Core Teams

The core CounterChecker app team is being formed. That means interviews and conversations are taking place, team will be determined soon and business plan and budget will follow accordingly. Third party developers, hold your horses.  You are ahead of yourselves. We will have a Chief Technology Officer and that person will choose the best path on hiring. If I said I was looking for help with development, sure I’m anxious to publish Counter Checker 1.0 but I was referring to that CTO.

Not counting myself, there are twelve core members I’m seeking. Interviews are presently being conducted. Do you, or do you know someone who fits any of these descriptions?

1. Someone to replace me as CEO. I’m the founder/CEO pro temp. Whether I remain CEO will depend on what benefits the organization most. (Interim-VP)
2. Someone who knows the required technology, can accurately project its costs and oversee development. (CTO).
3. Someone approachable that’s connected to Trump et al daily. (Board of Advisors)
4. Someone approachable that’s connected to the Biden et al daily. (Board of Advisors)
5. Someone that’ll finance worthy projects. (Angel Investor(s))
6. Someone who can feed social influencers. (Social Media Specialist)
7. Someone who can make fact checking happen rapidly, meticulously and copiously by organizing teams of researchers on the right. (Chief Editor 1)
8. Someone who can make fact checking happen rapidly, meticulously and copiously by organizing teams of researchers on the left. (Chief Editor 2)
9. Someone who knows how to hook a ready product to the major platforms code wise – app, website, plugin widget. (Back End Specialist)
10. Someone who can turn verbal descriptions of a new type of Wiki into functional design. (Experienced Coder)
11. Someone who can organize team communication, HR and bookkeeping. (Administrative Support Specialist)
12. Someone to steer us through the legal matters and contracts. (Legal Counsel)

The location is not yet determined. The functional process is what matters. The Chief Editors for the left and for the right are team heads in competition with one another. Each will build teams as necessary and authorize contributors as they see fit. The app and web site will be similar to Wikipedia but there are a few important differences.

1. Not anyone can contribute or edit. This is controlled by the Chief Editors and those they assign.
2. The site will be for profit, monetized by advertisements. Ad space will appear on one side of the page on desktops and lap tops and intermittent in the text on the app and will be clearly marked.
3. Any portion of the text may be selected as a point to challenge by an editor assignee. To challenge a point, just highlight the text. This will bring up a challenge page. The editor assignee can add photos to a challenge page. Length should be about the same as a Wikipedia page. Links should be added as footnotes for all assertions and proofs.
4. Challenge pages link back to the pages they challenge through a “Tree of Truth.” There is no limit to the number of branches. There is also a trunk link and a summary count of the number of challenges, with a total count for each side.
5. Literally anything written or taped in any medium can be countered. Video challenges must be transcribed to main pages so points can be individually countered.  The amount of content that is copied or transcribed to be transferred to the new CounterChecker page must conform to fair use law. The opponent will have the opportunity to claim a point was made out of context. Out-of-context challenges will be common.
6. A summary on every page and every challenge page will provide a count by the number and type of challenge in the Tree of Truth  below and above its location on the tree and for that page.
7. It won’t be white, like Wikipedia. You will know you are looking art a CounterChecker app page because of its unique style.

You may notice here that there is no sales and marketing person listed. This actually goes to the two chief editors working in conjunction with those close to their respective campaigns. The present political operations are sufficient to release information effectively through the app. We will do our own advertising using the revenues received from those organizations. For more on that, see Algorithms.

What comes after that?

Version 2.0 may introduce social networking features that you would not find on Wikipedia. By no means, will the CounterChecker app be restricted to political discussion. Neither will it be restricted to left vs. right. The above is an outline of the first iteration. It is not intended as a complete description.  In later versions, I hope that independent voices will be encouraged.

Community Guidelines

If in later iterations, the CounterChecker app becomes a full blown, or even preferred social network, my hope is that it will be one that encourages respectful dialog rather than resorting to censorship. There will be community guidelines from the start. Incitement to violence will be strictly defined as will hate speech and policies will be enforced using a fair and balanced methodology for preventing them, consistent with the design of the platform. This will involve some moderated dialog between the chief editors with weight against censorship when in doubt. The CounterChecker app itself will be a platform for communication, rather than a publishing entity. As such, it will be protected against certain liabilities as most communications platforms are today.