In computers, there are chains of trust where if I trust you and you trust someone else, then I too trust that someone else. This sort of thing is built in to in to PGP and GPG encryption tools used to verify identity. But this sort of model is also baked in all over the place. For example, if you are on facebook, you probably understand that when you friend someone they can see what you post. What many folks don't realize is that not only your friends can see it but usually their friends can as well. Last time I looked you can set things to "friends only", the default "Friends and Friends of Friends", and some just share everything with everyone. There may be a "friends of friends and their friends"-- I don't remember anymore.
I expect most folks just end up with the default where every time they friend someone they are giving access to not only that person but all of that persons friends. I also suspect that most folks have no idea every time they accept a friend request they are allowing hundreds of other people access. To each their own but if this is news to you, I recommend reviewing your settings. I'll bet most folks would be shocked to see who has access to their profile. (The dad who shot the girls laptop after he read what she wrote by logging in as the family dog comes to mind for some reason.)
I have always found the in-line parenthetical citations used in academic papers highly disruptive to focus, comprehension, and retention. While pondering how annoying I find them because I'm writing a paper that requires them, it occurred to me that these references are the same sort of web of trust. Not only do citations provide credit but they also convey authority. Which, like facebook, made me wonder how much auditing happens. The NY Times wrote an article about the proliferation of fake conferences and journals. It seems to be a problem. "All Fake Journals" is a list someone using the name Joanna Carpenter put together, and here's another list called "Scholarly Open Access" by Jeffrey Beall that looks more reputable on first impression-- but who are these people and why should I trust their lists of what is bogus? One can easily imagine someone also creating a bogus list to knock down the authority of opposing beliefs and points of view. Creationism vs evolution. Is out-of-the-ground carbon driving global climate change? How many others?
I don't know the pillars of the academic community so one last name in a citation is as good to me as another. Besides professors, who knows which journals are reputable in which academic circles? I guess the only way to know is to ask someone you trust to know and share which resources are trustworthy and to keep in mind from there each link in the chain or strand in the web moves you one place further from reliability.
On the flip side, every time I cite something, I'm implicitly saying that I trust this authority and what they say. I worry that I may be granting some small amount of credibility back through the chain of trust to someone who, if I actually knew anything about them, wouldn't be deserving. For now, I guess I have to use what I find for this assignment-- I have no choice, do I?
