I've been thinking about this a lot with respect to user generated content and although this is somewhat tangential, it appears that people provide the most pos

I've been thinking about this a lot with respect to user generated content and although this is somewhat tangential, it appears that people provide the most positive feedback for the version of truth that most resembles their own version, not some third party, objective viewer. I had originally thought this was a modern phenomenon, but it turns out it's been going on for a long time. Take for example Dürer's Rhinoceros: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%BCrer's_Rhinoceros http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%BCrer's_Rhinoceros His depiction is armor clad and has an extra horn, it looks fanciful, and yet, another artist, Hans Burgkmair, produced a depiction that is basically true to life, yet Dürer's print became famous and duplicated widely, and only one of Burgkmair's prints is extant. Slightly more anecdotal, for a while my dad collected maps and I bought him an original from the 1700s that depicted California as an island, despite being well mapped since the 16th century. It was something of a fanciful myth and people preferred the "island" maps to display in their homes, while real navigators had accurate maps. Anyways, what I'm trying to get at is, if you want to measure truthiness, you should do it relative to the observer, with some awareness that it's flexible, assuming you are thinking of this as a way to match content to people. If you just want some certificate of truth, because of the reasons above, it probably won't take hold with the general population (they will dismiss it for not agreeing with their beliefs)