The stackexchange network is an interesting phenomenon. If you haven't visited there's now a plethora of stackexchange sites where you can get almost any question answered. I cut my teeth on the first site, stackoverflow.com which is a site for answering questions on computer programming. I joined in 2009 but have largely restricted my activities to the rebol and rebol3 tags as that is where my interest lies. Reputation is obtained by providing good quality questions and answers so high ranking individuals generally are experts in their domains as they are upvoted by their peers. And with computer programming, there is generally a way you can determine whether an answer is correct or not. Afterall it's applied science.
Step forwards a few years, and we have skeptics.stackexchange.com. I don't know what drove me to start posting a few answers there, but seeing some of the nonsense posted was somewhat incentivising. Afterall, if the site is as highly regarded as stackoverflow.com, then possibly some of the mana of that site might just rub onto skeptics.stackexchange.com, and might mislead readers.
However, we now have a site where everyone has an opinion, and common misconceptions are held to be true. And providing proof of something can take a lot of research. Seems most people now believe that saturated fats are not bad for you and eating eggs is okay. So, in this climate, how is it possible to get "correct" answers accepted and not downvoted? It will be interesting to see how this site progresses, but at present I have my doubts. It may just end up reinforcing misconceptions, especially in the health domain.
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