Lesson plan

BBspot

BBspot is a geek satire and humour web site founded in 2000. In 2003, the site was successful enough that webmaster Brian Briggs "quit his day job" and made the site his full-time vocation. BBspot is most notable for its technology news satire. The most successful hoaxes by BBspot include an article about premium accounts on Twitter and claims about the MPAA conducting surveillance in private residences. BBspot is a founding member of HumorFeed, a community of news satire webmasters; Briggs is also a member of the editorial board for Check Please!, a journal devoted to the serious examination of news satire and journalism. Content updates to BBSpot ceased in November 2011, experiencing intermittent down time in the years that followed. It resumed in December 2017 with the story "Valve Contracts George R. R. Martin to Complete Half-Life Story".

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Article summary

BBspot is a geek satire and humour web site founded in 2000. In 2003, the site was successful enough that webmaster Brian Briggs "quit his day job" and made the site his full-time vocation. BBspot is most notable for its technology news satire. The most successful hoaxes by BBspot include an article about premium accounts on Twitter and claims about the MPAA conducting surveillance in private residences. BBspot is a founding member of HumorFeed, a community of news satire webmasters; Briggs is also a member of the editorial board for Check Please!, a journal devoted to the serious examination of news satire and journalism. Content updates to BBSpot ceased in November 2011, experiencing intermittent down time in the years that followed. It resumed in December 2017 with the story "Valve Contracts George R. R. Martin to Complete Half-Life Story".

Key claims

  1. date of foundation: 2000 — 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 "2000". What evidence would count against this claim?
  3. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  4. 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=1376124153

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