PAGE 28 ▼ Q-Notes ▼ April 28, 2001
Would you Buy a used house from this man?
Joe O’Connor
An openly gay man that deals ‘straight’ in business:
a vocal activist within the L.G.B.T. community,
seeking your continued support.
“I SELL CHARLOTTE”
704-569-0806
http://members.aol.com/charncjoe
We all agree, Joe is the one to call for your real estate needs.
ThePrudentiall^
Carolines Realty
tat
ePlay
Trust Me
by Rachel Gold
Special to Q-Notes
If you’re an active Internet participant, it’s
likely that you get a lot of advertising mail and
a number of action alerts on a regular basis.
How do you determine what to get involved in
and what to pass over? For example, after the
Vermont same-sex marriage case, an alert went
out via email asking people to call the state’s
government and voice their support of same-
sex marriage for Vermont. A few days later, a
Vermont-based gay and lesbian civil rights
group sent out another alert asking people from
outside of the state to please stop calling be
cause their input not only wouldn’t make a dif
ference, but the volume of out-of-state calls was
annoying government,
officials.
On top of deciding what
mail to respond to, when ^
you’re “out” on the web ■
looking for information, 1
how can you tell what to
trust? Many universities’ librar
ies offer guidelines about Internet
credibility. To find an extensive list,
search Yahoo using the phrase “evaluating
Internet sources.” But don’t worry. I’m not go
ing to make you do all that work, here are my
top picks: The University of Wisconsin-Eau
Claire offers a basic and easy-to-remember list
of the “Ten C’s” at www.uwec.edu/Admin/Li-
brary/Guides/tencs.html.
If you want to get your hands around
Internet credibility, play with the “Internet
Detective,” a program written by the staff at
the Institute for Learning and Research Tech
nology at the University of Bristol
(sosig.esrc.bris.ac.uk/desire/internet-
detective.html). Another extensive site is “The
Virtual Chase: A Research Site for Legal Pro
fessionals” which offers an information quality
page at wwvt'.virtualchase.com/quality.
My own system is a quick three-point list: Cre
dentials, Filters and Sources.
trad
http,/
n.com
ien.org
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Credentials: Examine the author of the piece
and the site. Who is the author? Understand
that on the Internet it’s easy for people to make
up their credentials. Anyone can bill themselves
as a webmaster, an expert, or a consultant. It’s
harder to come up with a Ph.D., but even that
doesn’t guarantee that you’re getting great in
formation. Look for people with solid creden
tials from respectable institutions. (Quick tip:
it’s like reading food labels in the grocery store—
if you can’t tell what it is, it’s probably not good
for you.) When looking at the site, pay atten
tion to whether it’s a .com (a for-profit com
pany) a .org (usually non-profit), .edu (an edu
cational institution), .gov (governmental). This
will tell you how the information is being fil
tered.
Filters: Everything we read is filtered, first
through the mind of the author and then usu
ally through an editor. If you understand the
perspective of that editor, you will understand
how the information was selected. Don’t ask
“was this filtered?” ask “how was this filtered?”
Most sites offer information about
themselves. The quickest way to
find this is to scroll to the bot
tom of the first page of the
( site and look for copyright
notices and for a link to an
“about us” section. If the
f site doesn’t offer this infor
mation, you may want to
leave it for one that does. (Ad
vanced tip: if you’re really curious
about the origin of a site that doesn’t identify
itself, you can look up the person who regis
tered the domain name. Network Solutions, the
company that runs Internet registry, offers a
directory at www.networksolutions.com called
“whois.” It will give you a name, address and
telephone number.)
Sources: Sites that provide you with infor
mation that isn’t original should tell you where
that information came from. If you can’t tell
where the information came from, disregard it.
Even if it sounds plausible, you have no reason
to trust it and no reason to waste your time on
it with all the good information out there. (In
this way, it’s like dating: set your standards high
and don’t waste time on anything or anyone
who falls below them.)
When exploring Internet credibility, espe
cially where sales and profits are concerned, it’s
important to understand another set of rules:
those that run the gray matter in our heads.
Often Internet sites (in addition to television,
radio and print advertisers) use manipulative
techniques to provoke specific responses in us.
Psychology Professor Robert Cialdini describes
these as “weapons of influence” in his book /n-
fluence: The Psychology of Persuasion. There are
three in particular that can disrupt our Internet
use:
1. Authority and Liking: We automatically
tend to lend more weight to people with long
strings of titles, fancy credentials, and impres
sive-sounding biographies. We also tend to trust
people that we like, people who are attractive
and who seem like us. Trust your gut, and don’t
believe someone just because they sound im
portant or friendly.
2. Social Proof: Especially when we’re uncer
tain, we tend to do what other people are doing.
This is one of the strengths of Internet counters
that show you how many thousands of other
people have visited a particular site; you’ll tend
to think that many people can’t be wrong.
3. Scarcity: We give more v.eight to infor
mation that is hard to get to and items that are
hard to find. Don’t purchase something because
time is running out, and don’t believe some
thing because it was censored or because some
one (allegedly) didn’t want you to hear it or
because you’re (possibly) one of few people
privileged enough to get it. The bottom line:
take time with information but don’t waste
time. Practice sifting through information u.s-
ing the standards above or some of your own
making. Very soon you’ll find yourself speed
ing up and automatically discarding informa
tion that doesn’t fit your criteria and your surf
ing will be faster and more powerful. ▼
[ This is our final installment of ePlay, a col
umn devoted to the enjoyment of technology and
the empowerment of its users. Rachel Gold is no
longer writing the column and is pursuing new
career directions. Send comments about this col
umn to editor@q-notes.com. email Rachel at
MailePlay@aol. com. ]
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Q-Notes wishes to thank its guest
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