1. A computer-implemented method comprising: associating a provenance metadata attribute and a lineage metadata attribute with a content element provided by a source, wherein the provenance metadata attribute comprises a value that changes as provenance of the content element changes and the lineage metadata attribute comprises a value that changes as lineage of the content element changes; in response to a change of content being made to the content element resulting in a changed content element, determining an extent of difference between the content element and the changed content element and updating the value of the provenance metadata attribute to reflect the determined extent of difference; in response to a change in the content element by a different source, updating the value of the lineage metadata attribute to reflect the different source's involvement in changing the content element; and in response to originally entering the content element by the source to a content management system: setting the value of the provenance metadata attribute of the content element to an initial provenance value that indicates the content element is an original version that has not yet been altered; and setting the value of the lineage metadata attribute of the content element to an initial lineage value that indicates authorship of the content element is from a single source.