Lesson plan

B3ta

B3ta (stylised as b3ta) is a popular British website, described as a "puerile digital arts community" by The Guardian. It was founded in 2001 by Rob Manuel, Denise Wilton and Cal Henderson. B3ta's main feature is a newsletter featuring the latest work of the B3ta community and other interesting, humorous or perverse things found on the Web. The newsletter has about 100,000 readers. A message board allows members to post digital images and short animations they have created, the ones considered the best appearing on the front page, along with various announcements. Previously there was a B3ta radio show on the London station Resonance FM. Many popular Internet phenomena were created by B3ta members (also called "b3tans or "B3tards" ). These include the Macromedia Flash cartoons created by Joel Veitch and Jonti Picking, the surrealist animations by Cyriak Harris, and the quizzes by Rob Manuel. A book entitled The Bumper B3ta Book of Sick Jokes was published in 2006, containing jokes compiled from B3ta contributors and a spin-off wiki humour website, Sickipedia.

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Article summary

B3ta (stylised as b3ta) is a popular British website, described as a "puerile digital arts community" by The Guardian. It was founded in 2001 by Rob Manuel, Denise Wilton and Cal Henderson. B3ta's main feature is a newsletter featuring the latest work of the B3ta community and other interesting, humorous or perverse things found on the Web. The newsletter has about 100,000 readers. A message board allows members to post digital images and short animations they have created, the ones considered the best appearing on the front page, along with various announcements. Previously there was a B3ta radio show on the London station Resonance FM. Many popular Internet phenomena were created by B3ta members (also called "b3tans or "B3tards" ). These include the Macromedia Flash cartoons created by Joel Veitch and Jonti Picking, the surrealist animations by Cyriak Harris, and the quizzes by Rob Manuel. A book entitled The Bumper B3ta Book of Sick Jokes was published in 2006, containing jokes compiled from B3ta contributors and a spin-off wiki humour website, Sickipedia.

Key claims

  1. date of foundation: 2001 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95
  2. publication date: 2006 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95

Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. The record states that the date of foundation is "2001". What evidence would count against this claim?
  3. The record states that the publication date is "2006". What evidence would count against this claim?
  4. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  5. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

  1. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1376124004

Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.