In an article, AB-Rich suggests that online communities have "specialists" and "synthesists". Specialists know a great deal about particular topics. Sythesists use their general knowledge. In which categories do you act as a specialist or a synthesist?
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EL1 2
ANSWERS: 5
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G'day Eli, Thank you for your question. In most categories, I would be a synthesist as would most people. In some political, historical, sports and entertainment categories, I would possibly be able to make some claim to be a specialist by Answerbag standards but not an expert per se. Regards
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I would categorize myself as a synthesist. There may be a few categories that I'm an 'expert' in, but I know other people must be more of a specialist in those categories than I am.
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I mostly use my general knowledge about the internet to find answers, so synthesist...
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Where is the dividing line between "specialist" and "synthesist"? I don't think I fit into either category as defined. I'm a synthesist in a different sense - my general knowledge often enables me to synthesize an answer which I didn't actually know before. Perhaps there are subjects/categories I would call myself a specialist on, and they exist on answerbag, but because my knoweledge is so specialised in those subjects, the questions there are too vague/broad to be that interesting, so I don't often bother visiting there.
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I don't see that one is mutually exclusive to the other. I certainly sythesize, but there are topics in which I specialize, as well.
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