Fact Check for Cardano

Disinformation is one of the threats faced by Cardano as it generates mistrust about the ecosystem as well as builds a negative pressure on the price.

Why have a Fact Check website

• News and social media cannot be relied upon for authoritative information and are often a source of disinformation.
• Information is spread across different sources and correct conclusions require connecting different pieces together. While the community has trusted sources like official communication from IOG, Cardano foundation or Charles's AMAs there is not yet a single platform for fact checking or to request for fact checking.
• The effort from the community to halt the spread of disinformation will be much easier if there is a single platform where facts can be published on need basis.
• Some of the information might be too technical for everyone in the community to comprehend. Disinformation exaggerates certain sides of truth to get the traction it wants. For example, the alarm created about handling concurrency with smart contracts in Cardano. At a detailed level there are innate mechanisms for handling concurrency but the rumours blindside the technical details.

A fact check platform should enable the community to filter out the disinformation easily. It should enable the community to discover topics and understand the facts associated with it. In case a particular topic is not available, the community should be able to solicit for factual information.

To achieve this, we propose to build a fact check website.

Features of the fact check website

• Users can discover as well as solicit for factual information.
• Representatives from trusted entities in the ecosystem like IOG, Cardano foundation, Catalyst community, Stack exchange moderators etc will be invited to publish relevant facts or moderate information on topics.
• The user experience will be tailored in a way that discovery is easy, information is concise with ability to delve into details.
• The community and representatives can curate the content by way of
• There will be mechanisms to ensure that the fact check platform is not abused as a means to spread disinformation. While everyone is allowed to solicit for facts, answers of facts submitted will go through a vetting process before being published. The vetting process will be a combination of automated checks relying on the credentials of the publisher as well as manual checks by authorized personnel when automated checks cannot verify the suitability for publishing.
• A SOP will be drafted to identify if a given information is suitable to be placed at the fact check website. This is intended only to avoid trivial info from being added and is not expected to be a strict criteria. Popular searches or information as significant can be highlighted based on community feedback.

Operations and maintenance

There will be a minimal operations team for the fact check website whose role will be to keep a watch on fact check requests, facts published and any trending topic that is not published yet. Initially the monitoring operations can be handled by the development team by allocating necessary resources and at later stages it could be taken up by the community as voluntary or through incentive programmes.

What the fact check platform is not:

• It is not a social media platform for Cardano.
• It is not a supplement for Stack Exchange for technical questions and help with development.

What the fact check platform is:

• A one stop place for fact checking for Cardano.
• Where facts are sourced from the community, trusted representatives and official documentation
• Where the community can curate content.

Scope of work for fact check website

• User login and sign up module
• User roles and access privileges
• Web interface
• Module for discovery. Search and filter content by topics and keyword
• Module for users to solicit for information
• Module for content moderation by authorised users.
• Set up communication channels to get the word out about fact check websites.
• Production support after launch.

Roadmap

February 2022

• Requirements gathering
• User experience design

March 2022

• System architecture and web interface design
• Initial development

April 2022

• Develop and test MVP
• Pilot launch of MVP

May 2022

• Public launch

Success metrics

In 3 month

• All roles with different permissions on the platform have at least one user each.
• There are 10 or more fact checks published about Cardano.
• More than 500 user registrations and considerable user activity.

In 6 months

• Observable impact as a de facto source for fact checking for Cardano. Large number of community members registered on the website as well as following the communication channels/social media handles.

KPI

• Number of facts verified
• Number of requests for fact checking.
• Number of twitter followers for the website.

Sustainability of this project

The tech infrastructure costs for platform and production support costs (for approx 1 year) have been factored into the budget.

Once deployed, we do not expect any changes with the current scope. In case the community calls for extending the platform features in future, catalyst funding rounds or crowdfunding will be considered.

Team

The Loxe Inc. team is behind this proposal, and we have already been funded through Catalyst in Fund 6 for the following proposals:

• Win-Win Dispute Resolution: https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/368353-48088
• Gravatar for ADA Wallets: https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/367448-48088
• Proof of identity for mediators: https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/368367-48088

Besides, we are building partnerships with other projects being developed in the Cardano and Catalyst ecosystems, such as the Proposal Mentor Marketplace (https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/369749-48088).

We are a team of Plutus Pioneers, Prism Pioneers and experienced web developers asre are well acquainted with the Cardano ecosystem. We won 3 prizes in the Cardano Summit hackathon, and won 3rd place in the CardStarter hackathon, both in 2021. Our team members also have experience as Cardano Ambassadors and the Catalyst team.

Our team site ( https://winwin-team.web.app/ ) has additional information on each team member incl. LinkedIn and/or Github links.

Matthias Sieber

• Professional Software Engineer for over 20 years
• worked on Liqwid through MLabs internship
• Conflict Resolution Specialist (Mediator, Facilitator, Peacekeeper, Educator)
• BA in Negotiation, Conflict Resolution, and Peacebuilding
• Master of Dispute Resolution
• Community-elected Moderator on Cardano Stack Exchange
• Plutus and Prism Pioneer (1st cohorts)
• Project Catalyst Community Advisor and Veteran Community Advisor
• Catalyst Circle member representing the Cardano Foundation
• Cardano Ambassador
• Built successful marketplaces, startups, SMBs, and mission-driven teams
• Gimbalabs PPBL Team Member

Eli Selkin, L.C.S.W., M.S

• Professional Software Engineer for over 5 years
• Plutus Pioneer
• Gimbalabs PPBL Team Member
• MS in Computer Science, specializing in Machine Learning
• ML architect
• B.A. in Psychology
• Masters of Social Work
• Licensed clinical social worker

Victor Corcino

• Energy Industry Engineer for 6 years
• Gimbalabs PPBL Team Member
• Member of the 1st Catalyst Circle as Community Advisors representative
• Catalyst Veteran Community Advisor and Proposal Mentor
• Co-creator of AIM Community Tools (CA/vCA Tools, Voter Tool)
• BSc Chemical Engineering and MSc Chemical Engineering and Software Development
• Specialization in Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
• PhD candidate, researching the field of Machine Learning applied to Computational Fluid Dynamics

Ganesh N

• Professional Software Engineer for over 8 years
• Plutus Pioneer (1st cohort)
• Gimbalabs PPBL Team Member
• BTech in Electronics and Communication Engineering
• Has lead development of large scale applications
• Experience in the financial services industry

Budget

• 1 Front end developer, part time for 2 months ($2000 x 2) = $4000
• 2 Backend developers, part time for 2 months ($2000 x 2 x 2) = $8000
• 1 Project Manager and 1 Tech lead part time for 3 months ($1000 x 2 x 3) = $6000
• Tech services (hosting, GCP, GSuite etc.) 1 year: $2000
• Total = $20000