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Post by Duke Fontayne on Mar 14, 2010 16:58:03 GMT -5
All,
I am currently taking a communications class and writing a series of papers. The subject of my papers will revolve around the use of online forums (discussion boards) as a means of sharing knowledge.
I am looking for some input from forum users (you guys and gals). This will be in regards to finding out information from others who post on forums (not necessarily Dagorhir related). A lot of information is shared on forums between people who have never met each other.
What do you do to verify the credibility of a post?
In this case credibility is believability. What do you look for that makes you trust the information that someone has posted? For example, one might look to see if the person has been a long time forum member or see if they link any references in their post.
For those that reply, list all the things that you regulary do to check credibility, even if someone else has already mentioned it.
Thank you very much to all those who reply, it will make writing my papers much easier.
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Post by stubbie on Mar 14, 2010 18:44:13 GMT -5
Personally I look for:
Structure: If it's well written and seems coherent, it definitely lends credibility. No jargon, acronyms (OMG, LOL, ROFL, etc..) or catch phrases.
Poster: Spend enough time on boards and people who know what their talking about will become apparent.
Mostly I look to see others opinion on the matter. If it's true, it's most likely to have a general consensus it's true. Again posters personal credibility plays into this one as well. If 100 people say it's true but 70% of them have 4 posts and are unknown...move onto other ways.
Also google search the general idea to read up on it.
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Post by Ska'ar Wulfsiger on Mar 20, 2010 1:00:20 GMT -5
1) Reputation. This is generally easily determined via their status on the forums, i.e. an admin/staff, post ratings, or on some boards a karma system. It's also pretty easy to determine through a few threads how others react to the person, i.e. if they generally agree/like the person or generally debate with/dislike the person. 2) Source references. If someone is posting something that seems completely wild and unbelievable, I generally check any sources they are using and in turn check the credibility of those sources. "Pics or it didn't happen!" 3) Use of grammatical structure. I generally disregard posters who do not use proper sentence structure, paragraph indenting, proper use of BBCode, etc. Their ability to communicate coherently goes a long way toward their credibility. 4) Their avatar/sig. Sounds silly, but if someone has some l337 Sithz0r Darth Maul r0x0rz avatar!!!!1111one and some crazy flashing hax0r looking sig, I tend to lend less credibility than if they had no avatar or sig at all. If I find something either inoffensive, unique, or personable, I generally will give them more credibility. (Please disregard my Jolly Roger and sig!) 5) The cake is a lie. 6) General understanding of the internet. If someone seems like they have very little idea of what is actually on the internet, I find that they are more likely to take anything they find on said internet at face value. There are plenty of scams sites, disinformation, and general crockery at every bend, so an obvious naivety to internet memes and subcultures tends to lead me to believe they likely didn't bother to check whatever sources they used to begin with. Just because someone blogged it somewhere doesn't mean it's true. (This doesn't mean they have to engage in spreading said memes or agree to participate in said subcultures, but if you didn't understand in the slightest numbers 4 and 5 or the upcoming list numbers, you may qualify as naive). >9000) ? 8) Profit
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