I've seen a couple of efforts lately to help determine who's credible online and though I understand the need and the motive, these attempts are fundamentally flawed and perhaps even more damaging than they are helpful.
The latest is Newscred and Techcrunch describes it today. I used a Techcrunch beta invite to poke around.
It's very simple -- though that's the problem; credibility isn't so simple. They list articles and you get to ...
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Bad journalism. Too much opinion. For example, the author claims: Wont work. Theyll never find all the bad stuff. but provides no justification. Not even the staple quote from an expert. As we speak many people are working on exactly this problem, so it is a bit premature to claim that it wont work. Also, his point about finding the good stuff contradicts his "Wont work" argument. The best stuff comes from credible sources. Again, typically. So, there is so much stuff that separating the good stuff means somehow eliminating the bad stuff. Pretty simple, but the author does not seem to get it. Or even if he does, he does not explain his point properly. Also, what is this all about: This is why I believe that there should be an ethic in professional journalism, as there is in blogs, to link to prior work and sources. All roads should link back to the original reporting. In particular, is he claiming that bloggers always link to original source? What about spam?
