3
$\begingroup$

The description of the new -tag is:

For questions that are not about formal economic or econometric models and techniques, their implementations using programs and languages or do not include references to, are not about data standards, or are not based on academic sources.

Arguable, this description clashes with the everyday meaning of the term "non-expert." However, it seems to be the informal meaning that guides the very active retagging effort currently going on. Many undergraduate questions get tagged this way, even though Edgeworth-box economies and IS-LM are most definitely formal models.

The distinction in the tag-description is quite useful. I don't mind answering clearly defined elementary questions; but I have little interest in the kind of questions that are properly tagged with . The tag is for informal lay-questions, not beginners. Please use the tag porperly.

$\endgroup$
6
  • $\begingroup$ yes, this is good point, I actually always try to use the tag in this way but I also noticed some people interpret it as any beginner level question, by the way if you feel that at any point the tag is misapplied feel free to edit the question to remove the tag, if there is any conflict with other user we can resolve it on meta. Also for anyone reading this please do not forget we already have self-study tag $\endgroup$
    – 1muflon1 Mod
    Mar 24, 2021 at 21:13
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ I always took nonexpert to mean "not PhD or above", as per the answer that led to this tag. Seems like there is some inconsistency in the tag description and what's described in the answer: "As a rule of thumb, the kind of question that a PhD student or higher would ask or encounter in a PhD-level class is an expert-level question." $\endgroup$
    – Herr K.
    Mar 25, 2021 at 5:13
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @HerrK. well, that tag needed some more clear criteria to avoid being meta tag, I know that originally people wanted beginner tag but that name was bit problematic so it was renamed to nonexpert and given these more or less objective criteria. I guess it is not a bad rule of thumb for some questions but I think miachel is right that even some beginner questions that explore formal models should not be tagged with this, but maybe self study tag $\endgroup$
    – 1muflon1 Mod
    Mar 25, 2021 at 7:36
  • $\begingroup$ Your point is valid, but the underlying problem here is that the tag description, however useful it may be, does not facilitate very well what was originally intended in creating this tag, that is, to make the site more useful to experts by enabling them, in a simple way, to filter out a large body of lower level questions unlikely to be of interest to them. Perhaps this needs to be rethought. $\endgroup$
    – Adam Bailey
    Mar 25, 2021 at 14:54
  • $\begingroup$ "even though Edgeworth-box economies and IS-LM are most definitely formal models" I might have committed this mistake when tagging some questions. My apologies. I'll try to be careful. $\endgroup$
    – jmbejara
    Mar 25, 2021 at 18:48
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Considering the confusion, I replaced "As a rule of thumb, the kind of question that a PhD student or higher would ask or encounter in a PhD-level class is an expert-level question." with this: "Expert-level questions are the kind of questions that are more likely to be asked by PhDs/PhD-students in economics, academic economists, or research professionals in economics. Detailed guidelines are provided below to provide for a more objective-based classification." Thoughts? I can revert if you prefer. $\endgroup$
    – jmbejara
    Mar 25, 2021 at 19:00

0

Reset to default

You must log in to answer this question.

Browse other questions tagged .