Trust in People and Trust in Procedures
Trust in People and Trust in Procedures
The Truth Is Out There
This chapter delves into a puzzle: How can a community that is so strict in terms of procedures and rules be so lax in terms of verification of credentials? A case study of a major scandal on Wikipedia (i.e., a well-known Wikipedian claiming to be a professor but turning out to be an impostor) shows that the Wikipedia community does not care much about true identities or credentials for a reason: the possibility of building one's credibility only within the community, irrespective of real-world status, encourages nonexperts to participate. However, this process naturally results in lower interpersonal trust, which the community addresses by substituting trust in procedures for trust in people.
Keywords: trust online, credentials on Wikipedia, enactment of online personas, trust in procedures, credibility online
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