A Lesson from the Importance of Being Earnest: Credibility’s Relationship with Identity and What this Means for Badges

As I’ve thought about how credibility can be established on the Internet, especially the credibility of badges, I’ve realized that identity has a lot to do with it.  Often we find people credible because of who their identity in society—usually their identity as a licensed professional or recognized scholar.  But as I mentioned in my last post, the Internet floods us with information from millions of different people, many of whom don’t have an identity that establishes their credibility.  Often, we have very little information about their identity at all.  So we’re often left confused, not knowing how to verify the credibility of all the people who post information online.

scene in Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Earnest, reminded me of this dilemma.  Jack, who assumes the name of Ernest when he is in town, was adopted as a baby and does not know who his parents are.  Thus not only does he use an assumed identity, his identity as part of a family is unknown.  When Jack proposes marriage to Gwendolen, she accepts him because she thinks his name is Earnest.  Likewise, sometimes it is easy to create credibility with an online identity.  So far so good.  But when Jack tries to break the news to his potential mother-in-law, Lady Bracknell, she rejects him because she can’t establish his identity.

When Lady Bracknell interviews Jack to determine his eligibility, she first wants to know if his answers to her questions are satisfactory.  Likewise, we all expect accurate and interesting information from the material we read online and often reject information that appears blatantly inaccurate.  We may be looking for a certain kind of information or content and reject material that doesn’t fit what we are looking for.  Take a look at this excerpt:

LADY BRACKNELL: I am quite ready to enter your name, should your answers be what a really affectionate mother requires.  Do you smoke?

JACK: Well, yes, I must admit I smoke.

LADY BRACKNELL: I am glad to hear it.  A man should always have an occupation of some kind.  There are far too many idle men in London as it is.

So far, so good.  Jack has passed the first test because his content fits Lady Bracknell’s criteria.  But then, as Internet users often do, Lady Bracknell wants to know his identity.  Can she trust his apparently satisfactory content?

LADY BRACKNELL: Now to minor matters.  Are your parents living?

JACK: I have lost both my parents.

LADY BRACKNELL: Both? . . . That seems like carelessness.  Who was your father?  He was evidently a man of some wealth.  Was he born in what the Radical papers call the purple of commerce, or did he rise from the ranks of the aristocracy?

JACK: I’m afraid I really don’t know.

Jack must then reveal the embarrassing truth that he was found abandoned inside a handbag in a train station.  In other words, his content may be good, but his credentials, and thus his credibility to Lady Bracknell, are nonexistent:

LADY BRACKNELL: You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter—a girl brought up with the utmost care—to marry into a cloakroom, and form an alliance with a parcel?

So Jack’s satisfactory content is rejected because of his lack of credibility, or rather, both his obscured identity and his lack of an appropriate one.

So what does this mean for the future of badges?  Will links showing the exact identity of the badge issuer be sufficient to calm credibility qualms?  Or will the credibility test fail if the badge issuer is merely a small business or an enthusiasts’ group rather than a community college?