Powerbase:Editorial Policy

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SpinProfiles is a Wiki, a collection of articles configured so that any registered user can create or edit an article. Edits by registered users are logged under their user name. To register as a user, email management AT spinprofiles.org.

SpinProfiles is a collection of data on spin, propaganda, Think Tanks, Front Groups, PR Consultancies, 'Fake Persuaders', Industry Friendly Experts and corporate lobby groups. We want to report the spin not be accused of spinning ourselves. Therefore the following guidelines should be followed...

General structure / layout

Entries should try and give enough information on a person or group so that a person who knows nothing about them can come away informed. Try to write a profile clearly and logically, including background information, funding, current activities and information on key personnel, if it is an organization. Break the article down into sub-headings that are not sensationalist but try and summarise some of the issues in that section.

Please try and avoid over-long sentences and huge swathes of text that do not include paragraph breaks. Don’t of course forget to reference (See A Guide to Referencing).

Organizations

An organization may be a PR firm, think tank, front group or a government agency. Articles about organizations should ideally be structured to include the following sections, in order:

  • Basic description: a brief summary of the organization's mission, history and activities.
  • History: a chronological listing, including the date the organization was founded (and disbanded), along with highlights of activities in which the organization has participated. If an activity warrants more description than you can summarize in a few sentences, create a separate article about the activity using the guidelines below.
  • Personnel: a list of indidividuals, past and present, who are either paid employees of the organization or who have collaborated with it on an ongoing basis.
  • Funding: a list of foundations and other institutional funders that finance the organization's activities.
  • Case studies: a list of examples of instances in which the organization has engaged in misleading research or other manipulations of information.
  • Contact information: Address, telephone, email, URLs and any other information that can be used to contact the organization itself.

People

Each article about a person should use his or her full name as the title. Ideally, it should also include the following additional information:

  • Date of birth and date of death (if applicable).
  • Relationship to organizations: a list of organizations for which the person has worked or with which he or she has been affiliated. If possible, include dates of employment, salary information, and job titles.
  • Relationship to funders: a list of foundations and other institutional funders that finance the individual's activities.
  • Case studies: examples of instances in which the individual has engaged in misleading research or other manipulations of information. Ideally, each case study should consist of a brief description with a wiki link to a separate article providing further details.
  • Contact information: address, telephone, email, URLs and any other information that can be used to contact the individual.


When including a long list of people, give each of them a new line, starting with a dot as follows:

*[[Tony Blair]] *[[Gordon Brown]]

Which will look like this when saved:

Try and include the function he or she has or had with the organization, for how long, and reference your source - for example

Tone

Try to be as factual as possible. Do not use abusive language or language that is in any way racist, sexist or obscene or could be construed as such. Do not use swear words unless in quotations. Keep any rhetoric or personal comment to a minimum and avoid speculation, innuendo or libel. If comment is provided please be fair. Being fair does not mean not being critical or adding some kind of analysis, though. Just try and strike the correct balance. You want the article to basically contain factual information about the person you are writing about, not your views on the person you are writing about. There is a difference between a profile entry and a blog entry or an opinion piece. Avoid generalizations and unsubstantiated sweeping statements.

If you are making accusations against a person or organization try and support it by as much primary material as possible. Just because someone else has said it is true, it does not mean it is true. Make sure your sources are up to date, and relate to present day situation or indicate that they are historical.


Referencing

Our purpose is to expose manipulation of information and therefore we need to be extra careful in what information we use, how we use it and where we get it from. It is extremely important to provide references that are as authoritative as possible. Try and use primary materials where possible – original sources as opposed to secondary reports – and information that is up to date as possible. If the issue is very contentious, try and reference from more than once source.

Be careful about quoting from websites. Check the validity of a website: just because it’s online doesn’t mean it’s true. Some websites are seen as more authoritative and reputable than others. Try to use these in preference. Avoid quoting from websites that contain 'conspiracy' material or that would be seen as extreme by a reasonable person sympathetic to our cause. Avoid quoting from anonymous blogs as there is no accountability.

Each article should include a list of quoted references at the bottom: including as much information as possible about the reference as well as a web-link. Please do not just provide a weblink as these change and it is then difficult to find the source unless other information is given. Whenever possible, each resource listed should include the following information in this order:

  • name of author
  • title of article
  • publication date
  • name, city (and, in the US, state of publisher) e.g. for books London: Pluto Press or Berkeley, California: University of California Press; for journals and newspapers and websites the title should be given in italics - e.g. International Journal of Obesity, New York Times, Spinwatch
  • URL - the Web address (if the report is available online) include the date last visited.

If you quote from something your target said at a public meeting, write down the quote word-for-word at the time and enclose it in quotation marks. Avoid paraphrasing as it is not accurate enough. Name the witness (person who wrote down the quote) in your reference.

For web sources such as Sourcewatch, GM Watch, Lobbywatch, and Corporate Watch, use the primary source referred to by those websites wherever possible. Facts and quotes need a primary source. If no primary source is given for a fact or quote, avoid using it. However, you can use analysis from those sources, but attribute the analysis to the source.

For how to format references, see A Guide to Referencing.

Libel

Avoid accusations that are libelous. Just because something that is defamatory has been published elsewhere, it does not mean that you are immune from legal action. It just makes it less likely. As above, always try and use primary materials from authoratitive sources. Also make sure that any material you post, including photos does not violate copyright laws.

Complaints and legal threats relating to any content on SpinProfiles should be dealt with as soon as possible.

What is reputable?

The evaluation of reputable sources is not always easy. We think that the accuracy of information in published sources is not governed by how 'reputable' the source is or is regarded as. This is in part because many of the sources regarded as reputable in the mainstream are, in fact, often a key part of the problem of spin and propaganda, which this database has been set up to expose. So we have a policy which foregrounds accuracy over reputation of sources. So our policy is different from that of Wikipedia, for example: their policy is worth quoting as we think it highlights part of the problem faced in this area.

This is what Wikipedia says about Reputable publications:

Reputable publications include peer-reviewed journals, books published by a known academic publishing house or university press, and divisions of a general publisher which have a good reputation for scholarly publications.

We agree with this, though it is obviously the case that such sources are not beyond critique. For non academic sources, Wikipedia notes:

it is impossible to pin down a clear definition of "reputable." In general, most of us have a good intuition about the meaning of the word. A magazine or press release self-published by a very extreme political or religious group would often not be regarded as "reputable." For example, Wikipedia would not rely only on an article in the Socialist Workers' Party's newspaper The Militant to publish a statement claiming that President Bush hates children. However, if that same claim was in The New York Times, then Wikipedia could refer to the article (and to the sources quoted in the article). The political newspaper could, however, be used as a source of information about the party itself.

We think that this is a very revealing passage, which helps clarify the difference between reputation, evaluation and accuracy. Any statement that President Bush hates children is an evaluative statement. It should, therefore, be based on evidence. The evaluation cannnot be short circuited by relying on a source, 'reputable' or not. It has to be based on evidence which might be gleaned - in principle - from either the New York Times or a radical newspaper or website. But a significant part of what this site is about is providing a critique of mainstream (and sometimes 'radical') sources. How can we criticise the mainstream media and still use them as sources?

Wikipedia goes on:

Ask yourself some questions when you are evaluating a publication. Is it openly partisan? Does it have a large or very small readership? Is it a vanity publisher? Is it run principally by a single person, or does it have a large, permanent staff? Does it seem to have any system of peer review, or do you get the feeling that it shoots from the hip? If you heard that the publication you are about to use as a source was considering publishing a very negative article about you, would you (a) be terrified because you suspect they are irresponsible and do not fact-check; or (b) feel somewhat reassured because the publication employs several layers of editing staff, fact-checkers, lawyers, an editor-in-chief, and a publisher, and will usually correct its mistakes? If it is (a), do not use it as a source. If it is (b), it is what Wikipedia calls "reputable."

When dispute arises regarding whether a publication is reputable, you can attempt to get more editors involved and work toward a consensus. There is no clear definition, but don't ignore your intuition.


Groups/Individuals posting articles on themselves

We don't encourage individuals and groups to create SpinProfiles articles about themselves or people or organizations with which they are affiliated. We encourage people who edit articles about themselves or people or organizations with which they are affiliated to exercise restraint and to defer to other contributors with regard to editing choices that are matters of interpretation rather than fact. When disputes arise over interpretation, such individuals should try to address them with comments on the talk page rather than the article space itself. Users who are overly aggressive in deleting relevant facts from articles about themselves or others may be blocked from contributing to or editing the site.

Security

Because only registered users can contribute, SpinProfiles uses a light system of security.

These measures are as follows:

  1. Some registered SpinProfiles users have been given the status of "sysop," which enables them to block contributions from registered users and to delete pages where appropriate.
  2. Sysops can also "protect" individual articles. A "protected" article can only be edited by other sysops.
  3. Any user, sysop or not, can "rollback" recent editorial changes made to an article by any other user. To "rollback" an article means to return that article to the state it was in before the previous user began editing.

Security measures should be used sparingly. Blocking should be used: a) on the first offence if commercial spam is added to one or more articles; b) where the changes are of an editorial nature, only when a user has shown a pattern of inappropriate edits such as major unexplained edits. A single inappropriate edit may be simply a mistake or a learning experiment by a new user.

Most blocks should initially be for a period of 24 hours and stepped up if vandalism is repeated. (A block on an IP address has the potential to freeze out other innocent contributors from the same IP "catchment"). Longer IP blocks may be imposed when dealing with especially egregious cases of repeated abuse.

If spam or repeated vandalism is originating from a registered user a stricter response can be adopted without adversely affecting other contributors. Where a registered user is adding spam or has repeatedly vandalised a page they can be blocked for an indefinite period by setting the block period to "indefinite" (all lower case).

To ensure that there is a fair process in place the procedure for ensuring editorial standards is as follows.

  1. On the first occasion that content deemed inappropriate (in terms of potential libel, tone, accuracy etc), the managing editor or a sysop will discuss with the user what the problem is in an attempt to resolve it.
  2. If that does not work or on a second occasion there is an issue, then the managing editor or sysop will issue a warning that particular specified edits are outside the editorial guidelines of Spinprofiles.
  3. On a third or further occasion, the user will be banned for a period or indefinitely.
  4. The user will have the right to appeal a banning decision to the Sysop, but decisions of the Sysop are final.

Role of CMD staff

SpinProfiles is a project of Spinwatch (in partnership with Lobbywatch, Corporate Watch and others), and Spinwatch sets the policies under which SpinProfiles operates. Spinwatch editors and volunteers also contribute content to Spinprofiles and are responsible for maintaining and configuring the software on which it runs. However, Spinwatch editors do not review every article or contribution, and articles on Spinprofiles do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Spinwatch or its directors.

Resolution of disputes

SpinProfiles should not be used as a repository for content that is defamatory, obscene, or that violates copyright laws. SpinProfiles users who encounter inappropriate content are encouraged to correct it themselves. They may also notify SpinProfiles staff of problems by contacting the SpinProfiles editor management AT spinprofiles.org.

Complaints and legal threats relating to the content of a SpinProfiles page should be dealt with as a matter of high priority. Any complaints hinting at legal action are to be communicated to the Spinprofiles editors sysop AT spinprofiles.org and management AT spinprofiles.org as soon as possible. If you believe that your copyrighted material has been infringed, you may contact the editors at sysop AT spinprofiles.org and management AT spinprofiles.org.

Commentary about a SpinProfiles article should not be included in the article itself, but each article has a corresponding "talk" page where comments may be posted (accessed via the "discussion" tab at the top of the page). In cases where someone adds commentary about an article to the article itself, it should not be simply deleted. Instead, move it to the talk page.

Editorial disagreements between SpinProfiles users should focus on facts and evidence pertaining to the article(s) being edited. SpinProfiles talk pages should not be used to vent or to insult other users. Contributors who persist in a pattern of abusive or insulting behavior toward other contributors may be blocked. Contributors who repeatedly infringe copyrighted material will have their accounts terminated.

Users who violate SpinProfiles policies

Users who violate any SpinProfiles policies or guidelines should expect their contributions to be edited or deleted - either by other users, sysops or CMD staff - and security measures to be taken against them. This applies to policies and guidelines found on, but not limited to, the following pages:

Inaccuracies & complaints

It is the intention of this site to provide factually correct information that is referenced to a high standard. Whilst we undertake our own fact checking and encourage all our users to do so, it is not possible to check all the original references used on this site.

If anyone believes that information on Spinprofiles is not factually correct or contains significant errors, we will try and correct them as soon as possible. Please email with as much detail and supporting material to editor AT spinprofiles.org

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