Do You Trust Answers?: Credibility Judgments in Social Search Using Social Q&A Sites

People are increasingly using social question and answer (Q&A) sites as a source of information. Asking a question on a social Q&A site is a form of social search, as it enables the site’s users to find information by utilizing social resources through interactions with other people. In social Q&A settings, people interact with online content created by other users, and also with unknown people. As a result, individuals encounter challenges in making credibility judgments. Therefore, it is important to understand how people make credibility judgments when asking and answering questions within social Q&A settings. In this paper, we first present an overview of related work regarding social Q&A, social search, and credibility assessment in social Q&A settings. This review indicates the necessity of investigating how people trust answers when using social Q&A sites. We propose a conceptual framework for examining this problem within the context of social search. Author