SourceWatch:Purpose

Purpose is a guideline page used on SourceWatch.

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< About SourceWatch

SourceWatch is a free encyclopedia about the people, issues, and groups shaping the public agenda, including activist groups and government agencies but especially public relations firms, front groups, industry-friendly experts and think tanks that try to manipulate public opinion.

• Today: SourceWatch has 68,584 articles.

What is SourceWatch's role in increasing public scrutiny?

SourceWatch provides open and simple tools to attract public participation in documenting information about the people, companies, and entities attempting to shape public opinion as well as about select public policy issues. With the experience of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) in researching and writing about spin and propaganda, CMD believes it is vital to a working democracy to increase public scrutiny and public awareness of the people and companies shaping public policy and about these policies as well as disinformation regarding these issues. See Flack Attack: for more information about this.

You may not agree with all of the criticisms, and if you think something that appears here is unfair, you can fix it! The site is a Wiki, meaning that anyone, including you, can edit any article right now by clicking on the edit this page link that appears in every article in SourceWatch. As more and more people edit the articles, they can improve in quality. (More...)

Who owns SourceWatch?

The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is the publisher of SourceWatch. CMD owns the server and domain names related to SourceWatch. The articles in SourceWatch are released by their authors under the GNU Free Documentation License, so the articles are open content. See SourceWatch:Copyrights and SourceWatch:Readers' FAQ for information on how you can use SourceWatch content. (Please note, however, that other publications of CMD, including our PR Watch web site, remain copyrighted property and should not be used without permission.)

Who is responsible for the articles on SourceWatch?

This is a collaborative endeavor. Many people have contributed to different parts of this project, and anyone can do so, including you! All you need to know is How to edit a page. It would also be good to know what you are talking about or to have a passion for the truth about these issues or the public's right to know more about them. You can see who is responsible for the most recent versions of any given page by clicking on the "History" link--be bold in updating pages! If you are uncertain or find the wording confusing, quote the material on the associated talk page and leave a question for the next more knowledgeable reader or editor. This helps eliminate errors, inaccuracies, or misleading wording more quickly and is highly appreciated by the community.

Getting Started

• First you need to register.
• Then you need to know how to log in.

Contribute

• Contributing
• Make sure to read the policies for contributors.
• Help page: how to edit articles and more
• To test out how wiki editing and formatting works have a play in the Sandbox.
• SourceWatch:Uploading Images & PDFs
• Frequently asked questions

More Details

• Recent changes: see the articles that SourceWatch contributors are working on with the most recent changes listed first
• New articles
• Request an article or information
• Fix a stub A stub is the small starting kernel for an article. So if you are looking for somewhere to start it is worth having a look here.
• SourceWatch:Categories - You can also look through the articles indexed in the various categories
• Help with searching
• Random article

Errors And Complaints

• SourceWatch: How Fix An Error

Other Policies

• SourceWatch: General disclaimer
• SourceWatch:Editorial Policy

Some Quick History

• July 3, 2004: SourceWatch is the world's 14th biggest wiki website by mere article count.
• March 10, 2003: SourceWatch is publicly launched.
• January 15, 2003: SourceWatch is first created.
• December 18, 2002: PR Watch editor Sheldon Rampton attends a conference in Amsterdam hosted by World-Information.org and first learns about Wikipedia.