bayesianLoading the verdict…
How to read this
- Belief
- The share of the evidence that says the claim holds.
- Disbelief
- The share of the evidence that says it does not hold. Disbelief only comes from contradicting evidence. Doubt about a source that nothing contradicts shows up as uncertainty.
- Uncertainty
- What the evidence leaves open. The three parts add up to 1. A claim with no evidence is all uncertainty, which is not the same as 50% true.
- Probability
- The black mark on the bar: belief plus a base rate times uncertainty. It is never 1.00, because a verdict has to stay open to later evidence. Verified means 0.95 or more with nothing pointing the other way, resting on an official record or on at least three independent sources.
- Insufficient evidence
- The knowledge base has nothing that decides the claim yet. This is neither true nor false. A verified pass researches the most checkable of these gaps.
- Misleading
- The words may be literally true, but they frame the referent in a misleading way. The verdict gives the standard description, its own label, and how true the literal words are.
- The message, not the messenger
- This verdict judges the claims in this text. It is not a rating of the outlet, the author or anyone named in the text. Copies are not corroboration: articles from one outlet, or copies of one wire story, count as about one source.