This morning I read a thought provoking post by Mark Hopkins at mashable that questions the wisdom of crowds in social media and cites a statement made to the BBC by the inventor of the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, about his concern over the rapid spread of disinformation on the web.

I expect Digg’s recently launched recommendation engine is a step in the right direction and will have a positive effect on reducing herd mentality, by enabling people to find content that they prefer rather than what the masses push to category front pages.

In terms of developing a new model, Sir Tim Berners-Lee would probably have considered a system that draws parallels with scientific peer review. I believe there is less chance of people trolling their own blog in response to a post, and instead provide a constructive counter-argument or refutal.

One suggestion for part of what is an incredibly complex problem: a system of combining a link/trackback with the notion of accepting or refuting the content that is being linked to. This may help machines to evaluate credibility based upon what is generally a more considered response than a reader comment. The the goal is to provide a more semantic summary of peer response, as well as sheer popularity, which could of course be represented in a badge if so desired. For example, a controversial and inaccurate post may generate a huge response, however the majority of authoritative responses may link in disagreement, which could be analysed and presented (e.g. with a scoring system) by search engines and social news services.