- Joined
- Jul 23, 2017
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- Southwest Missouri
I was wondering if anyone subscribed and could tell me if the context of this paragraph does or does not reflect the overall tone of the article.
It sounds incredibly elitist, especially since CivilWarTalk, a leader in civil war social media, is all of us.
Just a quick perusal of that synopsis told me all that I needed to know, crusty academics who prefer to keep things just the way they are, those guys haven’t even managed to fully utilise the internet to communicate with others in their own field. It’s something you see time and time again, I’ve written a book so therefore I’m an expert or you have no qualifications so therefore your opinion doesn’t count. I’m fed up with those blogs where an individual has to state all of their qualifications, I actually heard one of these self proclaimed experts state that they had numerous qualifications and that they weren’t just ‘an ordinary person, seriously.Not sure why anyone is surprised. Theres always those who think a field or subject should be exclusively their playground and dont want anyone else participating, am reminded of the "ethics of digging thread' and professional vrs amateur archeology, between the two theres only one group that thinks they should have sole domain, and they tend to be college professors who do less then the "amateurs".
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I'd withhold judgment without reading the full article - the excerpt may be based on statements by some (Guelzo?) who appear to throw out "the baby with the bathwater". This issue about blogs is that literally anyone can start up a blog site whether they have any credentials or not and give the public false or misleading "junk". I've seen a few of those. But, as we also know, there are plenty of biog sites operated by folks who are highly qualified and who do the research. Some, in fact, are operated by so-called "academics" so a blanket statement from an "academic elite" point of view is ironic, to say the least. I don't understand the criticism if it's directed at a forum like this one. It's a forum for discussion and no one person's point of view on anything can be used to say "CWT" said this or that.Annie, since cwt is looking for ways to reach out and include more well recognized historians and published authors of civil war history, I found this blurb somewhat discouraging. It sounds incredibly elitist, especially since CivilWarTalk, a leader in civil war social media, is all of us.
But I do not have the entire article, so I do not know if this seemingly insultive remark is taken in context or just a few sentences cut out meant to inflame.
I think the writer of that does have a point. It's very easy to blog or post something that's not factually supported, and very little of what's blogged or posted undergoes critical review by peers, so there's no inherent garbage-gatekeeping system. Misinformation and disinformation are extraordinarily easy to propagate.
(However, as we can all attest at CWT, we do try to rise above that, and I would argue that a number of the discussions here do serve the same purpose as 'peer review'.)
I extensively used a website made by an "amateur historian" for my Ba with no issue.I guess that most universities wouldn’t allow a quote from a blog to be used as a reference and there’s probably a good reason for that. To be honest most of the online vids that I’ve seen always make it clear that the narrator or blogger is expressing a personal opinion, my favourites are those that finish with ‘but don’t just take my word for it, go do your own research’.
I could see how it would be possible to reference the findings of a retired chemistry professor, the professor would probably present his findings using the same academic style that someone studying for a BA would recognise and given that you are quoting a professor regardless of their field of research, Id imagine it would be acceptable to an academic panel.I extensively used a website made by an "amateur historian" for my Ba with no issue.
I wrote about early (medieval) firearms and this Swiss chemistry professor who is retired had made and tested a number of reconstructions of 16th century firearms. And he made a website about it where he posted his data and conclusions.
I see no reason why that should be any worse of a source than the different books i used where the author had done the same..
(Actually his site was better at going into the details of his testing and result that the similar books where)
And the university or the external censor had no issue with it.
In the chapter about my sources I obviously explained why I thought that his work was relevant and up to the needed standard.
There are plenty of books/authors out there I would not trust if they told me water was wet... and there are people on this forum, I would trust. It is all about their work. Is is well done using correct method and properly supported by sources?
And the moment we start talking about practical skills and what is sometimes called experimental archaeology you often have to look to the none academics to find the real experts.
I currently support a number "youtubers" financially true patron. They all do different types of historical work.
(And I follow even more... but there is a limit to how much money I can spend on it)
One who study sword and buckler combat and the use of viking age round shield have held lectures about it on universities and museums in Germany and Denmark a number of times. He is a illustrator by profession. But get sufficient money in support this way that he can afford to spend a good deal of time on his research and producing content.
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That said, Facebook and similar Social media where you can't quote, make things italic and use footnotes is not of much use. And I do agree that they likely do more harm than good.
Do you mean ‘like a closed shop’? It wouldn’t surprise me, I’ve seen situations where historians have closed ranks against anyone that dares to offer an alternative explanation to their hypothesis.I think you also have to factor in the "guild" mentality of specialized fields.
Do you mean ‘like a closed shop’? It wouldn’t surprise me, I’ve seen situations where historians have closed ranks against anyone that dares to offer an alternative explanation to their hypothesis.
This is being represented as coming from the September 2019 issue of 'Civil War History'.
I was wondering if anyone subscribed and could tell me if the context of this paragraph does or does not reflect the overall tone of the article.