1. The Goal

Ever feel overwhelmed trying to keep up on news (especially politics), but feel like there's too much information and it's hard to know who to trust?

Ever read the results of a poll or focus group and ask, "Who the heck did they poll? I sure wouldn't have said that."

Ever watch talking heads on TV and want to gently toss your remote through the screen because of the junk they're saying?

If you answered "yes", this site may be able to help.

Ameritocracy is a user-contributed and user-generated content site that allows people to judge the accuracy, credibility and relevancy of claims made by society's leaders and information gatekeepers such as media outlets and businesses.

2. How It Works

Ameritocracy enables the community's collective brain to report, respond to, and rate succinct claims made by a person or organization.

1. The community submits short quotes on any topic, citing a source where the quote can be verified.
2. Brief responses can be added to either support, challenge or give more context to the quote. Responses must also cite sources for their claims.
3. Thoughtful responses can be marked as the best, bubbling up those with the most votes, and making it easier to find the most useful and reliable feedback.
4. The community rates the quote for accuracy or credibility and relevancy.
5. Reputation scores are generated for the person who added the quote, the person or organization that made the statement, people who added a response, and any sources used. Reputations encourage social capital and help the community identify the credibility of its members.

The theory behind all this is sort of a mashup between Wikipedia, various fact-check websites and ecommerce seller ratings. Anyone can contribute. A massive variety of people ensures that we have access to multiple perspectives on every issue, which gives us a broader understanding of them, similar to how Wikipedia often presents multiple points of view. Many entities on the site have reputations similar to seller ratings, which reflect the community's perspective on how credible this entity is. Does it work? Studies show that Wikipedia tends to be highly accurate, and seller ratings very successful in policing a community.

3. Accuracy, Credibility & Relevancy

Accuracy
(fact-based claims)

We want to know if the claims within a quote are factually accurate. Basically, is it true? Can it be proven? Our goal is to identify fact and fiction in the claims made by society's news-makers.

Credibility
(opinion-based claims)

While opinions can't always be judged for factual accuracy, the morals of a person or organization that serves the public are important to us. We want to know if the opinion in question makes you feel that the speaker is more or less credible.
For example: Some people may find Barack Obama less credible because of his pro-choice stance, while others may find him more credible.

Relevancy
(all claims)

Relevancy in this case is subjective. We want to know if something matters to you. The goal of this rating is to help bubble up content that really matters to people, rather than the filler that commonly plagues our news media.

4. Fact vs Opinion

Why do we differentiate between fact-based claims and opinion-based claims?

Fact-Based Claims

One of the core goals of Ameritocracy is to identify credible people and organizations. One way to do this is to judge the factualness of their claims - while inaccurate claims can come from an irresponsible though well intentioned person or from someone who intends to deliberately mislead the public, the outome is quite similar: we find them less credible.

Opinion-Based Claims

While we feel that its unfair to reward or penalize people based on their opinions, which are highly subjective, we also understand that the opinions of our leaders and culture-creators are very important to us. Because of this we've included the distinction, and while reputation scores are not generated for the person or organization who made the claim, we are collecting the data from the ratings and connecting that to the originator in other ways.

5. Reputation

Every entity on the site has a reputation which is automatically generated based on a variety of factors. You and ever other member have a reputation based on your behavior; You will be rewarded for constructive participation, and penalized for malicious behavior as perceived by the community. People or organizations that are being quoted also have a reputation which is based off of ratings from the community. These entities will be rewarded for high accuracy and relevancy ratings, or penalized for low ones.

Does it work? Our hope is that by creating a transparent community, where our deeds are made public, we will encourage social capital and a sense of responsibility about the way we behave on the site. We're hoping the same will be true for anyone who is quoted and rated on the site, and that they will aim to act in honest and responsible ways in the real world.

6. Make Your Voice Heard

We wanted to create a site that would give people a louder voice in society, and a chance to demand honesty and integrity from our leaders and news-makers, while helping people stay current quickly and easily. Sign up and help us challenge the status quote!