I really like the idea of a wiki. But even just a chronological list of all the known hoaxes would be very useful to get an overview of the entire operation. There must be a way to make such a list that can then be filled in by cluesforum members.hoi.polloi wrote: What I was really considering was the possibility of making something like CluesForum as a journal. brianv had mentioned the idea of an online encyclopedia or "Wiki" of our own. All of it sounds good to me. Doing something instead of nothing seems good to me, though.
Including more information, like in a spreadsheet, should help us to find patterns. But more information can make it also more difficult to see patterns, unless it is structured well and searchable.
I would propose the following data:
Date of purported event
Place
Name of purported event
Major Themes (for example: nukes, disease, racism, terrorism, space travel, war..): we should probably make a predefined list
More specific themes: (for example: Muslim terrorism, ISIS, Al-qaueda, Ebola, domestic terrorism, antisemitism, satellites...)
Links with other specific hoaxes:
Most popular conspiracy theory
CGI
photoshop
vicsims (do we have a clear definition of what a vicsim is?)
other sims:
actors
false witnesses
false audio
airplanes involved?
special remarks?
sources (if we know the real source, else the claimed source, important witnesses can also be mentioned)
Barriers to witnesses: What barriers were there that would prevent honest witnesses or investigators from seeing or investigating the evidence?(not necessary in case of CGI). Besides the obvious barriers,for example that real witnesses are barred from the media.
Special remarks
Here are some examples
Date: 24/5/2014 (or is it 5/24/2014?)
Place: Brussels / Belgium / Europe
Name of purported event: Jewish Museum of Belgium shooting (Wikipedia)
Major Themes: terrorism, racism, war
More specific themes: (muslim terrorism, ISIS, antisemitism, Syrian Fighters
Links with other specific hoaxes: killings by Mohammed Merah (was copycat), Beheading of James Foley, arrest of Mehdi Nemmouche, trial of Mehdi Nemmouche, burials of the vicsims, press-conference by relased french journalists
Most popular conspiracy theory: infighting inside Mossad
CGI: ?
photoshop: need help here but at least the faces were made unrecognizable
vicsims: 4
other sims: killer, later identified as Mehdi Nemmouche
actors: yes
false witnesses: yes
false audio: yes (creepy music added to camera footage)
airplanes involved? no
sources: museum security camera, police surveillance camera, AFP, Belgian minister Didier Reynders
Barriers to witnesses: police blockade, jazz festival nearby
special remarks? 1 day before European and Belgium elections, Shooting on camera,
Date: 11/9/2014 (or is it 9/11/2014?)
Place: Monrovia / Liberia / Africa
Name of purported event: Dying of Ebola at the Hospital Door
Major Themes: disease, poverty
More specific themes: Ebola outbreak, African health infrastructure
Links with other specific hoaxes:
Most popular conspiracy theory:
CGI: no
photoshop: no
vicsims: 1
other sims:
actors: yes
false witnesses: yes
false audio: yes, continuous background noise of a large crowd
airplanes involved? no
source: Ben C. Solomon, New York Times
Barriers to witnesses: fear of disease
special remarks? "black man in green T-shirt" is very popular in Ebola Hoaxes, actor appears to have been paid on camera
It seems strange to register this little event on the same level as major hoaxes as 9/11 or Hiroshima, but I don't think it is wrong.
Some hoaxes consist of all these small events, some could even involve only 1 photograph.
Another possibility would be to treat the Ebola outbreak hoax as one big hoax
Date: december 2013
Place: Guinea / Africa (spreading to other countries)
Name of purported event: West African Ebola outbreak
Major Themes: disease, poverty
More specific themes: Ebola outbreak, African health infrastructure, Vaccination
Links with other specific hoaxes: swine flue hoax
Most popular conspiracy theory: Ebola is a bioweapon
CGI: ?
photoshop: ?
vicsims: 9268 deaths as of 10 februari 2015
other sims:
actors: yes
false witnesses: yes
false audio: yes
airplanes involved? yes
source: WHO, governments..
Barriers to witnesses: fear of disease, critics are perceived as endangering public health
special remarks?
We can see this last example creates some problems. We don't have an exact location or date. I wouldn't use this last example as an entry in the table. But it has important information that is missing from the previous one, like the links with other big hoaxes, the most popular conspiracy theory and the total number of purported deaths. And the involvement of large organisations like the WHO.
It illustrates that it would be useful to have a separate spreadsheet with additional information on the major hoaxes like Ebola, ISIS, Al-Quaeda, space travel, nukes... Other useful information could be the fall-back positions that we identify.
Maybe we need some new words or concepts, to separate different hoaxes, like for example sub-hoax.
Internal links would be handy. As well as links to sources, preferably sources on this forum, where it can be discussed. An obligation to provide sources will prevent mistakes and abuse for disinfo purposes.
Please criticize my proposition so it can be improved. (It is not about the exact details of the examples but how I portrayed the information).