Discover knowledge

Product promise

Search by subject name, identify the result type and origin, and follow a reference to a document you can cite.

Example: why the Statue of Liberty is green

Why is the Statue of Liberty green?

This example uses a subject search, a publisher document, and a historical image record. The search identifies the monument. The NPS document explains its copper exterior; the image record supplies historical context.

The National Park Service’s Statue of Liberty facts identify copper as the exterior material and describe its oxidation. Read the publisher document rather than rely on a result snippet. The direct NPS links in this guide identify external publisher pages, not retained Counterpedia copies.

Find the statue and its sources

1. Open Search and enter Statue of Liberty.
2. Read the result type before opening a match. A subject or entity provides a starting point; a source reference identifies a particular publisher or document; an image, observation or retained record may have a different origin and evidentiary status.
3. Choose the entry that identifies the monument on Liberty Island, rather than an incidental mention or photograph title. Open its related material and look for a connection to copper, Liberty Island, its construction or an original document.
4. Open the NPS explanation and read the passage on copper oxidation and the green patina.
5. Record the subject reference, document title, publisher, URL, and any stated date or edition. Use those details in your citation.

Result: a source-attributed explanation of the green patina and a citation to the NPS document used.

Compare the explanatory and photographic sources

Open the early photograph record in the Library of Congress. Compare its date, contributor, and subject with the NPS document. The photograph records an appearance; the NPS text explains the material. Record what each source contributes rather than count them as two independent confirmations of the color explanation.

You can continue into the statue’s creator, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the place where it stands, or the chronology of its copper skin. Each step should lead to an identified object or document, not merely another unlabeled line on a graph.

What a match does and doesn’t mean

A search result shows a match within the material being searched; it is not an endorsement. A provider reference is not necessarily a retained document. A Source Record, a retained capture and a completed assessment each have separate identities and conditions. If the source you want is absent from Counterpedia, you can consult the identified original publisher directly without claiming it was found in Counterpedia’s catalogue.

If you see no result, try Liberty Enlightening the World or the specific document title. Missing results describe the selected collection’s coverage; they do not prove the monument or document is absent elsewhere.

Continue

Searching Counterpedia takes this same question through result categories, source paths and recovery techniques. Explore the knowledge universe broadens the journey into connections and historical images. For a statement requiring an assessment, Check information is an optional separate task.

Explore the knowledge universe

Product promise

Browse a collection, open a subject, inspect a recorded relationship, and follow its document references.

Example inputs

Use three records for this example: the NPS explanation of the copper surface, the Library of Congress photograph record, and Wikidata item Q9202 for the monument. Each has a different role: explanation, historical image, or structured subject description.

Browse groups these types of records into collections. A collection listing, a relationship, and a citation describe different ways in which records are connected.

Browse the subject and inspect a reference

1. Open Browse and choose a collection containing monuments, places, reference subjects or historical material.
2. Find the Statue of Liberty subject. Confirm that it describes the monument on Liberty Island rather than a photograph or replica.
3. Follow one related subject, such as Liberty Island, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, or copper. Read the relationship label and the source attribution before treating it as anything more than a connection.
4. Open a documentary reference. For the green-color question, use the NPS FAQ. For a historical image, consult the Library of Congress 1905 record.
5. Return to the collection and choose another direction. Note how the second view adds context that the first result could not provide on its own.

The NPS and Library of Congress links above open publisher records. Keep those external document references separate from the relationship links you followed in Counterpedia.

Make sense of the different objects

An observation about an object is not the same thing as a retained document; a document’s publisher is not necessarily the provider that supplied an index entry. A single connection does not prove the statement it seems to depict.

Record the references used

Keep the monument subject you actually opened, one meaningful related item and a specific documentary source. If the original explanation came from NPS, preserve its URL and publisher. If the historical photograph came from the Library of Congress, keep its item record rather than an unattributed image preview.

The browsing output is a subject reference, a recorded relationship, and a document citation. Run Check separately to assess a precise statement.

If a collection is sparse or a link unavailable, try another grouping, use Searching Counterpedia, or inspect the known original publisher. Missing material in one collection is not evidence that the subject does not exist.

Where to go next

Browsing the knowledge universe gives detailed steps for the same example. Follow connections develops the monument-to-island, material and creator relationships. Find the original sources explains how to trace a document to its publisher and edition.

Follow connections

Product promise

Move from one subject to related people, places, ideas, and documents. Understand what each recorded connection means, where it came from, and where it can take your research.

Start with a subject and a question

Open a subject from Search or Browse. You might be investigating how a monument relates to a place, how an author relates to a work, or why two organizations appear together. You need the name of a subject and something you want to understand—not a graph identifier.

Find the subject’s relationships or connected-material view. Treat its connections as invitations to examine other identified objects, not as automatic answers. One link might describe an association from a structured collection; another may point to a document, a publisher’s reference, or an independently maintained record. The connection tells you where to look next. Its source context tells you what kind of statement you found.

Read one connection before following it

Choose a relationship relevant to your question, then read it in this order:

1. Starting subject. Confirm which object you opened. Two objects with the same display name are not necessarily the same subject.
2. Relationship and direction. Identify what kind of connection is recorded and which way it points. “A is located in B” is not the same assertion as “B is located in A.”
3. Related subject or document. Inspect the destination’s type and identity before opening it. A subject, cited document, and observation are different destinations.
4. Origin and references. Look for the collection or provider that supplied the relationship and any documentary citation, qualifier, or time context. The original publisher of a cited document may be different from the provider of the relationship.
5. Next action. Open the destination or its attributable source if it advances your question. Keep a way to return to your original subject.

You can now explain the connection in a sentence: This source represents [starting subject] as related to [destination] through [relationship], with [origin or citation] supplied as context. If you cannot fill in its origin or support from what is shown, say what remains unknown instead.

Continue without confusing a path with proof

Return to the subject or explore one more meaningful connection from the destination. Compare the steps separately: each edge has its own direction, meaning, origin, and possible reference. A two-step path can suggest an interesting line of inquiry without proving a direct relationship, shared intent, or cause.

When a view offers only the first group of related objects, use its continuation or next-page option to inspect more. A visible neighborhood is a bounded view, not the complete universe. If the next page is unavailable, distinguish the view’s limit from the absence of other relationships.

For an attributable documentary trail, follow the reference to the actual document and note its publisher and edition. A reference can identify material without proving that Counterpedia has retained its bytes or evaluated the underlying claim.

Leave with something you can reuse

Before moving on, keep the subject you began with, the connection you followed, its meaning and direction, the related object, and any source you actually inspected. That is a useful research outcome even if no relationship had an evaluable documentary reference.

If a relation appears reversed, ambiguous, missing, or unsupported, do not guess a correction. Recheck the endpoint identities, inspect another related view, or search the subject more narrowly. The distinction between a recorded connection and evidence for its truth should remain visible.

Related manual chapters

• Exploring relationships and graphs — complete a two-step traversal and record what each edge establishes.
• Tracing information back to its source — inspect a documentary reference associated with a particular assertion.
• Exploring sources and references — distinguish provider observations, source identities, and retained material.

Next capability

Find the original sources

Find the original sources

Product promise

Find out who issued a document, which edition you are reading, and whether a link opens the publisher’s original, an archive, or a retained copy. Begin from a citation or look for a document in Source Atlas.

Why the source’s address is not its identity

A report can be issued by one organization and hosted by another. It may later be reissued, archived, or cited in research. Those links are useful, but they do not turn separate files into the same edition or make the hosting organization the report’s author.

Consider the Deepwater Horizon / Macondo investigation. The U.S. Coast Guard’s investigation repository brings together reports written by different institutions. The National Commission’s report offers a broad investigation and policy account. The Chemical Safety Board’s investigation examines process-safety questions. A corporate report and a federal investigation are not interchangeable simply because they discuss the same accident.

Start from a citation

1. Select a citation in an entry or research record. Read the named document and the organization credited as author or issuer.
2. Open the cited destination. In the Deepwater example, choose a specific report from the official investigation repository, not just the repository index. Check the title page, report date, issuing organization, and volume before treating it as the source you intended.
3. Identify the exact question you want the document to address. A Coast Guard marine-casualty report, an offshore well-control investigation, and a policy commission report examine different parts of the event.
4. Keep the document title, issuer, report date, access URL, and any edition or volume identifier. If your question involves a particular claim, record the relevant page or passage.

Expected result: you can name the document and its author, rather than cite the topic or repository homepage as if either were the report.

Or begin with Source Atlas

Source Atlas is the other starting point: look for a registered Source Record if one exists for the report you chose. Search using the issuing organization and a distinctive part of the report title, then open a matching record instead of assuming the first similarly titled result is the same document.

Match a Source Record to the document

Inspect the record’s title, issuer, date, edition, and recorded destinations. Compare those details to the external document you opened. A Source Record describes an identified document; it does not automatically prove that Counterpedia holds a copy, that a URL still works, or that any associated claim was checked.

Check the available destinations

Follow a permitted original, archived, or retained-material destination when that destination is actually present. Compare the edition or capture date before treating two files as interchangeable.

When the documents disagree

Do not collapse disagreement into a single quotation. Note each report’s mandate, evidence available at its publication date, and which exact proposition it addresses. Later documentation can improve an explanation without changing what an earlier author actually wrote. Even an authentic official report cannot answer every causal or legal question.

When a report is unavailable or only a citation is recorded, keep that state visible. You can still identify the publisher and look for another lawful source destination; you cannot describe unread bytes as examined.

Finish with a usable document identity

You should be able to say: I read this named report, issued by this organization on this date, at this destination, and this is the specific passage I used. Then continue to the manual’s source-reading workflow, or trace one statement to a passage.

Related manual chapters

• Exploring sources and references — inspect references and Source Records.
• Tracing information to sources — follow a statement’s documentary trail.
• Saving, citing, sharing, and exporting — cite and return to the document.

Next capability

Read beyond an article

Read beyond an article

Product promise

Use an entry as orientation, then inspect the case records, original documents, and research that give particular statements their meaning. Keep each source’s author, procedural status and limits attached to what it says.

An entry is the beginning of a reading journey

Consider Theranos. A short account of the company can introduce its technology and investor representations. It cannot, by itself, replace the different legal instruments describing those representations. The SEC’s March 2018 announcement, the civil complaint, and the Justice Department’s account of Elizabeth Holmes’s jury verdict each answer a different question.

Read the record in layers

1. Open a relevant subject or entry and identify the exact issue you are interested in: for example, what Theranos represented to its investors.
2. Look at an attributed claim or passage in that entry. Do not mistake an article’s summary for the source’s exact wording.
3. Follow the SEC announcement and distinguish the agency’s allegations from the stated civil settlement terms. The announcement explicitly records that Holmes and Theranos neither admitted nor denied the allegations.
4. Read the DOJ verdict account for the particular investor-fraud counts the jury decided. That verdict does not adjudicate every sentence of the earlier civil complaint.
5. Return to the entry and see how a research document, a case chronology, or another source changes the question you can now ask. Preserve the original author’s attribution and the difference between allegation, disposition, and interpretation.

Expected result: you can explain which document recorded a claim and which legal act resolved a particular charge, without turning every official document into the same kind of proof.

Different records contribute different things

An additional, narrower source is the FDA’s 510(k) record K143236. It names the Theranos Herpes Simplex Virus-1 IgG Assay and records a July 2, 2015 substantial-equivalence decision for that particular device. It does not establish blanket approval of Theranos or prove the performance of every blood test the company advertised. Use it to answer the device-specific regulatory question, not to overwrite the scope of the SEC or DOJ records.

A useful endpoint can be a citation, a qualified comparison, or a more precise unresolved question. You do not need every subject to have a controversy or every article to have a case.

Continue with the document that matters

Start with Reading an entry, examine an investigation through Cases and investigations, or follow a specific passage through Tracing information back to its source.

Related manual chapters

• Reading an entry — begin the reading journey.
• Cases and investigations — follow a case and its positions.
• Research library — explore related documentary work.

Next capability

Understand how knowledge changes

Understand how knowledge changes

Product promise

Understand what changed between two recorded versions, what evidence or decision was attached to the change, and which version you should cite.

Start with a changing investigation

Early reporting about the 2023 loss of OceanGate’s Titan submersible and the later accident investigations do not carry identical information. The U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board report and the NTSB’s investigation docket are identifiable sources with different publication and procedural contexts. A warning written before the casualty and an investigator’s later interpretation of physical evidence also answer different questions.

That is why history matters: a later statement may reflect new material, a corrected description, a changed interpretation, or merely a newer edition. The date alone cannot tell you which.

Read the history as distinct events

1. Open a record with a visible history or version list. Identify the current version and one earlier version. If your chosen object has no recorded history, choose another; do not invent a revision.
2. Compare the same statement in the two versions. Identify what changed: language, citation, status, qualifier, or underlying object identity.
3. Read any recorded reason or decision attached to that revision. Was a source added? A correction made? An interpretation reconsidered? Note the reason as recorded, not as a retrospective guess.
4. Open the cited evidence where permissible. A report issued in 2025 may analyze data collected in 2023 or warnings written in 2018. Keep the event, evidence and revision dates separate.
5. Return to the version you need to cite. Capture its edition, version identifier or timestamp, and any successor link actually shown.

Expected result: you can state what changed, when it was recorded, and what reason was supplied, without treating a newer version as automatically more reliable.

Understand refusals and supersession

A refusal, reconsideration or supersession is a recorded action with its own scope. A refused claim may have an explicit reason or a condition for reopening; it is not necessarily a permanent judgment on the underlying proposition. A successor may replace an earlier record for current reading without erasing the earlier record’s history.

When a record has no recorded reason for a change, write reason not supplied in this view, not there was no reason. Do the same with a missing prior version. That is an honest boundary on what the history establishes.

What to take away

Leave with a specific earlier and current version, one identifiable change, the cited basis if available, and a version-aware citation. Following a record through time walks through the comparison; Understanding evidence and uncertainty explains the distinct evaluation states.

Related manual chapters

• Following a record through time — the complete history tutorial.
• Evidence and uncertainty — interpret what the recorded changes establish.
• Saving, citing, sharing, and exporting — cite the appropriate version.

Next capability

Check information

Check information

Product promise

Take one statement and its source context through a bounded assessment. Understand which questions were evaluated, what each result says, and what its receipt lets you inspect later.

One statement, not an entire controversy

Consider the Volkswagen diesel-emissions record. An EPA violation notice concerning 2.0-liter diesel vehicles and a California Air Resources Board archive supply identifiable regulatory material. They do not answer every question about every model, executive, consumer claim, or later remedy.

Select a precise proposition: The September 2015 EPA notice accused specified Volkswagen vehicles of using software to circumvent emissions testing requirements. This is a claim about what the notice alleges. It is not the same as asserting that a particular vehicle, officer or case was independently adjudicated under every subsequent law.

Prepare, run and inspect

1. Write the exact statement and attach the particular source document, not merely a link to the Volkswagen topic.
2. Review the input before running Check: statement, source identity or URL, expected question scope, data shared with the operation, and account requirements. An imported answer may have lost its citation; restore or replace the missing source context explicitly.
3. Execute Check using the actual enabled interface and authorized identity. A prepared input alone is not a completed assessment.

Read the scoped result

4. Open the returned result and read each named question with its recorded outcome, reason and source evidence. Whether a quote matches, a cited page resolves, or the source supports the proposition are different questions.

Inspect the receipt separately

5. Inspect the associated receipt when issued. It records the performed operation and its bounded result, not a universal verdict about the scandal.
6. Finish with the exact statement, source edition, per-question outcome and a link or permitted retrieval reference for returning to the result.

Expected result: you can explain what was assessed and what remains unevaluated without converting a valid reference into proof of a broader conclusion.

When Check does not conclude

Distinguish four conditions: a question not evaluated, a question evaluated but unresolved, an operation refused under policy or access rules, and an execution failure. These are different statuses and require different next actions. A technically successful receipt integrity check is also separate from rerunning the original assessment.

If your research task was simply to identify the EPA notice and cite its contents, you can finish without Check. The full Check tutorial is for the additional assessment task; evidence and uncertainty explains the distinctions in more detail.

Related manual chapters

• Using Counterpedia Check — run and interpret a Check.
• Evidence and uncertainty — understand the assessment’s scope and limits.
• Saving, citing, sharing, and exporting — preserve and reuse the result.

Next capability

Work with Counterpedia programmatically

Work with Counterpedia programmatically

Product promise

Take an identified Counterpedia record into another application or AI agent without losing the version, original sources, or limits attached to it.

Start with a familiar subject

Imagine reading the Boeing 737 MAX entry in a browser, then asking a research agent to work with the same record. The useful result is not simply that both clients return text about Boeing. They should identify the same object and edition, distinguish its supporting documents from the entry’s own account, and tell you which information is available to the requesting client.

This is an example of reading Counterpedia. Running a new Check, changing an entry, publishing research, and accessing someone else’s saved result require their own permissions and operations.

1. Choose the documented read interface

Start with Counterpedia’s maintained developer documentation or machine-readable discovery resources. Choose a supported read interface appropriate for your client: direct API, an SDK, or an MCP-compatible agent. Read the maintained operation description to learn what inputs it expects and what it returns. Do not assume those interfaces have identical tools or permissions.

A request may start with a known object identifier. Its display title alone is not a stable identifier, particularly where similarly named products, proceedings, or people appear together.

2. Read one object and its source context

Use the documented read operation for an identified Boeing 737 MAX record, if the available collection includes one. Otherwise use another real returned record and keep its original identity rather than inventing a Boeing result. Inspect its object identity, type, available version information, cited sources, and access or completeness limits. If a source reference is exposed, use the separate documented read path to inspect it. Do not synthesize a URL or treat a topical resemblance as an identity join.

Expected result: the client can point to one identified object and explain at least one linked reference, rather than producing an unattributed answer about an aircraft.

3. Compare human and machine views

Open the same identified version in Counterpedia’s human reader. Ask whether the subject identity, scope, source references, and recorded uncertainties agree. The machine result may be structured differently, but it should not silently promote an allegation into a finding or omit a limitation material to the answer.

If the client receives no object, a restricted result, or a schema error, preserve that outcome. Do not substitute a different record just to make the example succeed.

4. Reuse without changing authority

Carry the record identifier, edition, source attribution, and permitted inspection destination into the application’s output. Check the document’s licence before copying retained material. A readable receipt is not a new verification, and a machine-readable response does not authorize Check or publication.

For an end-to-end setup and recovery path, continue with Using Counterpedia with agents and software. The complete result is a source-aware read in another client, not an assumption that every integration already exists.

Related manual chapters

• Using Counterpedia with agents and software — the complete integration tutorial.
• Saving, citing, sharing, and exporting — preserve identity and attribution in reused material.

Next capability

Understand coverage and availability

Understand coverage and availability

Product promise

Understand the size and limits of what a collection represents, what kind of objects its numbers count, and which sources or operations you can actually access.

Breadth is not one number

Consider the 2008 financial crisis and Lehman Brothers. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission’s final report includes an adopted majority account and signed dissents. The Lehman bankruptcy examiner materials are another document family, preserved by a different host. Counting pages, named people, findings, dissenting passages and independent source editions produces different totals. None of those counts alone measures how fully Counterpedia represents the crisis.

Read a coverage view in context

1. Open a collection or coverage view and identify the provider, subject area, release or time boundary, and displayed unit of counting.
2. Separate subject/entity observations from recorded relationships, cited references, registered Source Records, retained source editions, and completed assessments. They are not interchangeable units.
3. Read any access or quality qualifiers. A cited source can be accessible externally without a retained copy; a registered record may have restricted destinations; a statement may be represented but never checked.
4. Open one subject and one source to confirm what the counts meant in practice. For the Lehman example, distinguish the FCIC majority report and its authored dissents even where they share a single PDF.
5. If a result is absent, check your collection filters, identifiers, provider scope and access state before treating that absence as a conclusion about the world.

Expected result: you can explain what was counted, where it came from, and what the selected release actually makes available.

Compare unlike forms of coverage

When something is unavailable

Different conditions suggest different next steps. A missing result may call for different search terms or a broader collection. A restricted document calls for the owning access path or another permitted original. A missing retained copy calls for an external source or a documented acquisition route. An unavailable operation is not a failed assessment of a claim. Preserve the difference in your notes.

Finish with useful context

When discussing scale, cite the selected collection, release and unit, not a bare counter. When discussing a subject, identify the documents you actually read and their distinct authorship. Continue with Help and terminology, Source inspection or Search.

Related manual chapters

• Help, limitations, and terminology — interpret gaps and unfamiliar terms.
• Understanding your workspace — understand access and the main reader tasks.
• Searching Counterpedia — refine a search within its scope.
• Exploring sources and references — inspect the available documentary material.

Continue exploring

Discover knowledge

Welcome to Counterpedia

What this chapter does

Counterpedia is a place to find knowledge and see what it rests on. Start with something ordinary, like a monument, a person, or a question. You can discover a subject, open related material, read original documents, and decide how far your research needs to go.

You do not need to understand knowledge graphs, source registries, or Check to begin.

Reader outcome

Choose a starting point and finish with either a better-understood subject, an original source you can cite, or a clearly defined question for further investigation.

1. Start from a question you recognize

Try Why is the Statue of Liberty green? Search for the monument, then distinguish the subject entry from a photograph, incidental mention, or external publisher page. The National Park Service FAQ explains the copper surface and patina. The Library of Congress photograph record contributes historical visual context.

The document and the photograph have different jobs. A historical picture does not, on its own, explain the chemistry; an explanatory document does not replace the image.

2. Choose where to go next

Check is a separate task. A useful search may finish after reading and citing the relevant document.

3. Read connections and original sources differently

A relation such as sculptor of or located on can help you navigate from one subject to another. Its label, direction and origin describe what was recorded; they do not automatically prove every conclusion a reader might draw.

When a connection supplies a documentary reference, follow it to the publisher and the passage you need. The imported provider, the publisher and any retained copy need not be the same thing.

4. Finish one useful task

For the Statue question, finish when you can say in your own words how copper acquired its green patina and name the NPS document you inspected. Record the publisher, URL and date you read it. You can continue into the monument’s history or relationships, but you do not have to.

If your first result is ambiguous, check the subject type and identifying details, then narrow the query. If a reference will not open, note the inaccessible source rather than guessing its contents.

What to read next

Start with Your first five minutes for a choice of three short journeys, or Understanding your workspace for a tour of the main destinations. The capability overview summarizes discovery.

Corresponding overview

Discover knowledge

Your first five minutes

What this chapter does

Choose one way to begin. You can start with a question, a document, or a statement you want to assess. Each path ends with something useful. You do not need to complete all three.

Reader outcome

Finish one small research task and keep enough information to return to what you found.

Before you begin

Public searching and reading can begin without a private research account. For restricted documents, private saving or Check execution, use the appropriate account and permission. The Check path is optional and depends on access to the chosen operation.

1. Pick a starting path

Recommended first path: the Statue. It needs no Check and shows how a search becomes a document you can read.

2. Search for a subject, not a magic phrase

Enter Statue of Liberty and inspect the returned types. Choose the monument on Liberty Island rather than a photograph or similarly named subject. Note what collection or provider supplied the result.

Follow the material about its copper surface to the National Park Service FAQ. Read the paragraph on oxidation and the green patina. Record the page title, publisher, URL and date accessed.

Expected result: you can answer the color question and cite a source you actually opened.

3. Try the document-first alternative

Open a named source or start from a source reference. The SEC’s 2018 Theranos complaint is an example of why document status matters: a regulator’s allegations in a complaint are not interchangeable with a later criminal verdict.

Identify the publisher, proceeding, date and relevant passage. Leave with a citation to the complaint as a complaint. If the exact source is not registered or retained by Counterpedia, use the original publisher destination and say so.

4. Use Check only for a statement that needs it

Take a narrow proposition about the contents of the EPA’s September 2015 Volkswagen notice. Keep the statement and the specific notice together in the preparation step. Review the scope and permission requirements before an authorized Check.

When the operation runs, read each recorded question, outcome and reason. When it cannot run, the result is not a completed Check. Do not infer a verdict from the preparation form.

For the full steps, see Using Counterpedia Check.

5. Keep your result and move on

For the question path, keep the NPS citation. For the document path, keep the SEC filing identity and procedural role. For a completed Check, retain the operation or result identity, source context and any retrieval material provided under its access rules.

If a path stops early: refine an ambiguous query, follow an authorized public source when a copy is missing, or examine a stated access/error reason without inventing an assessment.

One finished task is enough. You can now follow connections, sources, or your workspace.

Corresponding overview

Discover knowledge

Understanding your workspace

What this chapter does

A workspace is where you move between finding, reading, and doing. Search and Browse help you find material. Entries, Cases, Research and Sources help you understand it. Check and private saving perform separate operations with their own permissions.

Reader outcome

Recognize the main destinations, choose the next page for your question, and understand why some operations require a signed-in identity.

1. Find your starting point

Open Search if you know a name or question. Open Browse if you want to explore a collection before narrowing down. For a familiar trial, use the Statue of Liberty, then choose an identified monument entry instead of a photograph with a similar title.

A search result is an invitation to inspect something. The result’s type, provider and available identity tell you what you have selected.

2. Know the difference between page families

A single subject may connect to more than one destination. A document mentioned in an entry does not necessarily have a retained copy. A graph link does not itself prove a claim.

3. Move from one surface to another

After opening the Statue entry, inspect a related subject, such as Liberty Island, and follow a relevant document reference. To understand the source, read its named publisher and date. To return, keep the original subject reference or use the existing navigation.

For a different kind of subject, the Theranos reading chapter explains why allegations, findings and convictions must remain in their proper documentary contexts.

4. Recognize your access context

Public content may be readable without signing in. A private saved result belongs to its authorized identity; copying a URL does not grant a recipient access. A Check operation or authenticated software call uses the scope and permissions of that action.

Before retrying an inaccessible item, distinguish signed out, wrong account, insufficient permission, and missing or unavailable material. They require different next steps.

5. Know when you’re finished

You might leave with an identified subject, a source citation, a connected research question or a Check result. All are valid outcomes; not every journey should end with assessment.

If the navigation or destination is missing in a particular release, use its documented alternative, record the missing route and consult Help and limitations. Do not assume that an absent page means the underlying subject does not exist.

Continue with Searching Counterpedia, Browsing the knowledge universe, or Exploring sources.

Corresponding overview

Understand coverage and availability

Searching Counterpedia

Reader outcome

Search for the Statue of Liberty, identify the result type, open the NPS explanation, and record the source used to answer the color question.

Our question and sources

Why is the Statue of Liberty green?

Enter Statue of Liberty, select the monument, read the NPS document on its copper surface, and record the document citation. Then compare what the historical photograph adds.

The National Park Service FAQ describes oxidation and the development of the green patina. The NPS facts page provides a companion material description. Both pages are from the same publisher; their agreement is not independent corroboration. These links open the external NPS documents.

Before you begin

You need only the ordinary phrase Statue of Liberty. Publicly accessible subjects and source references may be read without private research access. Other objects, privately saved work and live external-source actions retain their own account and permission requirements.

1. Search using an ordinary name

Open Counterpedia’s Search experience, enter Statue of Liberty, and read the returned groupings. Select the result that identifies the monument on Liberty Island. The known Wikidata subject identifier is Q9202, but you do not need it to start.

Before following a link, inspect what kind of match you have:

Read the destination’s identity, attribution, and scope before using it as a source. A subject match, a reference, and a retained document serve different tasks.

2. Open a source reference

Open the Statue of Liberty subject. Confirm that it represents the monument, not a person, a replica, or a historical photo that merely mentions it. Identify any connected places, creator information and source references.

Inspect the subject’s source references for the exterior material. Read the National Park Service FAQs and Statue of Liberty facts. The links here open the publisher directly. Record whether you reached the document through a subject reference or through this guide’s external link.

Read the NPS passage describing the copper exterior and green patina. Compare it with the result snippet before writing your explanation. Attribute the material description to NPS; a snippet, an imported observation, and a Counterpedia assessment are separate records.

Expected result: a citation identifying the NPS document and the passage used for the color explanation.

3. Ask what another source adds

Open the Library of Congress historic photograph record. It identifies a photograph of the monument dating to 1905, with its own collection, contributor and rights statement.

A historical photograph can help you explore how the statue appeared and how it was documented; it does not alone explain the chemistry of the patina. The NPS explanation and the Library of Congress image are complementary sources with different functions, not two votes on the same proposition.

For a structured knowledge route, a separate Wikidata item Q9202 identifies the monument and its relationships. Wikidata’s item is a provider observation context, not a reason to infer that every linked document has been independently checked.

4. Refine the search

Try searching Liberty Enlightening the World, the monument’s formal name, or Statue of Liberty copper. A more specific query may help locate a document or a subject without requiring a record identifier.

If the results are ambiguous, compare names, locations and object types. A replica or incidental reference is not interchangeable with the original monument. If no match appears, broaden the query or inspect another collection; an empty search does not prove global absence.

If you have a precise document URL or identifier, you can look it up directly, but this is an alternative, not the first step required of new readers.

5. Extend deliberately to external source search

Catalogue search and live source search are separate operations. For live source search, review the provider, query, and access requirements, then submit the request.

Use Statue of Liberty copper patina National Park Service as the query. Inspect the provider response and its source URLs. Receiving a live result is separate from registering a source, retaining a copy, running Check, or obtaining permission to redistribute the material.

If the request is refused or fails, retain the error and use the NPS link above to read the document directly. That external visit is separate from the provider request.

6. Record source and version details

A live publisher page may change. A frozen edition or retained capture, when legitimately available, has a different identity and temporal scope. Save whichever you actually used, without substituting an inferred record.

7. Finish the research task

The research task is complete when you can explain, in your own words, that the Statue of Liberty’s copper exterior turned green through oxidation, and point to the National Park Service page supporting that explanation.

Optional tutorials

The main procedure does not require these exercises. Choose a tutorial for a field-level comparison, or skip to the closing explanation below.

Skip the optional exercise and read the closing explanation.

Tutorial: Distinguish a subject from documents about it

Compare a Douglas Adams subject result with a document that refers to him. Produce a record of the two identities and the explicit link between them.

Starting material

Use the name Douglas Adams to find the subject. The external Wikidata identifier Q42 can help disambiguate the person; it is not automatically an identifier accepted by every Counterpedia interface. Select one document from a reference attached to that subject. Keep the subject and the document open separately.

1. Identify the subject result

Record the displayed name, object type, originating dataset, exact subject identifier, and the address you opened. Record a release or version identifier when the view supplies one. An alias explains a name match; it does not create a second subject.

Expected result: you can distinguish the subject from another result with similar words in its title.

2. Follow the recorded reference

Open one reference attached to a particular statement. Record that statement’s identity or location, then record the document’s title, publisher, address, and any supplied document or edition identifier. Identify the provider that supplied the reference separately from the publisher of the document.

If the reference does not resolve, keep its exact locator and record the failed lookup. Do not substitute a similarly titled page and describe it as the original reference.

3. Compare the two objects

A document can be about the person without being the person’s subject record. A document title containing the person’s name does not establish an identity equivalence between them.

4. Compare an identifier lookup

Use Q42 with the documented identifier search and compare the result with the name search. Compare identifiers and origins, not just titles. A lookup through another client must use that client’s documented identifier format; do not pass a QID as an unrelated record ID.

Output and completion check

Keep the completed comparison, the two addresses, and the statement-level reference connecting them. The exercise is complete when another reader can reopen each object and explain which one represents the person and which one is a document about the person. A failed reference remains visible in the output; it is not a failed attempt to identify the subject.

Apply the procedure elsewhere

Repeat the comparison for Eotyrannus using one of its recorded references. Keep the same fields. Change the example inputs, not the identity rules.

Return to Searching Counterpedia, or continue with reading a qualified statement.

Continue

You can follow the monument’s relationships in Browsing the knowledge universe, examine the historical photo in Exploring sources and references, or save and cite your findings. You need not run Check to complete this discovery. If you choose to assess a particular statement, the separate Check tutorial covers the complete assessment and receipt.

Browsing the knowledge universe

Reader outcome

Open the Statue of Liberty from a collection, inspect a recorded relationship, and compare an NPS explanation with a historical photograph record.

Start with the Statue of Liberty

In Searching Counterpedia, we asked Why is the Statue of Liberty green? The National Park Service FAQ describes copper oxidation and the formation of the green patina.

Use Browse to inspect the monument’s related place, creator, material, and documentary records. Compare the relationship data with the sources used for the color explanation.

Before you begin

You need a broad interest, not a precise record ID. In this walkthrough, start with the Statue of Liberty. Public collections may be explored without private research access. Restricted documents and external-provider actions retain their own rules; selecting Browse should not silently submit a new query to another service.

1. Choose a collection

Open Counterpedia’s Browse experience. Review available collections, directories or corpus views. Choose a grouping that includes public monuments, places, historical subjects or related reference material.

Before selecting an entry, inspect the grouping’s description. What does it include? Is it organized by subjects, source families, providers or documents? A broad directory is not a complete survey of everything Counterpedia holds.

2. Open the monument, not merely its name

Navigate to the subject identifying the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island, New York Harbor. Check the title, location and type: a monument is distinct from a picture of the monument, a replica, or a text that only mentions it.

Wikidata item Q9202 is the external identifier used for the monument in this example. Compare the identifier and origin shown on the subject page with that reference. A provider item and a Counterpedia-authored entry remain different records.

Expected result: you know which object you are browsing and the origin of the collection that describes it.

3. Inspect a relationship

Choose a related subject that adds to your question:

• Liberty Island: place, geography and the monument’s setting.
• Copper: the material whose changing surface produced the green color.
• Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi: the sculptor associated with the monument.
• National Park Service: the public organization publishing the explanatory material we are reading.

Open a displayed relationship and read its direction, label, origin, and references. Record the subjects at both ends. A relationship reported by a provider is distinct from a separate assessment of that relationship. Use the recovery steps below when the intended target is not linked.

Expected result: the starting subject, relationship label and direction, destination subject, and origin are recorded.

4. Read the original explanation

For the copper question, open the National Park Service FAQs and Statue of Liberty facts. The park service explains that the copper exterior naturally oxidized, forming a green patina over time.

Notice what this source establishes: it documents the park service’s explanation of a material process. It does not tell you whether a particular Counterpedia graph edge was independently assessed. Keep the original publisher URL and note any document version or date displayed when you read it.

If the publisher page is reached outside Counterpedia because no native reference is available, record it as an external original source. A direct publisher visit is still useful research.

5. Compare a historical visual source

Open the Library of Congress item for a 1905 Statue of Liberty photograph. Read the item title, contributor, date and rights statement.

The photo adds historical visual context, while the National Park Service supplies the physical explanation. A photo alone cannot establish the complete chemistry of the patina, and the NPS explanation is not a substitute for a dated historical image.

Read the item’s rights statement before copying or redistributing the photograph. Keep the item URL and contributor attribution with any permitted use. The collection name alone does not establish the rights for this image.

6. Explore a second direction

Return to the monument subject or your starting Browse collection and take a second path: from the monument to the island, to its sculptor, or to a source provider or image collection.

Compare the two views:

Record what each route adds: a relationship, an explanatory passage, or a dated image record.

7. Recover from missing or ambiguous material

No relevant collection entry: try the common name, the formal name Liberty Enlightening the World, or a more focused source title in Search.

A replica or unrelated photo appears: inspect its identity and return to the original monument subject.

A related entity is not linked: use Search to look for that subject or open the identified publisher document. Keep this separate lookup distinct from the relationship traversal.

An item cannot be opened: keep the reference you do have and note that you could not inspect its content. A URL is not proof of a retained copy.

The document’s rights or access are unclear: read the item’s provider and rights notes; do not turn discoverability into a license to redistribute or access private material.

8. Record the selected objects and sources

Before leaving, record the actual collection you visited, the subject you opened, one real relation, the original NPS explanation and the Library of Congress item that contributed context.

Complete the task by recording the selected collection, subject, relationship, and document references. State what the second source contributed. Check is a separate assessment task.

Continue

Continue with Exploring relationships and graphs or Exploring sources and references. Saving and citing shows how to carry legitimate work into later sessions.

Exploring relationships and graphs

Reader outcome

Follow two recorded relationships from a familiar subject, interpret their direction and origin, and leave with an identifiable research trail—not an unsupported conclusion.

Before you begin

Choose a subject you can already open from Search or Browse, and a question about something connected to it. For example: Which people, places, works, or documents are connected to this subject, and why?

You do not need to know a graph ID. Public relationships may be explored within their collection’s displayed scope; following a link to restricted material does not grant access. This tutorial uses your chosen subject, rather than presuming that the same sample object or specific relationship exists in every collection.

1. Open the subject’s connected view

Start on your subject’s page. Find the available related subjects, relationships, or graph view and open it. Read the title and the type or description of the object you are starting from.

Look at what the view says it contains. It may show a selected collection, a local neighborhood of related objects, or the first page of a longer list. Before selecting a link, recognize that this is a view over recorded data, not an inventory of every relationship in the world.

If the page shows several groups or kinds of connections, choose the one most relevant to your question rather than simply taking the first visible result.

2. Read the first edge as a statement

Pick a connection from your subject to another person, place, concept, work, or source. Read the representation from end to end:

Direction matters. For illustration, A is located in B describes a different relationship from B is located in A. A graph may draw both objects next to each other, but their proximity does not establish either assertion. If the view shows an incoming link, do not silently rewrite it as an outgoing one or invent its inverse predicate.

Expected result: you can explain one recorded relationship in ordinary language while retaining its direction and origin. This is a description of what the source records, not yet a ruling that the assertion is true.

3. Open the related object and take a second step

Follow the selected link to its destination. Confirm the destination’s title, type, and identity. Return if it is a similarly named but different object.

From the destination, select a second relationship that advances your question. Read its direction and origin separately from the first one. The two edges may come from different providers, different editions, or different observations.

Record the path in this form:

Expected result: you can retrace both steps and explain what each asserts. The existence of a path between the first and third objects does not establish a direct relationship, causation, agreement, ownership, or evidentiary support between them.

4. Inspect provenance and a documentary reference

Return to one edge in the path and inspect the source or provenance information associated with it. Keep four things separate:

1. The producer or collection that reported or imported the relationship.
2. The underlying assertion: the particular subject, predicate, target, and any qualifiers.
3. A cited document or original publisher, if a reference was provided.
4. A retained copy or separate assessment, only if the view identifies one.

A Wikidata relationship, for example, may cite a work published by someone other than Wikidata. The imported statement and the publisher’s document are different objects. Following that citation helps you inspect a source; it does not mean the cited bytes were retained or that Counterpedia independently verified the statement.

Open a documentary reference where one is actually available, and identify its publisher, title, version or date when shown, and the relevant passage. If this relationship has no attached reference, preserve that absence rather than manufacturing a citation. Continue toward a source-backed relationship or end the trail with an explicit note that documentary support was not provided in the view.

5. Understand bounded neighborhoods and pagination

Return to the graph or related-material list. Check whether the visible neighborhood has a continuation, page boundary, or selected depth. If additional relationships are available, open the next group while retaining your place in the current trail.

If the view ends or reports a limit, interpret it carefully: you have reached the boundary of this requested view, not demonstrated that the subject has no other connections. A missing relationship can reflect selection, coverage, indexing, access, or the original provider’s data.

When inspecting another provider’s neighborhood, do not assume identical identifiers refer to the same object unless the product records an identity relation. Similar names and URLs are not enough to construct a cross-source identity.

6. Recover from ambiguous, missing or restricted paths

A relationship appears backwards. Reread its subject, predicate, target, and any incoming/outgoing label. Preserve the recorded direction. Follow a supported reverse relation only when it is actually present.

Two objects have the same name. Open each object’s context and identifier before choosing; avoid joining them based on labels alone.

The related item or source cannot be opened. Keep the relationship and reference you actually saw, note the missing destination or access restriction, and try a different authorized source. A visible link does not grant permission to read or redistribute the target.

There is no visible relationship or reference. Change the collection or search scope, or select another connection relevant to your question. Do not infer that the relationship does not exist anywhere.

You cannot continue through a larger neighborhood. Note the page, depth or view boundary that stopped you. An incomplete traversal is still an accurately described result when its limit is explicit.

7. Return to your subject with an inspectable trail

Go back to the starting subject. You should now be able to answer:

• What were the two objects connected by the first relationship, and what did its label and direction mean?
• Which second relationship did you follow, and did its provider or origin differ?
• Which document did you actually inspect, if one was available? Who published it, and which edition or passage mattered?
• What is the boundary of your conclusion? Did you observe only a graph association, or did you also examine documentary evidence relevant to the assertion?
• Which identities or links let you return to this specific path?

A useful graph session ends with a better research question and a traceable path. You do not need to run Check to complete it. If you want a focused assessment of a particular statement, Using Counterpedia Check is a separate, optional task; graph reachability does not produce a Check result.

Optional tutorials

The main procedure does not require these exercises. Choose a tutorial for a field-level comparison, or skip to the closing explanation below.

Skip the optional exercise and read the closing explanation.

Tutorial: Read a qualified statement

Compare a compact fact with its full statement, preserve the qualifiers that affect its meaning, and follow the references attached to that statement.

Starting material

Open Douglas Adams from Search or Browse and select a statement with at least one recorded qualifier. Keep the subject identifier and release or version visible in your notes. Use a statement with a reference for the documentary part of the exercise. A statement without qualifiers is not an example of a qualified statement.

1. Record the complete statement

Expand the statement and copy the supplied fields into the worksheet below. Use readable labels in your explanation and retain exact identifiers in the reference column.

Record an explicitly unknown or no-value state as displayed. Do not replace it with an empty string, zero, or a value from a different statement.

2. Compare the compact and expanded views

Compare the at-a-glance display with the expanded statement. Identify which fields the compact display includes and which require expansion. Determine whether a qualifier limits the time, place, method, or other scope of the value. Use the qualifier present; do not add a time limit just because the worksheet lists time as an example.

Write a one-sentence paraphrase that includes every qualification needed to preserve the meaning. Then write a separate exercise paraphrase with one qualifier omitted. Explain what the shorter sentence would incorrectly allow a reader to infer. Neither paraphrase edits the source record.

Expected result: you can point to the exact field responsible for the difference in meaning.

3. Inspect the attached reference

Open a reference from the selected statement, not a bibliography elsewhere on the page. Record its locator and publisher. Locate the relevant passage or metadata, and distinguish what you read in the document from what the dataset reports. A reference that cannot be opened remains an uninspected reference.

A reference group is associated with the selected statement. It is not automatically evidence for every other statement on the subject page.

4. Inspect the surrounding view

Read any pagination or truncation indication. An at-a-glance selection is a display subset. Follow the full-statement or next-page control when additional records are offered; keep the release or version consistent while comparing them.

Output and completion check

Keep the worksheet, the two labelled paraphrases, and the reference you inspected. Check that the value, its qualifiers, and its reference group still belong to the same statement. Describe the view’s limits separately from the statement’s meaning.

Apply the procedure elsewhere

Repeat the inspection on Eotyrannus. A different property or a statement with no qualifiers is a useful comparison, but label that difference. Explain which fields remain common and which are absent; do not create a qualifier to make the examples symmetrical.

Return to Exploring relationships and graphs, or continue with source identity and retained copies.

Corresponding overview

Follow connections

Continue

• Exploring sources and references — inspect the document reached through a reference.
• Tracing information back to its source — investigate one assertion and the passage attached to it.
• Reading an entry — return from the graph to the subject’s readable account.

Exploring sources and references

What this chapter does

Follow a reference until you can identify the document behind it, then tell the original publisher, an archived destination, a registered Source Record, and a held copy apart. You can complete this task without running Check.

Reader outcome

Starting from a subject reference or Source Atlas, identify one document’s issuer, title, version, permissible destinations, and whether retained material was actually shown.

The documents we’ll use

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon / Macondo accident produced several distinct investigation reports. Start with the Coast Guard’s official investigation repository as a source directory. Compare it with the National Commission’s January 2011 report and the Chemical Safety Board investigation. Those institutions brought different mandates to the same event; one organization’s hosting of another’s document does not make them the same author.

The separate Counterpedia research dossier contains candidate references, but its source inventory is a research aid, not proof that every listed PDF has been retained or assessed in the current release.

Before you begin

Have a cited title or document in mind and decide what you need from it: an accident sequence, a technical finding, a regulatory recommendation, or another bounded question. Public publisher pages can be read directly. A private item or licensed copy remains subject to its own access rules.

1. Enter through the cited reference

From an entry, subject, or research document, identify one reference. Read its displayed label, any publisher attribution, and the material it supposedly points to. If the reference leads to a source index rather than to a report, identify the actual child document before proceeding. A search match and an opened report are different outcomes.

Expected result: you can identify one report, not merely a page about the oil spill.

2. Check the publisher against the host

Read the report’s title page or the publisher’s description. The Coast Guard repository can host reports from a marine-casualty inquiry, a federal offshore regulator, and a company’s internal investigation. These may all be relevant without having the same evidentiary authority.

A BP internal report remains BP’s report even when an official repository preserves it. Conversely, a Commission report is not a court’s allocation of legal fault.

3. Read the version you opened

From the National Commission record, note the title, publication date, and available file edition. Locate a passage relevant to your question. If you follow a Coast Guard-hosted PDF instead, record that report’s distinct title, volume, and issuer. Capture the precise page, section or stable text anchor when possible.

Do not replace a version with a later report solely because both discuss Macondo. Retain the dated version you actually used in your citation.

4. Start again from Source Atlas

Open Source Atlas and select a Source Record if the release contains one for your chosen report. Compare its registered title, issuer, edition, and recorded destinations to the publisher document you just read. Use the record’s actual identifier when displayed; do not derive an ID from a title or a URL.

If your chosen report has no registered Source Record, that is still a legitimate result. Continue from its external publisher document and record that the reference-only path did not supply a registered record.

5. Separate links from retained material

Inspect each available destination independently. A publisher original, archive copy, and Counterpedia-retained copy may have different dates, file contents, identifiers and access conditions. The presence of an archive link does not guarantee a held copy. A digest, where recorded, identifies particular bytes but does not authenticate every assertion in them.

6. Recover from gaps and access barriers

If a link breaks, search the issuing organization and exact report title or use a separately identified archive. If a document is restricted, do not infer that the content is false or missing everywhere. If the Source Record exists without a retained copy, keep both observations in your notes. If the only available report is another institution’s, describe its separate mandate rather than substitute it silently.

7. Keep a reproducible source trail

Return to the original subject or source record. Write down the document’s issuer, complete title, volume or version, publication date, URL or other permitted destination, the passage you read, and the distinction between external and retained material. Then explain what this source was competent to address, without making it stand for every conclusion about the accident.

Expected result: someone else can identify the same documentary work and determine what you actually inspected. Continue with Tracing information back to its source to connect a particular statement to one passage. Check remains a separate optional assessment.

Optional tutorials

The main procedure does not require these exercises. Choose a tutorial for a field-level comparison, or skip to the closing explanation below.

Skip the optional exercise and read the closing explanation.

Tutorial: Separate a reference, document, and retained copy

Trace the Statue of Liberty source example through its reference and publisher document. Identify a retained copy only when the source view supplies one.

Starting material

Use the Statue of Liberty subject and one of the NPS references from the discovery chapters. Open the publisher document and the Library of Congress photograph record as separate documents. This exercise compares their recorded roles; it does not ask either document to establish everything said about the monument.

1. Start at the referencing statement

Record the subject identifier and the statement or paragraph that cites the NPS document. Record the reference provider and the exact destination. A reference supplied through a dataset and a document published by NPS have different origins even when the reader displays them together.

2. Identify the publisher document

Read the document’s title, publisher, and displayed date or edition. Record the URL you opened. Treat the URL as a locator: it tells you where to request the document, not which bytes every later visit will return.

If the document was opened directly from a publisher rather than through a subject reference, record that separate starting point. Do not add an on-site relationship to your notes that the product did not supply.

3. Inspect retention and version information

In the source view, distinguish these objects and states:

Leave an unsupplied field explicitly unrecorded. A Source Record does not, by its name alone, establish retained bytes. An acquisition timestamp and a publisher’s document date are different fields. Do not use either as the date of the event described in the document without a stated basis.

4. Compare the photograph record

For the Library of Congress item, record the item title, contributor, date, collection, and item-specific rights statement. Compare its role with the NPS explanatory document. The item record describes a visual source; the other document provides an explanation. Record which question each source helps you inspect rather than counting them as two independent confirmations of one claim.

5. Produce the citation and inspection note

Cite the object and version you used. For a publisher page, retain its title, publisher, URL, and the relevant date information. For a retained artifact, also retain the supplied edition or capture identity. Record whether the underlying content was opened, only its metadata was inspected, or the reference could not be resolved.

Output and completion check

Produce one row for each document, with separate columns for the reference origin, publisher, inspected version, retention state, and any separate assessment. The exercise is complete when the reader of your notes can identify what you inspected without assuming that a link, a copy, and an assessment are the same object.

Apply the procedure elsewhere

Repeat the procedure on one Eotyrannus reference. An identifier such as a DOI identifies a reference target; it does not by itself prove that a local copy was retained. Use the actual source view to record the next step.

Return to Exploring sources and references, or continue with tracing shared origins.

Corresponding overview

Find the original sources

Reading an entry

What this chapter does

Read an entry without mistaking its concise account for the whole documentary record. You will select one statement, open a cited source, check the source’s procedural standing, then return to the entry with a more precise understanding of it.

Reader outcome

Identify an entry’s subject, status and source references; compare a claim with a specific document; and distinguish an allegation, a settlement, and an adjudicated verdict.

Our example: Theranos investor representations

An account of Theranos can describe an investor-fraud controversy, but the documents do different work. The SEC’s 2018 announcement summarizes allegations and announces settlement agreements, while the DOJ’s Holmes verdict announcement identifies the investor-fraud counts on which a jury convicted her. Treat those source documents separately, even when the entry groups them under one subject.

Before you begin

Choose an entry or subject page related to Theranos. It may be an authored Counterpedia entry, a research-stage record, or a provider observation; check what the page itself identifies rather than assuming all are the same. Public publisher documents are available independently of any authenticated Check or private saved result.

1. Identify the entry you are reading

Read the title and introduction. Look for the entry type, producer or collection, applicable publication status, and any version or update context shown. If the page is an observation imported from another provider, do not describe it as Counterpedia’s own adjudicated finding. If the page includes multiple topics, choose investor representations as the question for this exercise.

2. Select one statement and its reference

Find an account of what Holmes or Theranos told investors, or of the SEC’s allegations concerning those representations. Note whether the entry attributes the account to the SEC, a witness, a court, or a research author. Open the reference associated with that statement if it is provided. If the current entry contains no attached reference, locate the publisher’s document directly and record that the jump was external.

Expected result: you have one defined statement and know which institution or author is being quoted or summarized.

3. Open the original document, not just the citation label

Open the SEC’s civil-enforcement announcement. Read its date, title, issuing agency and discussion of the case. It reports the agency’s allegations about technology, business and financial representations. The same announcement says that Holmes and Theranos agreed to settle, subject to court approval, without admitting or denying those allegations. An agency’s announcement of settlement agreements is not the court’s final judgment: it tells you what was agreed and announced on that date, and the completed disposition needs its own court record. A single document can thus contain both allegations and an announced settlement, with different procedural significance.

4. Compare an adjudicated outcome

Now open the DOJ’s verdict announcement, dated January 4, 2022. Identify the investor-fraud conspiracy and wire-fraud counts on which Holmes was convicted, and the separate counts on which the jury acquitted her or returned no unanimous verdict. A criminal jury’s decision answers narrower questions than a civil complaint’s catalogue of allegations.

5. Inspect the other entry views only when present

Return to the entry. If Sources, History, Refusals, or a machine-readable view is offered, inspect the relevant one: a source view helps identify documents; history shows recorded changes; a refusal or unresolved question describes its own boundary; the machine representation carries structured fields. Do not assume all views exist on every record, or that an earlier version establishes a later assertion.

6. Separate disagreement from missing information

A complaint and a verdict are not inherently contradictory merely because one has more allegations than the other. They concern different stages and standards of proof. If you cannot find the original court document, keep the distinction between a DOJ announcement describing it and the actual verdict or docket instrument. Do not invent a missing quotation, source link, or version.

For a different, device-specific question, open FDA record K143236 and read the named HSV-1 IgG assay and recorded substantial-equivalence decision. Do not generalize that one regulatory decision to all Theranos testing or reinterpret it as a verdict on the investor allegations.

7. Return with a source-specific reading

Write a short conclusion with the necessary verbs: The SEC alleged…; the SEC announced that Holmes and Theranos agreed to settle without admitting or denying the allegations…; a jury convicted Holmes on these specified investor-fraud counts… Attach each document’s issuer, date, and usable link, and preserve which passage you actually read.

Expected result: your reading is more precise than the entry’s summary without claiming that every alleged fact was separately decided. Continue to Cases and investigations, Exploring sources and references, or Understanding evidence and uncertainty.

Corresponding overview

Read beyond an article

Exploring cases and investigations

What this chapter does

Cases bring different people, documents and decisions into one question. This chapter shows how to read that collection without treating an allegation, a sworn declaration, an investigative report and a court order as though they mean the same thing.

Reader outcome

Build a small, attributable chronology and distinguish the participants’ positions from the recorded decisions and the questions that remain open.

Our example: the FTX bankruptcy and recovery record

The collapse of FTX produced bankruptcy court filings, federal enforcement actions, debtor investigations and later recovery announcements. Start with the FTX bankruptcy docket repository and the CFTC’s December 2022 complaint announcement. A later CFTC consent-judgment announcement records a different procedural outcome and different monetary measures. These sources are useful partly because they must not be collapsed into one number or one procedural status.

Before you begin

Choose the specific question you want answered: what new management reported at the start of bankruptcy; what a regulator alleged; what an order resolved; or how later recoveries were described. Public source destinations are available independently of any Counterpedia case page. Bind any native case route to a real release rather than infer it from a dossier.

1. Identify the case and the question

Open a relevant case or investigation view if the release supplies one. Read its title, jurisdiction or owner, parties and scope. If no native case exists for FTX, use the bankruptcy docket as the primary documentary path and identify it as external.

2. Identify the actors and their roles

Keep the parties separate: debtor management reports information to the bankruptcy court; a regulator files enforcement allegations; a court decides specific motions or enters orders; claimants may have their own positions. An announcement issued by FTX debtors is not a judicial finding just because the bankruptcy is pending in court.

3. Build a chronology using document dates

Read the filing or publication date for each item. Differentiate the event being described from the date the document was filed and the date of the later court act. Start with a 2022 first-day bankruptcy document, then inspect a later investigative account and a 2024 regulatory disposition. Do not invent a line-by-line chronology where an underlying docket child cannot be opened.

4. Compare an allegation with a disposition

The CFTC’s 2022 complaint announcement reports its allegations; the 2024 consent-judgment announcement describes relief recorded in a later judgment. A restitution amount, disgorgement amount, claim pool, petition-date asset estimate, and actual distribution are not interchangeable financial measurements. Name the instrument, population and date associated with any figure you use.

For a separate criminal proceeding, the DOJ’s March 28, 2024 sentencing announcement describes the 25-year prison sentence imposed on Samuel Bankman-Fried. That criminal adjudication is not the CFTC consent judgment and neither supplies a particular bankruptcy creditor’s distribution or recovery amount. Preserve the defendant, court, date and instrument when citing it.

5. Inspect an attributed passage

Choose one statement from an actual filing or investigation document. Read the relevant sentence in the original text, preserving its speaker or issuer, document title, date, and any qualifier. Avoid lifting a headline or paraphrase out of context. If the exact underlying declaration cannot be accessed, cite only the public announcement you did read and note the gap.

6. Keep competing accounts attributable

Where sources disagree, ask whether they used the same measurement date and object. A customer’s alleged shortfall, an estate asset recovery estimate and a legal judgment can differ without any one document falsifying the others. For unsupported or unresolved propositions, say what the inspected record does not establish.

7. Leave with the case and its limits

Write a short chronology with the case identity, your selected question, the cited documents, the procedural status of each, and one unresolved issue requiring further material. Where relevant, link back to the subject and research pack without merging their publication statuses.

Expected result: a reader can identify who asserted each proposition, what the actual court or regulator later did, and which record supports the distinction. Continue to Research library or Tracing information back to its source.

Optional tutorials

The main procedure does not require these exercises. Choose a tutorial for a field-level comparison, or skip to the closing explanation below.

Skip the optional exercise and read the closing explanation.

Tutorial: Compare attributed positions

Use Theranos material to compare two attributed statements against the documents they cite. Preserve the speaker, document type, passage, and scope of each statement.

Starting material

Open the Theranos entry or case described in this chapter. Select one attributed statement and a second position relevant to the same question. Use their actual cited documents. You do not need to decide which participant is correct to complete this exercise.

1. Define the comparison question

Write the question narrowly enough that both documents can be compared against it. Identify the people, organization, activity, and time period included. Do not treat two documents mentioning Theranos as responses to the same question unless their contents support that comparison.

2. Identify each contribution

For each position, record the speaker or issuing body, the statement as presented, its date, and the document cited. Keep the document class explicit. An allegation, a reported measurement, and a finding have different roles; reproduce the role recorded for the selected document rather than assigning one from its title alone.

3. Read the cited material in context

Open each passage and read the surrounding text needed to identify its scope. Record who makes the claim and whether the source is reporting another person’s position. Keep an explicit quotation separate from your interpretation. Preserve units, sampling conditions, or definitions that affect a reported result.

4. Describe the difference

State whether the positions concern the same proposition, different time periods, different populations, or different document roles. Record a disagreement only when the two statements address a comparable question. Record missing method information as missing rather than filling it from another document.

Keep two observations separate: the disagreement recorded between positions, and the extent of the evidence or assessment supplied for the question. Disagreement does not by itself establish uncertainty, and agreement does not establish support.

5. Retain the full comparison context

List all the sources supplied for the selected comparison. When describing a narrower subset, identify the sources left out and the reason for selecting it. Compare what the subset contains; do not describe a change in selection as a new Check result.

Output and completion check

Keep the comparison table and a short account of the differences. Every factual statement in that account should point to the position or document it describes. A reader should be able to separate the participants’ statements from your explanation and see which question remains unanswered.

Apply the procedure elsewhere

Repeat with a second pair of documents already associated with the same case, or with two versions of one attributed statement. Do not manufacture an opposing position to fill the table. A record with only one supplied position can still be described accurately.

Return to Cases and investigations, or continue with reading assessment scope.

Corresponding overview

Read beyond an article

Using the research library

What this chapter does

A research pack organizes documents and analysis around a question. It is not one giant source, and publishing a research document does not automatically establish its conclusions. This chapter shows how to open one piece of research, follow its citations, identify the exact artifact, and carry it forward appropriately.

Reader outcome

Locate a research pack and a document within it, inspect at least one underlying source, and retain the document’s author, edition, artifact identity and reuse conditions.

Our example: Cambridge Analytica and data access

The Cambridge Analytica/Facebook record includes different kinds of documents. The FTC’s Cambridge Analytica case contains agency allegations and a subsequent final administrative disposition. Facebook’s March 2018 statement records the platform’s contemporaneous account. These sources have different authors and procedural positions. A research dossier that compares them is a separately authored synthesis, not a substitute for either document.

Before you begin

Start with a research topic or pack title. If Counterpedia lists a relevant research pack, open it and check the pack’s author, document identities and publication status. Otherwise the original FTC case record remains a valid external starting point, but do not describe it as an opened Counterpedia pack.

1. Find a research pack

From the research library or Search, select a pack whose title and subject match your question. Read the pack’s description, contributor or author information, publication/research status, and any release or version indicator. A pack containing multiple documents is a collection, not a single claim or a single publisher.

2. Open one named research document

Choose a document addressing Cambridge Analytica’s access to Facebook-derived data. Read its title, author, question, research cutoff and citations. Note if it is an unfinished synthesis, a curated document inventory, or a released research article. Do not silently promote research-stage material into admitted fact.

3. Follow an underlying document

Open the FTC proceeding from the document’s sources when the citation is present, or explicitly follow the external link when it is not. Read the issue date and procedural label of the specific FTC item: a complaint, an opinion, and a final order are not the same instrument.

For a different perspective, open Facebook’s own 2018 statement. Note that it is a first-party platform explanation, not the FTC’s subsequent determination.

4. Keep pack, analysis and source separate

5. Inspect or export an allowed artifact

Where the library offers an underlying artifact for this exact document, open or download it as permitted. Note the file title or name, documented edition, format, and recorded digest if one is shown. Compare the formatted reading copy with the identified artifact; similar titles do not prove byte identity. If no downloadable artifact is offered, record that constraint without inventing one.

6. Preserve attribution, rights and version

Record the research author, pack, specific document, date or version, actual publisher sources you inspected, and any displayed licence or reuse condition. Public access and permission to redistribute are different. When quoting or exporting, follow the applicable rights and attribution terms.

7. Return to the research question

Write down what the FTC record establishes, what the contemporaneous platform statement says, and which conclusion belongs to the research author. Keep a remaining uncertainty explicit, such as whether the inspected sources cover a particular person, dataset or downstream use. Do not convert document access into proof of an outcome those materials did not adjudicate.

Expected result: you can return to the same research document and source materials, identify the artifact you actually used, and accurately describe the boundaries of its conclusions. Continue with Cases and investigations or Source tracing.

Corresponding overview

Read beyond an article

Next tasks

• Exploring cases and investigations
• Tracing information back to its source
• Saving, citing, sharing, and exporting

Following a record through time

What this chapter does

A page can change, and the evidence it discusses can change too. This tutorial helps you compare a recorded earlier version with a later one, inspect the reason, and cite the version you actually read. It does not assume that every Counterpedia object has a revision history.

Reader outcome

Identify two versions of one record, read their differences and associated source context, and distinguish document, event, and revision dates.

Our example: the Titan investigation

OceanGate’s Titan was lost in June 2023. The NTSB public docket holds multiple investigative materials, while the Coast Guard Marine Board report is a later institutional report. A contemporaneous warning, a subsequently recovered record, and the later investigation’s interpretation are distinct dated sources. We use them to understand why evidence dates and publication dates cannot be collapsed, not to pretend they are versions of one document.

Before you begin

Choose a Counterpedia record with at least two visible revisions. If the Titan subject has no recorded revision pair, use another real history-bearing record. Note its exact identity and both version labels; dates on external reports are not automatically Counterpedia revision numbers.

1. Open a real record history

Open the subject or record, locate any History or Versions view, and identify the current version and its predecessor. Note the version identifier or timestamp as displayed. If the only available material is a set of separate reports, do not call that a version history of the same object; instead compare them as documentary chronology.

2. Separate three clocks

Read each version’s recorded time and any source timestamps. The event, the document’s publication, and the record’s revision each have a different meaning.

Expected result: you know whether a date belongs to the subject’s history, the source, or the page itself.

3. Compare one changed statement

Place the earlier and later record versions side by side, or read them in sequence. Select a changed statement, citation, status, or qualification. Record the earlier wording and the later wording without losing which edition contains which. If only formatting changed, say so instead of inventing a substantive correction.

4. Look for the reason and evidence

Inspect the revision note, decision or source reference when the record provides one. Then open the identified evidence, if authorized. In the Titan example, a 2025 official report can interpret data gathered in 2023, and a 2018 industry warning can describe earlier concerns. Neither document alone establishes what each 2023 decision-maker subjectively knew. Preserve the different questions and authors.

5. Read a refusal or reconsideration in its own terms

If the selected record includes a refused proposition, supersession, or reopened issue, inspect the exact statement, reason, and any stated reopening condition. If it does not, leave that feature out of the worked example and use a separately identified record only when available. A refusal isn’t a technical error; an unresolved question isn’t a negative finding.

6. Follow a successor without rewriting the past

If a successor record or revision exists, open it and note the link back to the earlier version. Compare what it adds, retracts, or reframes. A later revision is not automatically stronger merely because it is newer; it may have more evidence, different scope, or a changed editorial judgment.

7. Cite the exact version

Write down the record title, producer, exact record and version identity, date or revision context, and the statement or source you used. Where a cited source has its own edition, include that too. Do not treat a persistent route to the current version as proof you can retrieve an older one indefinitely.

Expected result: you can tell another reader which version informed your account, how it differed, and what record supports the reason for the change. Continue with Evidence and uncertainty or Saving and citing.

Corresponding overview

Understand how knowledge changes

Next tasks

• Understanding evidence and uncertainty
• Saving, citing, sharing, and exporting

Tracing information back to its source

What this chapter does

When you read a statement somewhere in Counterpedia — on an entry, on a relationship, in a search snippet — this chapter shows you how to walk it back to the actual document it came from, confirm which version of that document you read, and record it so you or anyone else can return to the same place. It also shows where tracing stops: reaching a document tells you where a statement came from, not whether the document supports it.

Reader outcome

Trace one statement to its reference, the document version behind it, and the specific passage — and tell source inspection apart from an assessment of support.

Our statement and sources

We continue the example from Searching Counterpedia, which ended with a statement in our own words:

The Statue of Liberty’s copper exterior turned green through oxidation.

The reference we recorded was the National Park Service FAQ. A companion NPS facts page describes the same material, and a 1905 Library of Congress photograph shows the monument earlier in its life. The two NPS pages share one publisher, so their agreement is not independent corroboration.

Before you begin

You need a statement and the reference attached to it — here, the oxidation statement and the NPS FAQ. Reading a public publisher document needs no private research access. Inspecting a Source Record, a retained copy, or a privately saved result keeps its own account and permission requirements.

1. Start from the statement, not the subject

Write down the exact claim you are tracing: the copper exterior turned green through oxidation. A subject page collects many statements; tracing works on one at a time. Identify the reference attached to this statement — the pointer that records where it came from — rather than the general list of everything linked to the Statue of Liberty.

2. Separate where the reference was imported from who published the document

The origin of a reference and the publisher of the document it points to are two different things. A relationship or snippet imported from Wikidata — item Q9202 identifies the monument — can point to a document published by the National Park Service, the Library of Congress, or anyone else. Note the import origin, then follow the reference through to the publisher’s own document.

3. Follow the reference to the document and read the passage

Open the referenced document — the NPS FAQ. Identify its publisher (National Park Service), the page, and any date or revision shown. Find the passage that actually addresses your statement: the explanation that the copper surface oxidized and developed a green patina. Read it in context rather than trusting a snippet — a matching title or URL is not the same as having read the supporting passage.

Expected result: you can point to the publisher, the page, and the specific passage behind the statement.

4. Record the version you actually used

Keep the edition or version you read, not just the title. A live publisher page can change; a frozen edition or a retained capture — where one legitimately exists — has a different identity and covers a different point in time. Record the URL, the publisher, and the date you read it, so a later visit can be compared against what you cited.

5. Tell a reference, a Source Record, and a retained copy apart

These are different objects, and finding one does not establish the others:

• an observed reference points to material — the citation you followed;
• a Source Record identifies a document’s documentary identity and its recorded destinations;
• a retained copy is material actually held that you can open and inspect;
• custody information describes that retained material — how and when it was captured — not whether it supports your statement.

A cited URL with no Source Record can still lead to a perfectly good document. A Source Record does not by itself mean a retained copy exists. Record which of these you actually reached.

6. Handle the reference-only case

If the reference has no Source Record and no retained copy, you can still open the publisher document directly and cite it as an external original source — just record that you reached it outside Counterpedia and that no retained copy was available. A reference you cannot open at all is still worth keeping: note that you could not inspect its content rather than dropping it.

7. Stop at traceability — support is a separate question

Reaching the document tells you where the statement came from. It does not, on its own, establish that the passage supports the statement, that a quotation is accurate, or that the source is current. Those are assessment questions. When evaluating support is your goal, prepare the statement with this source context and run Check — a separate, recorded assessment, not part of the trace.

Finish and continue

You have traced the oxidation statement to the NPS passage behind it, recorded the version you read, and kept the trace distinct from any judgment of support. Continue to Exploring sources and references for these object types in more depth, save and cite the trace, or assess the statement with Check.

Optional tutorials

The main procedure does not require these exercises. Choose a tutorial for a field-level comparison, or skip to the closing explanation below.

Tutorial: Trace shared source origins

Inspect whether references in a Theranos source set derive from common material. Report documented derivation separately from unresolved origin.

Starting material

Use the source set associated with one question or attributed statement in the Theranos material. Start with the full supplied set, not a subset chosen because it supports an interpretation. Record the exact record and version whose source set you are inspecting.

1. Inventory the references

List each reference, its document identifier or locator, publisher, edition or date, and the statement it is attached to. Keep a local worksheet row number separate from the document’s actual identifier. Multiple links to one document are multiple locators, not automatically multiple origins.

2. Follow documented derivation

Inspect any recorded derivation or citation relation and the document’s own attribution. Where a document expressly reproduces or derives from another source, record both endpoints and the evidence for that relationship. A matching title, similar language, different domain, or separate download is a lead to inspect, not sufficient evidence of independence or derivation.

3. Group the documented chains

On the worksheet, connect only the documented derivation steps. Two documents that repeat one upstream account remain distinguishable documents while sharing that recorded origin. Mark a link as unresolved when the next source cannot be inspected or its origin is not supplied.

Do not report a numerical count of independent lineages from the number of publishers, URLs, or apparent groups. Report the documented chains you found and the part of the source set whose origins remain unresolved.

4. Keep derivation separate from supersession

A later document can cite an earlier one without replacing it. Record a supersession only when the source or record explicitly supplies that relation. Keep document publication time, capture time, and the revision time of the Counterpedia record in separate columns when comparing versions.

5. Compare a narrowed set

Make a worksheet-only subset and list every omitted reference. Compare which documented chains remain represented and which disappear. Your comparison describes coverage of the selected set. It does not calculate claim support, invalidate an omitted document, or change the underlying record.

Output and completion check

Produce the reference inventory, documented chain diagram or table, unresolved-origin list, and subset-omission list. The exercise is complete when another reader can trace every drawn connection to its stated basis. An unresolved origin is an acceptable result; unexplained certainty about independence is not.

Apply the procedure elsewhere

Inspect two references attached to an Eotyrannus or Douglas Adams statement. Use the same method even when the available data yields only locators and no derivation relation. Keep that shorter result rather than filling it with inferred links.

Return to Tracing information back to its source, or continue with comparing attributed positions.

Corresponding overview

Find the original sources

Next tasks

• Exploring sources and references
• Using Counterpedia Check
• Saving, citing, sharing, and exporting

Using Counterpedia Check

What this chapter does

Checking information is different from finding it. This chapter takes one statement, one identified source and one specified assessment from preparation to result, then shows how to read each recorded finding without exaggerating what was tested.

Reader outcome

Prepare a statement and its source context, execute an authorized Check, examine its per-question outcomes and receipt, and preserve the result’s stated limits.

The worked question: a Volkswagen notice

Use a bounded source-description question drawn from the EPA’s September 2015 notice: Did the EPA notice allege that specified Volkswagen 2.0-liter diesel vehicles used software to circumvent emissions testing? That asks what a named regulatory document says. It does not ask Check to rule on every Volkswagen model, executive’s knowledge, or every later legal disposition.

Before you begin

Have the statement and the identified EPA notice together, including any edition or retrieval details available. Sign in with an identity authorized to run the chosen Check. If Check is unavailable, continue the source-reading exercise without calling it an executed assessment.

1. Prepare an exact statement and source

Enter the statement or select it from a documented import path. Confirm that the EPA document URL or identified source record remains attached to that same statement after import. Do not silently replace the original source with a search snippet or a topical summary. If the document can’t be read, record that condition rather than supplying invented extracted text.

2. Review what Check will evaluate

Read the displayed statement, source, permission requirements and the selected assessment contract or scope. A citation-focused assessment may ask separate questions about source identity, citation resolution, quotation integrity, source capture, currentness and proposition support. Do not assume all six were evaluated: use only the actual question IDs and labels returned by the selected operation.

3. Run the operation and preserve its identity

Submit the prepared request if Check is enabled for your account and material. Retain the operation or result identity displayed, as well as the statement and source reference. Do not call a preparation screen, queued request or failed execution a completed Check.

Expected result: an identifiable result tied to the exact statement and source you submitted, or an explicit non-completion state you can diagnose.

4. Read each recorded outcome and reason

Inspect the returned questions individually. Open any linked passages and compare the precise text to the submitted proposition. A valid URL is not a quotation match; an accurate quotation does not automatically support the broader statement; an older source can still be accurately quoted without being current for every purpose.

Read the actual returned vocabulary rather than treating this table as a promise of specific outcomes.

5. Inspect the receipt on its own terms

Where a receipt was issued, identify its related operation and source context. A receipt may carry signed or hashed representation data useful for subsequent inspection. Recomputing its specified content identity is different from re-executing Check, authenticating every publisher claim, or proving an external publication time. Keep the expected digest’s origin and the verification contract clear.

6. Handle refused, unresolved and failed paths

If execution was refused, read the access or policy reason and use an authorized path rather than retrying through another identity. If a question was evaluated but unresolved, inspect the evidence limit and refine the claim or source for a possible future Check. If the operation failed technically, preserve its error context and avoid reporting substantive outcomes it never produced. If it never ran, describe the material as not checked.

7. Finish with the bounded result

Write down the exact proposition, source version, recorded questions and reasons, result or receipt identity, and anything not assessed. Use Saving, citing, sharing and exporting only for an eligible result under the current access and retention rules. A basic source-reading task can be complete even if Check is unavailable.

Corresponding overview

Check information

Next tasks

• Understanding evidence and uncertainty
• Saving, citing, sharing, and exporting
• Research workflows from start to finish

Understanding evidence and uncertainty

What this chapter does

Not all gaps mean the same thing. A missing document, a question not yet checked, a disputed interpretation and an operation that failed should not all become “false” or “unknown” in the same way. This chapter teaches how to preserve the reason for uncertainty.

Reader outcome

Interpret a statement in context, identify what evidence it has, distinguish assessment states, and describe precisely what a receipt or document does and does not establish.

Our example: MH370 and the limits of an investigation

The 2018 Malaysian safety-investigation report and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s search investigation address different questions about Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The Malaysian team could not determine the real cause from the available evidence; a search analysis can identify a high-probability region or evaluate searched areas without identifying an observed crash coordinate or determining a perpetrator.

Both are genuine official work. Neither should be turned into certainty the documents did not claim, nor treated as useless because it leaves questions unanswered.

1. Start with the exact assertion

Choose a sentence such as The 2018 Malaysian report did not determine the cause of MH370’s disappearance. Identify that sentence as a proposition about the report’s conclusion. Contrast it with the much stronger unsupported claim Investigators proved exactly why MH370 disappeared. The same document cannot be cited indiscriminately for both.

2. Read the source’s scope

Open the Malaysian report’s stated findings and limitations. Record its publication date, investigative mandate, relevant passage and evidence that was unavailable. The ATSB search material is a separately authored analysis of a search effort and its assumptions. A search-area model is not itself a recovered flight recorder.

3. Describe an observation, a citation and an assessment separately

An observation or recorded graph relationship tells you what a provider represented. A cited report offers text to inspect. A registered Source Record identifies a document; retained bytes can preserve a particular copy. A Check, if executed, evaluates specified questions against specified evidence. Do not transfer an outcome from one object to another.

4. Compare the kinds of absence

Expected result: you can describe the absence and choose a suitable next step rather than forcing a yes/no verdict.

5. Understand support without flattening it

Ask which exact passage bears on the claim, what methods or assumptions it uses, and whether it is temporally relevant. A reliable report can contain a firm finding about one part of a case and explicit uncertainty about another. Do not inflate a citation, graph edge or document count into multiple independent confirmations.

6. Read a receipt’s verified property

When a receipt is available, read what the verification operation actually compared: a serialized content identity, a signature or issuer binding when supported, a particular time attestation, or a separate substantive reassessment. Verifying one property is not proof of the others. An issued-at timestamp alone is not independent evidence that those bytes existed by that time.

7. Record the uncertainty that remains

Finish with a source-specific account: The named Malaysian report did not determine the cause; the named ATSB report describes the search and its constraints; these documents do not themselves settle every causal hypothesis. Note the date and version you read, the missing material, and the new question a relevant source could address. You need not run Check to describe the limits of these reports accurately.

Continue to Using Counterpedia Check for evaluated claims, or Source tracing for the document itself.

Optional tutorials

The main procedure does not require these exercises. Choose a tutorial for a field-level comparison, or skip to the closing explanation below.

Skip the optional exercise and read the closing explanation.

Tutorial: Read an assessment without extending its scope

Inspect the ECF-514 example one test at a time. Separate the recorded assessment from quotation inspection, receipt identity, and questions the result does not answer.

Starting material

Open the ECF-514 result associated with the Check chapter. Record the result identity and the source context shown by that result. This tutorial reads an existing result; the main Check procedure is where you prepare inputs and run a new assessment.

1. Preserve the assessed input

Copy the assessed statement, its source reference, and the source version or capture identity supplied by the result. Keep the result contract or evaluator version when recorded. Comparing results for different statements or source versions is not a repeat of the same test.

2. Record each question separately

For every question listed by the selected result, record its wording, outcome, reason, and associated material. Do not replace several outcomes with one overall verdict.

Use the result you are reading, not a fixed expected answer copied from another specimen. A question marked not evaluated differs from an evaluated question that did not establish the tested property. An operation that failed before returning a result is different again.

3. Inspect the quotation and the proposition

Open the cited passage and read its context. Determine which recorded question concerns matching words and which concerns support for the assessed statement. An exact quotation can still be used to make a broader assertion than the passage addresses. Report a support outcome only when the result supplies one, with its stated scope.

Do not turn this exercise into an independent legal ruling. Describe the assessment and the attributed passage that you inspected.

4. Inspect receipt verification separately

Identify what the receipt-verification operation compares: the representation, expected identity, verification method, and comparison outcome. Recomputing a receipt identity is not the same operation as rerunning the assessment. A signature check answers a different question from a digest comparison; neither alone establishes when the source event occurred.

5. Write a result note

Write one sentence for each relevant recorded question: what was evaluated, what outcome was returned, and the reason. Then identify a question that the result leaves open. Keep source existence, quotation accuracy, proposition support, currentness, and the receipt’s identity distinct wherever those questions appear in the selected contract.

Output and completion check

Keep the input reference, per-question table, and result note. Another reader should be able to trace each sentence to a question or passage in the identified result. Reading the result must not be reported as a new Check execution.

Apply the procedure elsewhere

Repeat on a second existing result with a different outcome or on a Theranos assessment bound to a selected statement. Retain the new input and method identities. A difference in outcome is interpretable only in the context of what each assessment examined.

Return to Evidence and uncertainty, or continue with comparing artifact bytes.

Corresponding overview

Check information

Next tasks

• Following a record through time
• Using Counterpedia Check
• Research workflows from start to finish

Saving, citing, sharing, and exporting

What this chapter does

You may want to come back to your research, show it to someone else, or use it in a document. Those are different tasks. Saving privately does not make a result public. Copying a link does not make a document permanently available. Downloading an artifact does not grant rights to republish it.

This chapter keeps four operations separate: save, cite, share, and export.

Reader outcome

Preserve an eligible result under your account, return to it later, make a version-specific citation, share a public destination, and distinguish a permitted export from a private record.

Before you begin

Use a real completed Check result eligible for saving, with its source context and the identity authorized to own it. For the citation example, consider the NTSB’s East Palestine derailment investigation: a preliminary report and a later final report have different dates and purposes. A citation must identify the particular document used. Use the original NTSB publication to confirm the report’s exact title, date, destination and permitted reuse before citing or exporting it.

1. Choose what you want to preserve

Expected result: you can name the operation you need before clicking anything. A bookmark to a live page, a fixed-version citation, and a private saved result are not interchangeable.

2. Save an eligible result under the owning account

From a completed Check result, inspect whether saving is offered and what information must be retained. Save it using the authorized identity and read the confirmation. Keep the opaque reference or retrieval material according to the operation’s instructions; do not publish private keys in a screenshot or citation.

If saving is refused or unavailable, read the reason. Do not treat that as proof that the underlying statement was false.

3. Reopen it in a later session

Return as the same authorized owner. Use the documented retrieval path and compare the reopened result’s identity, original statement, source version and recorded questions with what you saved. A later source change or another Check should have its own identity, not silently overwrite what was previously assessed.

Expected result: you can tell whether this is the same saved result or new work. If it cannot be found, distinguish missing retrieval material, wrong account, permission refusal and retention limits.

4. Cite the public source and its version

For an East Palestine investigation document, keep the issuing organization, exact title, publication or issue date, specific report or edition, source URL or identifier, and the passage used. The preliminary report is not the final report simply because both concern the same event.

For a Counterpedia entry, also keep the entry identity and the edition or release actually read. A general site link may resolve to updated content and should not be described as a fixed version.

5. Share a destination without sharing private access

Open the public source or eligible public result destination in a second browser session and examine what an ordinary recipient can actually inspect. If the destination points to a restricted result, copying the URL does not change that restriction. Do not send a private receipt, access token or saved-result key merely to demonstrate sharing.

6. Verify a public receipt separately

A published receipt may let a recipient inspect recorded scope and outcomes. When its format supports independent identity comparison, use the documented exact representation and the separately obtained expected identifier or digest. Compute the specified identity and compare it with the expected value.

A match concerns those bytes or that representation under the stated comparison. It is not a rerun of Check, proof of a publisher’s truthfulness, or independent proof of when a document first existed. A mismatch and an unreadable input are different failures; report which one occurred.

7. Export only what is permitted

When an artifact or machine-readable representation is offered, read its available format, version, licence and attribution. Download the permitted material and retain the file identity, not merely the filename. If no export is offered, keep the citation instead of inventing a button or copying restricted source bytes.

8. Recover from a missing or ineligible item

For a failed private retrieval, confirm the owner and required key without exposing it. For a changed public destination, look for an archived or fixed edition and cite the one you used. For unavailable exports, consult the published rights and alternative authorized destinations.

Finish by noting separately what you saved, what you cited, what another reader can open, and what file, if any, you exported. Continue with Check, Record history, or Agents and software.

Corresponding overview

Work with Counterpedia programmatically

Next tasks

• Using Counterpedia Check
• Using Counterpedia with agents and software
• Help, limitations, and terminology

Using Counterpedia with agents and software

What this chapter does

An agent can help you search and summarize, but its answer is much more useful when it keeps the specific records, sources and versions behind what it says. This chapter shows the full read-and-follow task without treating a software response as a new verdict.

Reader outcome

Configure a documented client, read an identified record, follow a source reference through another permitted read, and compare what the agent receives with the human view of the same object and edition.

Before you begin

Choose Counterpedia’s maintained API, SDK or MCP documentation for a supported read operation, and use an authorized client where access requires one. Start from a Boeing 737 MAX record only if the chosen collection actually returns it; otherwise use another real identified record. Follow the interface’s documented identifiers and response format rather than guessing an endpoint or tool name.

1. Choose an interface and read its contract

Select the interface appropriate to your client: direct HTTP API, an SDK that uses the same documented operations, or an MCP tool for an agent. Read its discovery resources, schemas, supported version and access rules.

Do not infer feature parity from a shared brand. An MCP read tool need not be a write API, and no documented read grants authority to execute Check or publish new material.

2. Configure a client with the right identity

Use the provider’s maintained connection or authentication instructions. Confirm which account or principal the request represents and whether it is limited to public records. Keep secret values out of example outputs and screenshots.

Expected result: an authorized client ready to make one explicit read. If authentication fails, resolve it as an access problem rather than fabricating a successful response.

3. Read a Boeing object

Submit the exact identifier using the documented read operation. Inspect what was returned: object type, subject identity, release or edition, known provenance, cited source references and any explicit unavailable fields.

A readable paragraph is not enough to prove that the correct object was selected. For Boeing, distinguish a subject overview from a specific investigation record or document.

4. Follow a source reference

Choose one returned source reference and follow it using an operation that explicitly accepts its identity. Compare the document’s publisher, title, version, custody state and permitted destination with the original record. A reference is not a guarantee that Counterpedia retained a copy, and an agent must not construct a plausible-looking URL in place of a returned link.

If the second read is unavailable or refused, keep the reference and state the boundary.

5. Compare human and agent views

Open the same record and edition in the human interface. Check that both representations carry the same identifying context, relevant source distinctions and unresolved matters. Formatting can differ; claims about scope or support must not expand between clients.

For example, an engineering investigation’s cited causal findings cannot automatically become a claim about the knowledge or culpability of every individual involved.

6. Inspect an existing receipt without rerunning Check

Where the documented interface permits reading a receipt, identify its issuing operation, object reference and recorded questions. Distinguish receipt lookup from the separate verification procedure and from initiating a new Check. A transport wrapper, result envelope and canonical receipt content can be different byte sequences. Use the verifier’s specified representation, not whichever JSON happened to be easiest to copy.

7. Navigate limits and diagnose failures

A bounded result may offer pagination or a cursor. Continue only as the documented interface permits, carrying the release and selected scope forward. A schema error means the request did not match the contract; a not-found or permission result means the requested read did not return that material. Never fill missing data with guessed fields.

8. Carry the work to another client

Use the returned identities and public or permitted inspection destinations in a second application or agent. The new client should be able to identify the same record and source edition without inheriting access to the first user’s private results. Follow licence and attribution requirements for reused material.

9. Finish with a reusable citation

A successful example consists of the named object, its version, at least one attributable source reference, the authorized read operation, and a second-client explanation that leaves uncertainty intact. It does not require running Check.

For related tasks, see Saving and exporting and Understanding evidence and uncertainty. Use the maintained client instructions for installation and connection; a different interface may require different operations or permissions.

Optional tutorials

The main procedure does not require these exercises. Choose a tutorial for a field-level comparison, or skip to the closing explanation below.

Skip the optional exercise and read the closing explanation.

Tutorial: Verify a receipt with its documented verifier

Use the Boeing SEC XBRL exercise to inspect a supplied receipt and verify its supported properties with the verifier documented for that release. Keep receipt verification, raw-file comparison, and assessment execution as separate operations.

Starting material

Use the exercise’s identified receipt, retained artifact, and verification instructions. The instructions must identify the receipt format, verifier version, supported profile or procedure, and any schema, keyring, trust bundle, or companion artifacts required by that verification path. Retain the source of each trust input separately from the material being checked.

This exercise starts with an identified artifact and receipt. It does not repeat source discovery, acquisition, or admission. The Boeing SEC XBRL filing and Boeing aviation-safety records are different source sets. A shared company name is not a verification binding between them.

1. Identify the receipt and verification procedure

Record the receipt identity, its declared format or profile, the associated artifact reference, and the properties the selected verification procedure checks. Use the release’s documented verifier instructions for that procedure. Do not select a profile merely because its name looks plausible.

For material covered by the selected procedure, the supported properties are independently verifiable with the documented verifier. That description does not turn every Counterpedia result or raw file into a signed receipt.

2. Verify using the required inputs

Run the versioned verifier command supplied with the exercise. A documented command may have this form:

VERIFIER_COMMAND PATH_TO_RECEIPT --trust-inputs PATH_TO_TRUST_INPUTS --profile PROFILE_ID --json

Replace the arguments with the exercise’s recorded inputs. This is an interface template, not a bound Boeing command. Other supported receipt or artifact-chain formats use their documented procedures and companion inputs. Do not force one format through another profile.

Retain the complete report and exit status. Read each finding by its name and declared scope. An unreadable input or an unsupported profile must be corrected before interpreting the result as a verification finding.

Expected result: a report for the specified receipt and verification inputs, with the properties evaluated, their outcomes, and any separately reported chain result. Compare it with the exercise’s recorded expected findings rather than assuming a successful outcome.

3. Test a controlled modification on a copy

Keep the original receipt, retained source, and trust inputs unchanged. Make a disposable exercise copy and change one field that the selected verification procedure covers. Rerun the same procedure using that copy and the original verification inputs.

Record the changed field and the new findings. For a signature-verification exercise, use a covered field value, not JSON formatting: a verifier may authenticate canonical content rather than raw file layout. The verification procedure determines which changes it detects.

Expected result: the relevant finding changes for the altered input, or the report identifies why the comparison was not evaluated. If an exercise expected failure but the result is unchanged, inspect the procedure’s coverage; do not relabel an unchanged result as a detected modification.

4. Separate receipt verification from byte comparison

The companion worksheet contains compare_bytes.py for comparing a raw file with an expected SHA-256. Use it only when that expected digest describes the exact raw-file representation. Keep the expected value’s source with the comparison.

The worksheet is a byte-comparison exercise, not the documented verifier. It performs no signature check, profile verification, assessment rerun, or independently witnessed time check. Comparing bytes with a digest from the same untrusted download establishes self-consistency, not an independently trusted origin.

Output and completion check

Keep the receipt and artifact identities, verifier version, selected procedure, required trust-input references, original report, modified-copy report, and modification description. Recheck the original after the exercise. Explain which properties each report evaluates and which remain outside its scope. Do not extend these findings to accounting truth, proposition support, or proof that the underlying event occurred.

Apply the procedure elsewhere

Repeat on an authorized receipt or exported artifact from a different example. Select its own documented verification procedure and trust inputs; do not reuse the Boeing profile, digest, or keyring without an explicit applicable binding. For a raw-file-only export, use the separate worksheet and report only the byte comparison.

Return to Agents and software, or compare the distinction with assessment scope.

Corresponding overview

Work with Counterpedia programmatically

Next tasks

• Using Counterpedia Check
• Saving, citing, sharing, and exporting
• Research workflows from start to finish

Research workflows from start to finish

What this chapter does

A research session should produce something you can use, explain and return to. It might be a citation, a comparison of evidence, a completed assessment, or an identified record for an application. The most important decision is what you need to accomplish, not how many features you use.

Reader outcome

Finish a discovery-to-citation task, choose an optional statement assessment, return to the same material later, and reuse one identified object in another client without losing context.

1. Choose the outcome

You can stop after the first useful result. Check is not the conclusion of every research journey.

2. Complete discovery and citation

Ask Why is the Statue of Liberty green? Search for the monument, confirm its identity, and follow the relevant reference to the National Park Service explanation. Read the passage explaining oxidation and patina. Record the publisher, document, URL, date accessed and any version shown.

Expected result: one answer supported by a passage you actually read. You can stop here, even if you never open a graph or assessment.

3. Compare accounts when a question is contested

For Theranos, distinguish a regulatory complaint’s allegations, the scope of a criminal verdict and decisions about specific devices or assays. For a Flint lead measurement, keep the test’s population, sampling method, date and reported unit attached to the number. An authentic value does not answer every question about a city’s drinking water.

Use Reading an entry, Cases, or Tracing a source depending on which document or proposition you need.

4. Trace documents and the version used

From the question, move through the subject or investigation to the named source document, then to the specific passage. Confirm whether you read a public publisher page, archived edition, or retained copy. A reference alone is not proof of source custody. If a document changed, cite the edition you actually consulted rather than the newest page by default.

5. Evaluate a particular statement only when useful

A narrow question about what the EPA’s Volkswagen notice alleged makes a better Check input than an unbounded claim about “everything Volkswagen did.” Prepare the precise statement and notice together, review the operation’s scope and permissions, and execute Check if the chosen release permits.

Inspect the returned question-by-question outcomes and reasons. If the operation did not run or a question was not evaluated, say so. A receipt’s content identity is a different question from the truth of the claim.

6. Finish your first session

Keep the source-specific citation, a version or object reference where supplied, and any completed Check result under its proper access rules. Do not call a browser bookmark a saved private result, or assume a public link grants access to restricted material.

7. Return in a later session

Reopen the original document, specified edition, or authorized saved result. Compare identifiers, version and source context with the information recorded earlier. If the current source has changed, preserve the old citation and inspect the change separately.

Expected result: you know whether you resumed the original work or opened a newer representation.

8. Reuse the object in software

For a Boeing example, use the documented read operation to retrieve the same record and edition in a separate client. Keep the exact returned source identities and limits in the client’s explanation. Software reuse should make evidence easier to inspect, not quietly grant new authority.

If a step is blocked

An empty search, inaccessible document, missing retained copy, refused action and unresolved Check are different outcomes. Record the actual stopping point, use an authorized alternate source or query, and do not invent missing material to complete the diagram.

Continue with Saving and sharing, Using agents, or Help and limitations. A successful research workflow ends with something attributable, not necessarily something conclusive.

Corresponding overview

Follow connections

Next tasks

• Searching Counterpedia
• Tracing information back to its source
• Using Counterpedia Check
• Saving, citing, sharing, and exporting
• Using Counterpedia with agents and software

Help, limitations, and terminology

What this chapter does

When you cannot find or open something, it helps to know which part stopped working. A missing search result is different from an inaccessible document; a Check with unresolved evidence is different from a Check that never executed.

This chapter starts with the visible symptom and gives you a next step without pretending an unknown result is a negative finding.

Reader outcome

Classify the problem, try one appropriate recovery, and retain enough non-sensitive details to reproduce or report it.

1. A search returns no matches

Check spelling, alternative names and filters. Confirm which collection or release was searched. A query for an abbreviated institution may work differently from its formal name.

Expected result: either a more specific result or an accurate description of which search scope returned no match. No match in one index does not establish that the subject or document does not exist.

2. A reference exists but the document is unavailable

An entry may cite a publisher document even where Counterpedia has no Source Record or retained copy. Follow the documented original or archive destination when permitted. If the publisher link is unavailable, keep its bibliographic details and note that you could not inspect the passage.

Do not replace inaccessible source text with an AI-generated summary and then cite the summary as the original.

3. A private result will not open

Check whether you are signed out, using the wrong owning identity, missing authorized retrieval material, or receiving an explicit permission refusal. Try the documented sign-in or retrieval path for that particular status. Do not paste access tokens, private retrieval keys or receipts containing confidential material into a public issue.

A copied URL does not bypass the result’s access boundary.

4. A Check is unresolved, refused or failed

A receipt can establish particular content identity properties when correctly verified; it does not convert a refusal or execution error into a completed assessment.

5. A list ends early or an operation times out

Check the displayed page size, neighborhood depth, continuation or cursor. Preserve the selected collection and version when requesting the next page. A bounded graph neighborhood is not an exhaustive census of relationships. For interrupted downloads, retain the expected identity and compare a completed permitted file before citing its bytes.

6. Terms you will see

A source label or provider name is not automatically the source’s original publisher or proof that a quoted claim is true.

7. Report a reproducible issue

Record the route or public record identity, approximate time, operation, selected input type, expected behavior and exact visible error. Redact credentials and private content. Use the release’s designated support or reporting destination; do not invent a support address from a general homepage.

Expected result: someone can reproduce the problem without needing your private key or guessing which version you saw.

8. Choose the next task

For a search problem, return to Searching or Coverage. For document or provenance issues, read Sources. For Check and access states, see Using Check, Evidence and uncertainty, and Saving and retrieval.

Corresponding overview

Understand coverage and availability

Next tasks

• Searching Counterpedia
• Using Counterpedia Check
• Understanding evidence and uncertainty
• Saving, citing, sharing, and exporting