Wikipedia exemplifies the idea that pooling knowledge of independently deciding individuals can result in valuable infrastructures of knowledge that are better or at par with closed off, expert led methods. This idea was recently revived by platforms when they put their weight behind crowdsourced community notes over expert fact checkers providing context for content on them.

On one hand, relatively decentralized communities can be more resilient to individual interest take over. Yet, crowdsourcing initiatives can also be compromised. On an infrastructure level, they can be subverted by coordinated and targeted modification of the artefact for a vested interest.1,2 At an institutional level, these efforts are also susceptible to legal and social pressures from the jurisdictions they are registered in.,3,4

At MisinfoCon, we will conduct a two-part roundtable discussion on building and maintaining trust on infrastructures that rely on the wisdom of the crowds. The sessions will include contributors/ stewards of crowdsourced efforts such as Wikipedia, Open Street Maps and local efforts like Channapatna Health Library, Isfixable and Uli.

Roundtable 1 will focus on describing specific project’s challenges in maintaining knowledge integrity on their platform, and how their project balances privacy and anonymity of contributions with credibility and accountability. 

Roundtable 2 will be a strategizing session where participants will discuss methods to improve the credibility of their infrastructure and respond to doomsday scenarios for their projects. The participants will discuss the steps that need to be taken to prevent these scenarios from happening, and  to build resilience to respond in these scenarios.