Filtering the Internet

I received an e-mail response to my previous post, in which I conceded that the internet has become cluttered with express less-than-knowledgeable opinions and that a solution was needed to sort out the wheat from the chaff. The message suggested that I check out del.icio.us and other "social book marking" sites, in which people help to identify "good" sites.

I have looked into these sites in the past, and I've got to say: I'm not a fan of social bookmarking. While it's good for entertainment value in that it catches the "cool" things I may not have been able to find on my own, it doesn't provide much in the way of sorting out authoritative and useful sources of information.

This goes back to some of the most basic theories of knowledge: popular opinion does not constitute expertise. If social media is a cacophony of random opinions from people with little to no expertise, the way to find a reliable source is not to allow even less knowledgeable people to vote on which of them is "right."

That's not to say I don't see the potential value of social bookmarking as a solution to the clutter - merely that, in its present incarnation, it falls far short of this potential.

Just as there are trusted and untrustworthy sources of information on the Internet, so must there be trusted and untrustworthy referrers of information. As such, the notion of social bookmmarking merely adds another layer of confusion: you must now find a trustworthy reference in order to find a trustworthy source of information.

And I don't think we're quite "there" yet.