Lesson plan

Tech Support Comedy

Tech Support Comedy, or TSC, was a website dedicated to frustrated tech support workers from all over the world and the customers they deal with constantly. It was created by member Hawk, an ex-Tech Support worker, in March 2000, originally as a web comic, but quickly grew into a bulletin board for reader submissions, and soon added the ability for members to comment on the submissions. Since then, the site has grown in both membership and content daily, with over 9,000 members and more than 60,000 story submissions. The site was closed after a DDOS attack in April 2015. Submissions to TSC included Tech Stories, Customer Misconceptions, Tech Support Rules, Customer Types, Co-worker Types, Customer E-mails, End User Phrase of the Day (or "EUPOTD"), Tech Songs, Cool Links, SoapBox, and finally Tech Calls, where actual calls to tech support can be heard. Also, an IRC chatroom exists: channel [irc://irc.nightstar.net:6666/#TSC #TSC] on the Nightstar IRC network. Membership in the IRC channel is open to all; it is not restricted to members of the site. Access to most TSC content was unrestricted. Everyone might view it, but only members could add comments, or submit content. What you could submit, and how you could submit it was determined by your level of membership, which was separated into two levels.…

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Article summary

Tech Support Comedy, or TSC, was a website dedicated to frustrated tech support workers from all over the world and the customers they deal with constantly. It was created by member Hawk, an ex-Tech Support worker, in March 2000, originally as a web comic, but quickly grew into a bulletin board for reader submissions, and soon added the ability for members to comment on the submissions. Since then, the site has grown in both membership and content daily, with over 9,000 members and more than 60,000 story submissions. The site was closed after a DDOS attack in April 2015. Submissions to TSC included Tech Stories, Customer Misconceptions, Tech Support Rules, Customer Types, Co-worker Types, Customer E-mails, End User Phrase of the Day (or "EUPOTD"), Tech Songs, Cool Links, SoapBox, and finally Tech Calls, where actual calls to tech support can be heard. Also, an IRC chatroom exists: channel [irc://irc.nightstar.net:6666/#TSC #TSC] on the Nightstar IRC network. Membership in the IRC channel is open to all; it is not restricted to members of the site. Access to most TSC content was unrestricted. Everyone might view it, but only members could add comments, or submit content. What you could submit, and how you could submit it was determined by your level of membership, which was separated into two levels.…

Key claims

  1. members: 9,000 members — 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 members is "9,000 members". 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=1376108953

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