Wikinomics readers are encouraged to register at Ameritocracy. The site deploys a lot of principles of Wikinomics. It allows users to vote on veracity of stories, quotes, etc. that appear on the Internet. Quotes are rated for both credibility and relevancy (see screen shot below). From the site:
The core features of Ameritocracy are adding statements (made by a person or organization) and assessing statements. For example, if you hear Jane Doe say something on tv that you find questionable, you can submit that statement to the site to see what the community has to say about it, or you can add your own assessment. Members can then rate Jane Doe’s statement for credibility and relevancy, add their own assessments, or post a comment.
From this, Jane Doe will develop a reputation based on the community ratings, and you and your sources will develop a positive reputation so long as no one identifies your submission as a misquote or deliberately inaccurate information. The goal is to get a few different perspectives for each statement, so anyone looking to know more about a statement can get a broader picture and make their own assessment.
Ameritocracy just launched the public beta site - anyone can read, but you need an invite code to register and participate. We’d love to have your readers’ viewpoints in our community and get their feedback on the site. The first 100 readers to sign up using the invite code WIKINOMICS can register, and everyone gets 10 invites.
I cam imagine how this site could be used for enabling community opposition research where anyone (in the Beta) can dig-up an interesting quote from a politician and the Ameritocracy community collectively filters the most relevant and most (or least) credible.
Mike, thanks.
One of my favorite phrases to describe the site is that it’s a “marketplace of information”, where the community’s ratings produce an index of the best content and content sources, be they well-known public figures or simply members of the community. Reputation is a key component for us.
The building block of the community, content, and our future features are these short quotes. If fact-based, we want to know if the community finds the quotes to be accurate. And fact-based or not, we want to know if the community thinks a particular quote matters or not.
Let us know what you think!
Idealistic as it may seem, this sort of site does encourage dialog around the relevant issues of the day, something that is sorely lacking through conventional media channels. Simply having the ability to add context around a quote goes a long way in my book toward defusing the ’sound bite’.