ChiefNode

$2.33 & defamation of character: how can we trust individuals?

Posts live forever (I should be careful what I post and you should be careful how you comment). eBay seems to have a policy that they remove comments only after a court order proves the defamation of character. One person has spent countless hours (and I'm sure a fair bit of money) on having a negative, inappropriate comment removed from eBay from a buyer who spent $2.33. While certainly eBay need not remove appropriate feedback, one needs to question the spread of user contribution sites.

Wikipedia & eBay (among others) are very popular opinion posting sites. There are mechanisms to check on the opinion posters. . how many folks use those? Do we need some individual - credibility "proof" or "certification" sites like we have for privacy, security, etc. for organizations? "Take a 10 step quiz" and prove you are reliable? "Identify 10 great opinions that you have" and earn a certification? Or perhaps librarians, one day, truly will rule the world!

Early stage intellectual property needs validation . . it needs to be proved by others to show it has value. Now individual validation. . across websites. . across topics. . is something we should explore. Otherwise, do we look only to the aggregates?

Who wants to volunteer to be "certifiable"?

posted by Dana Bostrom @ 21:31