Poor, Edmund W wrote:
I wish Larry would stay on the soapbox a little longer. I'd be happy to bring him coffee and donuts...
I see two parallel and complementary ideas regarding certification being discussed here:
- Improving signal to noise ratio
- Verifying quality of scholarship
Simple, mechanical schemes like "some signed-in user read or wrote this" can help distinguish between sheer vandalism (noise) and someone's sincere attempt to write useful stuff. This is like the squelch control on a radio.
On a higher level, we need to verify content on important matters that only expert reviewers are competent to judge. This is roughly analogous to what the military calls "authentication" (like a PGP key).
Ed has made an important distinction.
Simple automated or semi-automated procedures are very good for doing 1, but totally useless for 2. Arguments about their uselessness for the purposes of problem 2 do not mean that they are not a good idea for solving problem 1.
I have no idea how to go about solving the second problem. Let's see if we can have a go at the first.
Neil