Jekyll2020-09-21T18:49:23+00:00/feed.xmlBibliogrify BlogThis is the blog for the online bibliography system: Bibliogrify. Bibliogrify.com provides content creators a convenient way to incoporporate reference source in their content, along with a peer-review capability.The Bibliography - A Strategy for Content Confirmation & Fact-Checking2020-09-07T21:00:00+00:002020-09-07T21:00:00+00:00/2020/09/07/bibligraphy-strategy<p><img src="/assets/images/working-at-night.jpg" alt="Confidence in Traditional Media" class="bordered" /></p>
<p>The term “Fake News” is now used with disappointing frequency on both sides of the political divide. Many, if not most, of the charges are justified as journalism has strayed further and further into the realms of activism. This has in turn eroded public trust in the news. The Columbia Journalism Review published a <a href="https://www.cjr.org/special_report/how-does-journalism-happen-poll.php" target="_blank">poll at the end of 2019</a> which documented how deep this erosion had become.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.cjr.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/cjr-reuters-confidence.jpg" alt="Confidence in Media" class="bordered" /></p>
<p>This is not a recent trend, however. In 2018 The Hill reported that <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/media/394352-poll-72-percent-say-traditional-outlets-report-news-they-know-to-be-fake-false" target="_blank">“72 percent say traditional outlets ‘report news they know to be fake, false, or purposely misleading’”</a></p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/axios-poll.png" alt="Confidence in Traditional Media" class="bordered" /></p>
<p>Today’s content creators - whether they be bloggers, vloggers, or podcasters - face new challenges. One of these is the need to replicate their content on many platforms. This is not only to improve their reach, but also to safeguard against the manner in which providers succumb to political pressure and change their editorial guidelines.</p>
<p>Another challenge is the thousands of “experts” who crop up on social media to make “authoritative” claims against content. These often are supported by fringe or extremely biased references.</p>
<p>So how can the content creator deal with these challenges? The tried and true bibliography is an easy and efficient tool for these issues. By providing links to either supporting data or original source media (photos, audio, video), the veracity of content is instantly elevated. Even moreso because the traditional news media either does not provides sources, or does a horrific job of interpretting their sources (also knows as “cherry-picking facts”).</p>
<p>Now that a tool has been chosen, how does a content creator attach this information to their content in every place it appears? The simple approach is to write all the links down in a text file and copy-and-paste it into the page the content appears on.</p>
<p>Ah, now there is a new problem. The body and/or description fields across content platforms are not consistent. So copy-and-paste actually turns into copy-paste-and-edit. This takes time. Then suppose the content creator wants to add a source? That means going back to each link where the content appears and changing the source list.</p>
<h4 id="devilish-advocating-fact-checking">Devilish Advocating: Fact-Checking</h4>
<p>A bibliography system can also be used as a tool for fact-checking someone else’s content. Rather than annotate something you created, you can use the same metaphor to create a point-by-point rebuttal or confirmation of content created by other entities. A full featured system will also allow discussion of each citation and how it applies to the content.</p>
<p>Since it will be a database-driven system, this also makes it easy to re-use citations. Someone who frequently fact-checks content will find that they revisit the same data over and over. It is much easier to hit a button to “copy citation” from another bibliography document than to re-type all the information (link, archive link, title, description, etc.).</p>
<p>Access to such a system allows one to do fact-checking with ease. This can either be to refute some content, or support it if it is under attack from malicious attacks. Facts are facts are facts - now we just need to make them available.</p>
<h4 id="enter-bibliogrify">Enter Bibliogrify</h4>
<p><a href="https://bibliogrify.com/" target="_blank">Bibliogrify</a> was created to allow content creators to enter all the sources and original media for their content in one place, and then paste a link to this resource into the pages that host their content.</p>
<p>Such an approach clearly saves labor, but there is more. Since the bibliography is a live document, this allows other Bibliogrify members to up-vote and comment on the various citations. Peer-review adds another layer of content confirmation. It shows readers/viewers that other content creators have reviewed the source material and judged it to be valid; and thus the content based on them is valid.</p>
<p>Bibliogrify also has a “Rebuttal” mode whereby one can create a document that fact-checks someone else’s content. This makes it an excellent tool for podcasters who spend time discussing the news. Bibliogrify even as a “Presentation Mode” which allows one to present the document easily on-screen when doing a video.</p>
<p><a href="https://bibliogrify.com/" target="_blank">Bibliogrify</a> is currently free to use during the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<p>You can see an example of a Bibliogrify document <a href="https://bibliogrify.com/n/320dv1flrgiue" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</p>How can a content creator deal with today's challenges? The tried and true bibliography is an easy and efficient tool for the issues present. By providing links to either supporting data or original source media (photos, audio, video), the veracity of content is instantly elevated.Release 0.0.3.02020-01-12T00:00:00+00:002020-01-12T00:00:00+00:00/releases/v00_00_03_00<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> View stats were changed to use an internal tracking mechanism instead of keen.io. Keen is nice, but a bit expensive for a prototype project like this. I used it mainly to experiment with the capabilities.</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Made the publish option be a toggle and improved the icon indicator.</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote bugnote">BUG</span> Fixed crash with invitations not having a name field.</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Added home_page as a social network option.</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Enabled standard sign-up, wait list no longer needed.</p>Rehosted Blog and Release Notes2019-12-18T21:00:00+00:002019-12-18T21:00:00+00:00/2019/12/18/rehosted-blog-and-relnotes<p>In preparation for the public release of Bibliogrify, the internal blog and release notes mechanism
has been replaced with a Jekyll site. This will make updates easier to manage and provide a better
space to expound on what this project is trying to accomplish.</p>In preparation for the public release of Bibliogrify, the internal blog and release notes mechanism has been replaced with a Jekyll site. This will make updates easier to manage and provide a better space to expound on what this project is trying to accomplish.Presentation Mode2019-11-18T21:00:00+00:002019-11-18T21:00:00+00:00/2019/11/18/presentation-mode<p><img src="/assets/images/presentation-mode.png" style="border: 1px solid #888; border-radius: 4px; padding: 2px; float:right; width: 240px; margin-left: 10px;" /></p>
<p>A new feature has been added to help pod-casters use Bibliogrify to bring up their references on-screen when recording. By clicking on the new
slideshow icon when viewing the main page for a Node, you get a little controller panel like the one seen to the right here.</p>
<p>Clicking on a link icon will bring up the citation in a browser window. Clicking on the screenshot preview will bring up the screen shot in
a new browser window (in case the original source material “accidentally” was removed … <em>cough</em>).</p>
<p>So if you’re a pod-caster, you can have the controller and the viewing browser window up on screen and use the Presentation Mode controller
to navigate through your references material easily as you’re creating your audio/video content.</p>A new feature has been added to help pod-casters use Bibliogrify to bring up their references on-screen when recording.Release 0.0.2.02019-11-10T00:00:00+00:002019-11-10T00:00:00+00:00/releases/v00_00_02_00<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote featurenote">FEATURE</span> Added 'Presentation' mode so that your Bibliogrify documents can be used in webcasts. Look for the little 'slideshow' icon on Node show and display pages. This will open a vertical window to allow selection of citations (including archive links and screenshots) and have the item clicked on show up in another window. You can focus your webcast video on the presentation window and control it with the vertical selector.</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Minor CSS cleanup.</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote bugnote">BUG</span> Fixed crash visiting citation links.</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote bugnote">BUG</span> Fixed handling of bogus routes.</p>Release 0.0.1.02019-10-12T00:00:00+00:002019-10-12T00:00:00+00:00/releases/v00_00_01_00<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote bugnote">BUG</span> Search now excludes content from hidden users.</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Refactored link verification code.</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote bugnote">BUG</span> Fixed an issue with displaying unavailable links.</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Added sanitization of content for security.</p>Release 0.0.0.82019-08-30T00:00:00+00:002019-08-30T00:00:00+00:00/releases/v00_00_00_08<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Switched to Sidekiq/Redis for background processing</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Switched to Puma web server</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Enabled Redis cache for performance</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Added social media links to footer</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Multiple subtle UI/CSS tweaks</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote featurenote">FEATURE</span> Added base code for view analytics</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> CSS/layout tweaks to better handle handheld devices</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote notenote">NOTE</span> The mobile UI is optimized for visitors, not for content creation or management. If this project gets traction I'll build out the mobile front end more. Mainly it's the drop-down menus which aren't available on a touch device.</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote bugnote">BUG</span> Don’t show hidden users in search results</p>Release 0.0.0.72019-08-04T00:00:00+00:002019-08-04T00:00:00+00:00/releases/v00_00_00_07<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Can now change name and slug</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote featurenote">FEATURE</span> Added search function under new "Explore" menu</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote featurenote">FEATURE</span> Added publish switch so you can edit your Nodes and then publish when they're finished</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> User rating now also includes invitations</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Clean up title wrap around on long citations</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Add placeholders for citation form for easier input</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Creating a citation now redirects to the edit page for it</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote releasenote">RELEASE</span> First public beta release</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Added placeholders on user console to handle new users</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote bugnote">BUG</span> Fixed various deploy issues</p>What’s All This Then?2019-07-06T00:00:00+00:002019-07-06T00:00:00+00:00/2019/07/06/whats-all-this-then<p>The problem of ‘Fake News’ isn’t a new one. The news media has been less than honest for quite some time.
Bibliogrify hopes to improve the quality of news by making it easier for content creators to provide documentation
for their work.</p>
<p>Providing original, unedited source material is something that news providers simply don’t do. Likewise, these days they
rarely seem to provide the source of some of the statistics that get used to prop up narratives. The end result is that
news <strong><em>consumers</em></strong> end having to fact-check everything for themselves. The anointed fact-checking services/bureaus are
just as compromised as the news itself, so relying on them is pointless. This situation is further compounded when “opinion”
and “reporting” are often conflated.</p>
<p>The problem for news content creators is two-fold. One is the work of putting together a bibliography. Especially if you’re
someone who puts out multiple videos in a day. Bibliogrify is a pretty straightforward workflow
which also provides a way to log archive links in case a source gets de-platformed <i>“for some reason”</i>.</p>
<p>The other issue is that content creators nowadays need to publish their stuff on multiple services. If the author wanted
to add reference links, then that job would need to be replicated on every service. That’s a lot of work. With Bibliogrify
you get a sharable public URL you can just paste into the description of your content. Easy.</p>
<p>The “high order bit” here is to allow independent content creators to provide the kind of legitimacy that the
“real news” won’t. More and more people get their news from independents. And if the independents provide
source material to back up their reporting, and the “real news” does not, the pendulum will continue to shift,
one way or another. Either more folks will follow independents, or the main stream media will get
a clue and realize that people want fact-based reporting.</p>
<p>The technology in Bibliogrify is actually derived from a larger project I was playing around with. That
being a decentralized collaborative news publishing system. But I was too busy with client work to pull off such an ambitious
project. I figured putting out the citation and confirmation part of the larger system would at least be useful to content
creators, and also help partially validate the concept.</p>The problem of 'Fake News' isn't a new one. The news media has been less than honest for quite some time. Bibliogrify hopes to improve the quality of news by making it easier for content creators to provide documentation for their work.Release 0.0.0.62019-06-30T00:00:00+00:002019-06-30T00:00:00+00:00/releases/v00_00_00_06<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote featurenote">FEATURE</span> Support for Rebuttals.</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Added color hints for required fields</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Added support for Bitchute, Parler and Minds social networks</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote changenote">CHANGE</span> Added internal waitlist mechanism</p>
<p class="relnote_outer"><span class="relnote bugnote">BUG</span> Fixed a few missing validations</p>