Changes

'''Web of Trust''' is an [[Internet]] [[crowdsourcing]] service which enables users to rate websites and see the average rating of all others.  This may be the largest community rating system for websites.

 

'''Web of Trust''' is an [[Internet]] [[crowdsourcing]] service which enables users to rate websites and see the average rating of all others.  WOT Services Ltd. is based in Helsinki, Finland, but as an Internet service is available world-wide. This may be the largest community rating system for websites.

==How it Works==

==How it Works==

This rating system can work quite well, but there is one big problem: the [[human factor]].  In theory, a few misinformed people will not result in inaccuracy, but if enough people are misinformed or biased, ratings will become inaccurate.  This is especially true for political and religious websites.  For example, a review on Alliance Defending Freedom's website comments that much of their site is based on fiction, and the idea of "[[Planned Parenthood]] selling fetal tissue [has] no basis in fact."<ref>https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/www.adflegal.org</ref>  Minority sites such as [[Conservapedia]] also receive poor ratings, because the majority of WOT users disagree with the sites' contents.

This rating system can work quite well, but there is one big problem: the [[human factor]].  In theory, a few misinformed people will not result in inaccuracy, but if enough people are misinformed or biased, ratings will become inaccurate.  This is especially true for political and religious websites.  For example, a review on Alliance Defending Freedom's website comments that much of their site is based on fiction, and the idea of "[[Planned Parenthood]] selling fetal tissue [has] no basis in fact."<ref>https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/www.adflegal.org</ref>  Minority sites such as [[Conservapedia]] also receive poor ratings, because the majority of WOT users disagree with the sites' contents.

There is also the risk of fraud.  It is difficult to defend against this, so one must hope that any attempt at fraud will be overwhelmed by genuine ratings.  However, some sites have been successfully attacked by "farmed" reviews.  This gives the opposition of WOT a good reason to speak poorly of the service.<ref>http://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.mywot.com</ref>

There is also the risk of fraud.  It is difficult to defend against this, so one must hope that any attempt at fraud will be overwhelmed by genuine ratings.  However, some sites have been successfully attacked by "farmed" reviews, such as seems to have happened to Conservapedia.  This gives the opposition of WOT a good reason to speak poorly of the service.<ref>http://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.mywot.com</ref>

==References==

==References==