Comments on: What Makes An Expert?

By: Authentic PR

Authentic PR — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 18:49:20 +0000

Great article! I believe that when an individual proves himself an expert is when they may acquire that title. It takes time, experience and dedication to become a so called “Expert”. Great job Jon!

Dustin C. Parker, Authentic PR

By: Juliana McGivens

Juliana McGivens — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 18:16:30 +0000

I love the web and use it daily for work. I also had a successful career BEFORE the web.

The problem with the last 15 years is that anybody can claim to be an “expert”, “pro”, “guru”, “coach” and all the other BS titles.

I go with the term used in many of the creative industries. It takes 15 years of great work to be a “master”. I have not seen one yet.

The other part of this is that with the web the platform exists to say “I’m an expert”. Bull. I’d say 2% truly fall into the category of almost being a master in their industry.

Tellin’ it like it IS!

By: BM

BM — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 20:51:10 +0000

Web Standarnds are really recogmindations not requirements. Anyway I hand code my websites and I do all the design work myself. I’ve never had job, but I’ve been experimenting with websites since I was about sixteen. I used to use templates, but none of them looked good to me so I make my own templates. The standard I disagree with is using CSS for entire layout. I feel that the webiste needs to support all browsers. I do use CSS of mouse overs though asp.net can do mouse overs as well. I do both asp.net and PHP. I’m not even close to an expert and in fact I’m a worthless idiot. I’ve also studied Search Engine optimization and it’s not a useless subject like I’ve heard somebody claim.

By: Jon Bishop

Jon Bishop — Sat, 22 May 2010 15:47:38 +0000

I said I wasn’t much a designer because I had previously mentioned this was a free theme. That is all. I mention I work with the best designers because I do … where do you draw the conclusion that I think design involves programming?

As far as standards goes, a completely different topic, could be a good first post for your website when it gets launched. People seem to throw the word around a lot with little understanding of its actual meaning.

It seems we are on the same page now about the post. I’m glad we could see eye to eye.

By: seutje

seutje — Sat, 22 May 2010 06:13:59 +0000

Ugh, my point was that one doesn’t need to spend a ton of time on this to be considered an “expert” at it, one just needs to care enough about it, Google will take care of the rest.

By no means does one need to be a designer to make a proper standards-compliant document, one just needs to care enough about it, Google will take care of the rest.

You mention that you’ve been doing this since 1999, so I figured it’s about time someone pointed out the importance of standards on the web. Why even bother to claim that you “work with the best designers” and are “always focussed on quality”? Obviously, you don’t care all that much about quality and you think a designer is someone who writes HTML.

“Others do it too” and “Hey, I just copy/pasted” show just how much you care about it. Thanks for holding back the web… appreciate it.

By the way: it’s downright silly to claim that mastering A and mastering B boils down to the same set of conditions, or that person X and person Y need to match the same set of conditions to master something. For a lot of fields, especially web stuff, formal education matters very little nowadays, what matters a lot more is the passion one has about the material and the will to do it right.

By: Barry Carlyon

Barry Carlyon — Sat, 22 May 2010 00:21:17 +0000

Where the hell did anyone mention Standards?

I thought this post was about how and why people attempt to call themselves experts, possibly incorrectly so…..

By: Jon Bishop

Jon Bishop — Sat, 22 May 2010 00:01:22 +0000

That is one way to look at it :)

By: Jon Bishop

Jon Bishop — Fri, 21 May 2010 23:52:42 +0000

I’m sorry but once again I’m not quite seeing your point.

First off I never call myself an expert and was simply discussing it’s actual meaning and any possible real world applications.

Second I am using a free theme I found off of the internet. I’ve never been much of a designer which is no secret. I personally don’t care about the things you are picking on me for because they simply do not matter. What does matter is that I provide an affordable service to my clients that helps them achieve whatever goals they have online.

Once again, I’n not sure how you think you come off here? Is that just what you do? Find random websites that offer advice and start criticizing and demeaning their cause? I hope once you launch your website others will be kinder to you than you have been to me.

Once again thanks for stopping by.

By: seutje

seutje — Fri, 21 May 2010 23:33:10 +0000

“others do it too” is an awesome reason, wonder how that would hold up in court or when you get pulled over for speeding or something :P

guess you don’t care about standards, this makes me sad panda :(

XHTML should generally be served as an ‘application/xhtml+xml’ media type -> http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-media-types

better off just using HTML4.01 or HTML5, you’re using a target attribute on your links, etc. anyway

By: Ed Standard

Ed Standard — Fri, 21 May 2010 23:08:52 +0000

There are no experts.

By: Jon Bishop

Jon Bishop — Fri, 21 May 2010 18:35:41 +0000

I think you are confused and may have missed the point of my article. As you learn more about the internet you will find that many sites are not standards compliant … including Google. Also my site is served up as XHTML 1.1, maybe you were confused by the language declaration. Thanks for commenting.

By: seutje

seutje — Fri, 21 May 2010 11:55:27 +0000

your website isn’t standards compliant and you’re serving an XML document with a text/html header

these are trivial things many people who aren’t self-proclaimed experts manage to get right…

for the record, I don’t sport any “expert” titles