I’ve been meaning for some time to blog about HonorTags, the effort spearheaded by Dan Gillmor and others to create a system of trust that attaches to individuals’ blog posts.
It’s an inspired idea with much merit, especially in the way it uses the mechanisms built into the Web to erect a social infrastructure built on credibility.
Under the HonorTags system, a blogger, PR pro, podcaster or anyone can voluntarily identify herself by using any of several roles, such as journalist, advocate, fan, personal observer or fiction-teller. The resulting self-identified tags are read by computers and whisked off to sites like Technorati, and users can then sort them to help find relevant and/or trustworthy stuff online.
If enough people adopt the system, then readers get to gauge the author’s intentions up front.
As I say, the idea has merit, and I’m willing to give it some time to see if it becomes widely adopted. (I’ve used HonorTags a few times, as in my video report for Dan’s Bayosphere site last month. Quick and painless.)
So it’s been interesting to gauge the reaction of the blogopshere, which has been somewhat frosty. Mark Hamilton, whose post is one of the more positive ones, wonders how we suss out tags that are abused or misused — a question I’ve heard raised several times.
At last weekend’s BlogHer conference, Chris Nolan said on a panel, “I don’t think this kind of tagging is gonna go anywhere. Dan’s heart is in the right place, but people are smart enough to figure out for themselves” whether to trust someone’s posting.
Melinda Gipson of the Newspaper Association of America chimed in, “Even traditional news organizations shy away from labels,” saying it reminded her too much of the controversy over PICS ratings back in 1997 (which I wrote about here).
I suggest that all of those who comment about HonorTags give them a try at least once to see how it works. It’s still early, and HonorTags may yet catch on.
Technorati tags: HonorTags
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
J.D.
Thanks for the link. I’m with you in being willing to watch to see how HonorTags evolve. It would be interesting if they included an interactive element: if i tag something HonorTagJournalist and you disagree, you could add what you considered a more accurate tag. Other readers could chime in, or simply use the original tag and any responses to it as aids in coming to their own conclusion.
Cheers,
Mark
Hi J.D.
Great post and thanks for pointing this out. I’m going to give it a try, but I somewhat agree with Chris Nolan’s thoughts. Personally, I see it more as a way for people to “prove” their credibility/integrity rather than earning it.
I would rather earn it than just be filtered out automatically because I’m a PR pro. Yes, I know that may automatically turn people off, I’ve had to explain to dear friends of mine what I actually do and what it means to me and how I am committed to my own personal integrity. It’s no fun and on the surface (meaning I haven’t investigated further) I feel these tags automatically create stereotypes. If someone wants to filter me out, I have no problem with that but I’m always completely up front with people if the situation is PR in nature. Otherwise, I’m just Sue :)
Of course that’s only one gal’s opinion :) and as the saying goes….
Sue