Is Alice, or her post, credible? (A really rough use case for credibility signals.)

Alice writes a short post that says:

"Bob, a known communist, recently wrote a paper supporting heat pumps. We
> all know that Hydrogen is a better fuel for heating homes since it has no
> global warming impact and burning hydrogen produces only water-vapor as a
> combustion product."


Given this, the following should be possible:

   - I should be able to discover that there are 10,435 annotations and
   credibility signals that have been associated with this post and that while
   some of them are positive, many are negative. That number should alert me
   to the fact that Alice's post is controversial and thus encourage me to
   review it more carefully than I otherwise might. Also, because there are so
   many signals, I'll need innovative tools to summarize, filter, and organize
   them.
   - From among the many annotations or signals created, I should be able
   to easily discover those signals and annotations authored by the five
   people or organizations that I personally trust on similar issues. (i.e.
   FOAF-like filtering)
   - If Snopes and the WaPo Fact checkers have reviewed Alice's claim that
   "Bob is a communist," my browser should indicate to me that those reviews
   exist and challenge the validity of Alice's statement.
   - If I know Bob, I should be able to support the Snopes and WaPo
   evaluations by indicating that I have personal knowledge that Bob is not a
   communist.
   - Since Alice identifies herself as "http://example.com/Alice," I should
   be able to easily find all Credibility Signals, Verified Credentials, etc.
   that have Alice as their subject. I should be able to do the same for Bob.
   - Given that Alice has referred to "Bob's paper," I should be able to
   "confirm" that such a paper was published and I should be able to provide a
   link to the paper as proof. (Note: Even though I find the post and Alice to
   lack credibility, I should be able to support the credibility of parts of
   the post.)
   - I should be able to mark as "false" the claim that hydrogen has no
   global warming impact and provide links to papers showing that hydrogen's
   GWP-20 is between 10 and 13. Others may elaborate the hydrogen's GWP-100 is
   about 5. Others will dispute the credibility or relevance of both of these
   proofs...
   - I should be able to mark as "false in this context" the claim that
   "burning hydrogen produces only water-vapor," and provide, as proof, links
   to papers that point out that while burning hydrogen in pure oxygen does,
   in fact, produce only water-vapor, burning hydrogen in our nitrogen-rich
   atmosphere produces NOx, NH3, and other emissions that impact either
   climate or health.
   - Since Alice received an award for being the "Hydrogen Producer
   Association's Spin-master of the Month for August, 2021," I should be able
   to associate that award with Alice's name on this post. (Note: Some will
   consider an award from the HPA to support Alice's credibility, others will
   find that this award challenges her credibility.)
   - I should be able to link from Alice's post to my own detailed
   "rebuttal"of her claims. Many others might link to other rebuttals which
   will themselves be linked other signals, resources, and claims. Others will
   link to proofs that support Alice's claims. Thus, Alice's post will become
   one point of context within a network of information resources which are
   each related to each other in some way. Starting at Alice's post, one will,
   in time, be able to find a path to a vast amount of information that both
   supports and challenges her statements.
   - The author of some post, article, or whatever, should be able to ask:
   "What claims have been supported or challenged based on my post?" by
   searching through the network of signals, annotations, etc. In this way,
   the author would gain some sense of their impact as well as discover common
   misunderstandings that should be addressed in edits or additional posts.
   - On discovering what appears to be a well crafted support or challenge
   of Alice's post, I should be able to ask: "Do the positions of this person
   usually agree or disagree with those of people I trust?" "What subjects
   does this individual usually provide signals for?" "What credentials does
   this person have?", etc.

In thinking about the needs for and the potential mechanisms for providing
the context necessary to establish credibility, I can't help remembering a
line from Vannevar Bush's 1945 article in the Atlantic Monthly, "As We May
Think
<https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/>
":

> There is a new profession of trail blazers, those who find delight in the
> task of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common
> record.


I believe that in order to usefully address the issue of credibility and
combat misinformation, we  must do those things which will enable Bush's
trail blazers of associative links.

bob wyman