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

Well that statement is not credible.

thx ..Tom (mobile)

On Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 11:37 AM Bob Wyman <bob@wyman.us> wrote:

> I forgot to mention:
>
>    - It should be possible to do all the things in the list *without
>    Alice's consent or even knowledge*, although Alice should be able to
>    easily discover if any of them have been done in public contexts or
>    contexts to which she has access.
>
> bob wyman
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 16, 2021 at 1:36 PM Bob Wyman <bob@wyman.us> wrote:
>
>> 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
>>
>>