If the quote is ticked as ‘personal knowledge’ then it’s yellow.

If people want to quote a source, to save spamming, all searches are subject to name validation.

So, example, I want to put some details in about Jonathan Rosenberg. I put that his job title is “cowboy ninja pirate,” and put in a web page. http://www.fake.com/madeup.htm Your bot runs off and searches that web page and fails to find any reference to Jonathan Rosenberg or cowboy ninja pirate. Thus it does not let the link stand.

If, however, i say he’s a Senior Vice President, product management, and quote this page: http://www.google.ch/intl/de/press/management.html#jonathan then that gives auditability. Admittedly, I could say he’s Chief Financial Officer, which is on the same page, so it’s not a flawless system, but anyone using these for serious purposes is going to want to check the sources for themselves anyway. Users could then rank the submissions and links made, as with Ebay’s merchant recommendations. A lot would have to be taken on trust, but as with Ebay and wikis, the wheat eventually squeezes out the chaff.

Jonathan Rosenberg
Senior VP, Product Management
Source: http://www.google.ch/intl/de/press/management.html#jonathan
Found by: jon argles (Accuracy rating: Good)

And the same thing for each link, too, which is the important thing, really - job titles are relatively public, but information about who line manages who - that’s the money stuff.

Jon - love the thoughtful comments. Obviously the challenge with this kind of data is that it is hard to cite because there are no publicly available references. If you look at many of the “cogmapper” edits, most of them are simply fixing bad edits from random spammers.

We have been talking a lot about how to create a system where people can vote on map quality, the problem is you would want to have votes tied to specific versions of maps unless a change is very small or something. Would love to get ideas on how to better do this.

In fact, having called yourself a ‘Wiki-orgchart’ that’s the saving grace of the Wales suite, that every source is expected to be cited and referenced, so people know if they’re on a sturdy bridge or a shaky rope-ladder, fact-wise. Admittedly, a lot of sources will be gleaned through personal offline knowledge, but then at least the confidence levels can be set accordingly.

1) We have to find a way to make people want ads
2) We have to find a new format for ads that does not bother people

My point is that #2 is probably the answer and we are probably still in the experimentation stage rather than full-blown standards-development.

how about google adsense. is it not a widget? you take a snippet of JS code, embed on your blog or website, and make money through targeted advertising.

there are widgets that generate transactional revenue (i.e. amazon and ebay widgets.)

bottom line, if a widget can get millions of views, it’s valuable in the eyes of advertisers… i think this has already been demonstrated. however, i agree that there needs to be standards.