Savolainen, Reijo. "Judging the quality and credibility of information in Internet discussion forums." Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 62.7 (2011): 1243-1256.

This exploratory study investigates the criteria used to assess information quality and credibility in Internet discussion forums. Analyzing 4,739 messages from 160 Finnish discussion threads, it was found that 20.5% of the messages contained explicit judgments about the quality and credibility of information. Forum participants used both positive criteria, such as the validity of information, and negative criteria, such as dishonesty in argumentation. The most frequently used criteria for evaluating information quality included usefulness, correctness, and specificity. For information credibility, reputation, expertise, and honesty of the author were key factors. Due to the disputational nature of forum discourse, negative criteria were predominantly used. The study's generality is limited by its focus on sensitive and value-laden topics, suggesting that future research should explore other types of forums and how these judgments interact with other aspects of forum use.