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Let's be civically responsible and cut through the bullshit
Know Shit
Know Shit is a bipartisan and cultivated source of news, current events, and general knowledge that's civically responsible to know and goes above and beyond the general news media.
This is a restricted community and only approved contributors may submit content. To start, the community will simply be links to trusted outside media sources -- we're also going to point out every piece of bullshit we can find when it's important and explain why -- but we're going to work on developing a "newsroom" so that we can coordinate/collaborate on orginal editorials, analysis and reporting. We'll be working with the photographers over at /photopigs to enhance the content because every news story should have an image if possible.
If you'd like to become a contributor, you will need to either 1) be a proven /photopigs contributor OR 2) submit links of your writing AND/OR describe why you want to become a contributor and what passions you would bring to the table. No experience with writing or photography? We will train!




"Bipartisan" sounds like a very US-centric concept - will the community be entirely US based?
No. Most approved contributors will probably be writing from the US, but I think civic responsibility is a universal concept, and beyond cultural differences, so the original content we produce should ultimately ask, "politics aside, what are the best policies that governments embrace?"
How many examples we're able to pull will be determined by our knowledge of other country's affairs though, and that will be easier if we have contributors from many countries because it'll involve less research.
Can this go beyond gov't policy? For instance, could one cover direct action organizing (like Occupy or solidarity networks) which refuse to offer policy demands to some government, and may even engage in "illegal" acts? But nevertheless have real impact & increase social participation?
Assembly/protest is certainly something that Know Shit would cover because it's a civic right. Approaching a group/attending a protest and writing up a feature on specific groups would be acceptable. However, being directly involved with that group and reporting on their actions is a conflict of interest. That's not ethically responsible, so we would not cover it from that angle. Did you have another angle mind?
Hmm, wasn't thinking about that last part.
While I don't really subscribe to the ethical framework of 20th century professional journalism... maybe in the worst case I could get around that rule by being someone else's informant.
Feel free to ignore this, but FWIW I have 3 concerns with this ethical stance:
That's exactly how we get around the ethical dilemma as applied to a news story. If there's a conflict of interest, you would instead serve as an informant (provide inside scoop, give background information, get us in touch with contacts to interview, etc.) so someone else could write the story.
However, it would be acceptable to write an opinion piece from that perspective, as long as the affiliation is disclosed in the piece. There's no conflict of interest when it's labeled as opinion, though we still want to keep our opinions reasonably balanced and informed.
Unfortunately, not even the world of peer review is immune from bias. Politics and culture have an effective on what gets published, and they're prone to suppressing information that threatens the status quo.
Transparency is definitely an answer. We should publicly disclose and acknowledge our biases. Maybe there's a balance of including bias that can be found.
I saw this from /photopigs first, then /showcase. It's a neat idea and more community is always a good move. I was at first a little dubious about the start of it, but then I relaxed and went with the flow. At first, I thought the link between /photopigs and /knowshit was odd, but then I thought about photojournalism and perhaps "seeing is believing".
In any case, here's hoping they can keep upright and not topple over into either side, left or right. I've seen other commenters ask after this being a Republican vs. Democrat thing, perhaps it makes some sense to take a step back and perhaps pin the fulcrum on Left vs. Right? It's going to start moving anyways, as you can't really have a political community that sits right on top of the fulcrum all the time.
Perhaps community tags for story submitters, Left and Right, so you can have context of who wrote the article and have a better handle on triggers and contexts?
Well, good luck anyways, I'll be lurking about. Ever since AngryVegan made a secondary appearance I've been rather reticent when it comes to writing commentary. Also should make a mental note to check out the /knowshit rules, because hey, my fun-slide goes pretty much all the way Left. LOL.
Well, I'm the Editor-in-Chief of this operation and hate pretty much everything happening on the federal level. All of it is fucking terrible.
I've found that most internet commenters tend to be either staunchly Democrat or Republican. Some are only blindly repeating in the arguments in the party they've chosen to side with, but some of them are actually paid to advocate for an agenda. The real challenge is repelling this influence and recruiting people that normally refrain from too much commenting on the internet because they're avoiding getting trapped into ridiculous left versus right arguments that can't be won, instead of engaging in honest discourse. They're greatly out-numbered and their noise can be drowned out.
I think it's okay for writers to be biased when they are writing an opinion piece, and we should probably explore the differences between liberal and conversative, contrast it with what we see in Democrats and Republicans, and label it appropropriately.
It's probably also a good idea to have a counter-perspective feature, where some one from the left investigates an issue from the right (and vice versa) and tries to find points of agreement.
Seconded!
This sounds fantastic!
It was time to take this concept off that dusty old shelf. It was probably a mistake not to do build photopigs and Know Shit at the same time. Hindsight 20/20.
This is a really cool idea!
Thanks! Imzy is hands down the best place on the web for this kind of project.
Great to hear that you think so :)
What i read about this community sounds intresting - but being Swiss, living in a secular country with 4 languages and not much space, having half of the American constitution and, as the U.S., with no feudal past, we handle many problems differently. We're not better or worse than all others, but the lack of space and the density of population needs an other approach then in the US. Does that interest anyone?
I will observe what's going on here and may be contribute to themes of interest :)
Hey! We discussed this a little bit earlier.
I don't think the com should be US-centric at all. Civic responsibility is universal, and we should look for good/bad examples of policy and do a compare and contrast with other policies. Switzerland is interesting because of their neutral stances, particularly when it comes to foreign policy matters.
Do you want an invite to the collaboration group? Is there an example in mind of a good policy that you think would work (or not work) in Switzerland that wouldn't (or does) work somewhere else? If so, let's start developing a pitch and set an international tone right away!
Thank you Jammin, very kind :) Yes, it does interst me, sometimes i have a little hard to express myself in English, but sure, i try my best :))
You'll get better with practice, of course, but since we're working on content behind the scenes, we can employ editors to make sure the grammar is correct before we publish, so don't worry about the quality of your language. :-)
I'll send you an invite to the private com. We want to build credibility and have content contributors use their real names, so please think about that before associating a username. If you have a pitch, feel free to post it. Our starting goal is going to be one original post per week. There are also a bunch of threads started, so feel free to add your feedback (don't hold back!).
I wonder how Imzy (the company) can support this?
There needs to be some sort of back-end where contributors can pitch stories and collaborate on content before it's published.
I've created a private community /newsroom as a stop-gap measure because sending people off-site to something like Basecamp annoys even me. Everything should be in one place, so that helping to plan and coordinate the content of a community becomes part of the user experience.
Anyone that wants input into the content of this community is welcome to join. You only need to ask for an invite, though I'm probably do some investigation if I'm not already familiar with you. There are already a couple threads started. You don't need to be an approved contributor to leave feedback on pitches, submit pitches, features, advocate for your issue to be covered, etc. and affect the content produced, or even be there to keep a critical eye on the process and hold everyone accountable.
If you want to shoot me an invite to your newsroom, I'd be happy to help give a staff perspective on things if/when needed :)
Totally up to you though, I dig that sometimes people don't want staff to be all up in their business.
Staff feedback is welcomed. I'll send you an invite.
I agree! I'm so sick of all the partisan-based fighting! It seems like everyone just wants an excuse to be mean to other people. It sounds like this community is just what we need!
Wow this sounds great! I hope it takes off! I can't wait to see what it produces!
I hope so too! Partisan bickering only sustains this broken system.
@Sleepymachine - I noticed your requested to join the /newsroom but got an error when I went to approve it and now it's gone. Did it go through or should I send an invite?
Same thing for @Musekyto.
Got it :) Thank you
Sweet! Thanks for joining!
Hrmm... Now it complains: "We've already received a request from you!" :(
[Edit: an invite would be great, thanks!]
Ok, your request showed up again and this time approving it didn't cause an error. Please try again (and please associate your real name to both coms - Imzy is looking into the feasibility of creating individual contributor profiles).
Also don't be afraid to join in the current threads. The more opinionated we are, the better this will turn out.
Ok, in!
(Will have to consider how to deal with the identity issue; those activists I know who run around with real names deal with a looooot of harassment. :) )
You'll be okay associating your real name in /newsroom because it's a private group. No one will be able to see anything unless they are a member.
Real names will build credibility and a reputable organization. I left Imzy some feedback on using real names for only contributor posts, so that would add another level of security. They really love this community idea and, like I mentioned, they're going to do some brainstorming on it.
There is potentially another way around identity. I think for the most part, we'd be able to publish a "featured writer" article that's written by you but posted by another contributor and is transparent but doesn't identify exact name, if there is something sensitive that might cause harassment.
For anyone wondering about the contributor requirement, there's a pretty good discussion started over at the photopigs edition of this post.