or if the quality of the article was sub-par, I would send a message to the writer, the other moderator and the administrator. In this message, I would make a simple matter of fact statement such as this: “Please cite your sources in this column. Failure to so, may result in the deletion of your column.” I think I only actually deleted three columns. One was because among other things it was factually incorrect. The other two were written in a manner that were so horrible, that they were actually comical. In addition, the author was passing on medical and health related recommendations that were clearly questionable and did not provide one single reference to support the author’s view.

I thought Expertscolumn reserved the right to delete columns that it determines are are unsuitable for its site. The sending of a notice to a writer to cite sources or to write more intelligibly is a courtesy. At this point it is vital for the Administrator of this site to step to center of this discussion and clearly articulate what standards he is going to hold people to in terms of the content they publish on Expertscolumn.

My personal opinion is that it is irresponsible to allow columns to exist on this site that lack the proper citations or are in essence written in gibberish. The future of Expertscolumn rests in our hands. The question is do we flush and plunge or do we let the freedom writers prevail.

Note 1: This piece was originally published prior to the Expertscolumn: The Tale of Two Flippa Auctions, before Expertscolumn prevented its users  from accessing and potentially earning from their displayed and before Expertscolumn re-emerged with a new look and began sharing revenue again with its users.

Note 2: Sadly, facevalue’s piece, “Expertscolumn Are Killing Themselves. Big Problem On Expertscolumn” is no longer active on Expertscolumn. Thus far, I have not succeeded in finding an archived version of her post. If and when I do, I will provide the link to it here.

Addendum: I believe that Expertscolumn is still under siege. However, in fairness to Expertscolumn, this problem is pervasive across the internet and not strictly isolated to Expertscolumn.

Gentle readers, Expertscolumn, put lipstick on the face of its site. However, is Expertscolumn still under siege? Who controls the site, the freedom writers or the flushers and plungers?

Originally published (without notes and Addendum) on August 28, 2012 on Expertscolumn. My content is no longer appears on Expertscolumn.

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