Fact-checking articles?

This is the idea behind the voting posts up. If something is wrong with the piece, someone will post it in the comments. However I think you touch on another subject. If an article is wrong, but interesting, it has the opportunity to be voted up quickly before anyone realizes the issues with it. The solution would be to be able to vote down, but I am still not sure how the Newsvine staff stands on this issue.

I dislike the idea of voting an article down. People love to show their disdain for things out of proportion for their approval of other things. We would have rampant disapproval of stories based on their political content alone.

I agree with Abe. If someone doesn't agree with the opinion of the author they might rate the article based on the authors opinion rather than the article iteself.

Derek,

As unbelievable as it may sound, even the AP and major press outlets often don't fact check their work. I recently had a piece published about our company and since they rushed to press, they couldn't "fact check". Thus, the article had inconsistencies, inaccuracies and worse.

A peer rating system would be terrific, but actually, the comments by themselves are a great way to police the accuracy of articles, too. Perhaps a comment ranking or importance system should be considered to help push relevant, notable comments to the top??

Just throwing it out there.

Next to comments for pointing out inaccuracies, and lacking of votes if something is really wrong, I think the reputation of authors will provide the trust. If you grow to a respected author, top contributor, high votes, that sort of thing, then your articles will probably be accepted quicker. The 'positive feedback' feature, not yet visible, will assist too, I think. If someone present something strange for a fact and he isn't respected that much (yet), more people will doubt this, and may try to find citations proving otherwise.

I don't think a fact-voting system would help much, on the other hand. How can you vote for something to be true or not? I really think the system described above will prove to be enough, because even if in the beginning some people will vote it up while they shouldn't, there will still be the lack of votes of people visiting the article later. And the people visiting the article early on will probably be the enthousiasts, which may be inclined quicker to check the facts.

I agree with Jaap. It works with big media, it works with blogs or citizen journalism, no reason why it shouldn't work with Newsvine. Actually, even if there were no "positive feedback" or anything, I'm quite sure that word of mouth and commentaries would be enough to establish whether an author is trustworthy or not.

And, if all else fails, suspicion is always the best remedy. If you can't fact-check a story you find interesting albeit suspicious, and have no ways of knowing how reliable a source is, just disconsider it 'till you can either prove/disprove it.

I suppose the people that should be ranking or "upping" stories based on facts would be considered knowledgeable in the area. Which leads to problem two, how do we find that out.

Just as how it works in real life, as solonbro pointed out?

suppose the people that should be ranking or "upping" stories based on facts would be considered knowledgeable in the area. Which leads to problem two, how do we find that out.

Maybe through a rank system, where we "up" and "down" commenters? See where this is going? heh.

Maybe through a rank system, where we "up" and "down" commenters? See where this is going? heh.

That would make things quite complicated. I think we should rely on the enthusiasts getting to know eachother(s credibility), and on the level of posts made by commenters, instead of thinking up a technical solution which could bring more trouble than it would solve.

So then could we add a tag to the bottom of comments people make, which signifies how many posts they have made/comments they have made/and possibly "legitimate" comments they have made?

Why would his/her comments be important? What's important is the writer's credibility, so what matters to the reader is how highly people think of his/her posts. And that, as Jaap already pointed out, is easily achieved by browsing previous articles' votes, as well as other users' comments disputing its accuracy, or making corrections. And will work even better when the "positive feedback" feature is implemented.

As we like to say here in Brazil, it looks to me like you're "trying to find hair on an egg".

Great points all.

I think the best temporary solution is to add a "down checkmark" to go alongside the current "up" one. This way, stories can even get a negative rating.

I think the best temporary solution is to add a "down checkmark" to go alongside the current "up" one. This way, stories can even get a negative rating.

Read up on the hundreds of comments on why that isn't a great idea. In short: biased voting, because voting it down if you don't agree with the content.

Read up on the hundreds of comments on why that isn't a great idea. In short: biased voting, because voting it down if you don't agree with the content.

Exactly. Imagine what would happen if Glenn Reynolds had a Newsvine account, for example.

I think the only thing that would solve is an easy way to figure out who frequents the site most; liberals are conservatives.

• You can click on the authors "posts" and "posts & links" and check what he has been writing and seeding, as well as how much votes they've been getting.
• You can check the comments on a post to see if someone backs or contests his informations. Also, if no one has commented and you're skeptic, you can leave your comment, asking for further information or for peer confirmation
• You'll be able to see his "positive feedback" in the near future.
• And if the author has some sort of background to further validate his opinions, he can state it in the "bio".

I'm sorry if I'm insisting on this, but I really think all you're asking is already here, at anyone's reach. All that's needed is for the reader to be interested or curious in finding things out.

Well, what if a person is here only for the content of the news, not the comments that anyone else is posting? Shouldn't there be an easier way to come to a conclusion rather than visiting 5 seperate pages on newsvine to check author integrity?

Yes. Look up there beside your name. See "positive feedback", "articles posted" and "links seeded"? Doesn't that seem like enough information on whether an author is active, and how well his writings are perceived by the community? You can quickly know how much he has posted, how much he has seeded and how much positive feedback he's received.

Also, the article will have comments. If you are dubious of what you read, as well as about the author, and there are no comments, and you want an easy way out, leave a comment. I'll give you an example: so far, I have only one post up here, and have seeded only one link.

The post in question deals with Brazilian questions, and has very little links, because most of the sources are in Portuguese. Let's say you want someone to fact check what I said, but you don't speak Portuguese. You can leave a comment, asking for other people to check the sites and stories I've mentioned, and confirm their truthfulness. As easy as can be.

I also think we must remember this is a last resort thing. In most cases, I'm sure the article itself will be enough for you to judge its veracity or lack thereof. As has been said before, it works for the Internet in general, there's no reason why it shouldn't work for Newsvine.

Accuracy is important, especially in 'pure' news articles. But like so many other things in America, our standards have slipped and we accept about anything that is printed as fact. Reporters are deperate for news - hence the famous un-named source quotes that make up so many stories. If in doubt -or perhaps the given quote is not strong enough - the reporter goes with an 'unidentified spokesman', un-named sources, or the famous confidential source and makes up or paraphrases his own material.

Looking towards facts, this post brings up an important point but it gets lost in the comments - the discussion that is going on between the author and two readers - takes some if not most of the out of the sails that the post almost dies. I am the 20th person to comment on this piece. Yet, 75% of the comments come from 3 people (that is 15 for the math impaired) and is a GOOD reason for Newsvine to set a standard for debates on posts - or delegate them to another forum where others who are interested in minute details and hairs on eggs can follow them.

Frankie: And what, exactly, would there be wrong about the majority of comments on a post being made by just a few persons? Next to that, we, as commenters, could have turned the discussion back to the post. The author of the post certainly could have done so.

Accuracy is important, especially in 'pure' news articles. But like so many other things in America, our standards have slipped and we accept about anything that is printed as fact.

I beg to differ. What is happening is that big media is having to deal with a level of scrutiny it never experienced before. In the "golden days", guys like Jason Blair would have gone unnoticed by the large public for ages, and the whole Rathergate episode would never even have happened.

And that, also, is the reason why I didn't even ventured into this topic.

and is a GOOD reason for Newsvine to set a standard for debates on posts

Again, beg to differ. In these sort of cases, I'm a libertarian: the less rules, the better. If you think someone is being abusive on the comments, you can always complain to them, and, if that doesn't work, to Newsvine staff.

Not that I think, in this particular case, commentaries are the best solution for our discussion. No, I think everyone would have profited by using the chat tool. Unfortunately, that's not always practical (I, for one, was at work and couldn't dispose of the time necessary to join a chat), so comments is all we have.

One last thing, going back to this post original point: no one's mentioned the "report this link" feature, which I think also helps in maintaning credibility for us, unknown authors. With the amount of users I believe Newsvine will attract when it goes out of beta, it will be very hard to post lies or made-up stories and not end up being reported as a "rotten apple".

And on that note, I promess Frankie I'll keep out of further discussing this post (even though I'm quite sure the number of comments helped it gain due visibility on the 'Vine's frontpage).

It says N/A near my name.

That's because the system isn't visible / implemented for users yet.