How do communities evaluate quality?

With the development of Citizen Journalism and interaction between professionals and audiences, the questions of credibility and quality of information are bound to appear. Individuals interested in news and current affairs are often susceptible to taking anything under the "news" banner as the truth and thus can be caught believing something that is better classed as opinion rather than newsworthy "truth".

Users may have to take all information from these sources (ones where user contribution reigns) and use common sense to determine what is fact and what is opinion or outright fiction.

Undertaking further research in the online environment is much easier that in the tangible (books, verbal communication) world as it simply involves using search engines such as Google, Yahoo etc., looking at other blog comments, academic sites, or the original post to gather data for generating an informed decision.

The method of policing the online collaboration phenomena is a difficult and still currently not clear method. Blogging and the like are meant to allow individuals to discuss their opinions openly, no matter how biased, incorrect, socially unacceptable or controversial they may be. It is not the writing of blogs that is the issue, it is who reads it and takes that information as a quality, credible source.

Current.com, a news site allows users to comment on news stories as they see fit. Their method of separating the two, is in fact that - separation. The professional news is located in one area of the site, whereas the 'viewer uploads' are in another. This allows users to view the news as it stands, view the comments and know they are just that, and add further if they desire.

Communities evaluate quality through their own opinions, wants, experiences and needs, and through additional information gathering if they want to do so. The fact that each user might find different levels of quality in each piece of communication cannot be helped or changed and makes the Internet and social networking online what it is today.

Whether this changes with the next revolution (however slow that process may be) of Web 2.0 remains to be seen.