Introducing Deep Dives
What is Deep Dives?
Deep Dives is part of an overarching project that’s been percolating in my mind ever since joining Steemit.
It’s a way to engage the community in quality, focused and supportive research. The desired outcome is to produce a diverse body of well sourced, immutable and original works of research articles preserved on the blockchain.
At the same time, Deep Dives aims to reward original content creators who contribute high-quality articles to the challenge, the community and the platform.
Many of us already see the importance of the blockchain for preserving content and are devising ways in which to leverage the strengths of the blockchain for the benefit of quality independent journalism and research.
Ultimately, it is hoped that together we can produce a sustainable mechanism for fostering open sourced investigations, solid research, and independent journalism.
The vision we have in mind is that eventually research initiatives, such as Deep Dives will be completely determined by the will of the community through discussion, debate and expression of mutual interest.
In time, we hope that the project will move beyond the contest label and through community engagement the body of research we generate will be both substantial and resilient.
The Quality Content Conundrum
Nobody wants to be a controlling tyrant dictating what you should or shouldn’t research, or at least we don’t. Therefore, community interaction will play an essential role in the process.
Even so, in order to be effective quality research requires a point of focus with some sort of parameters. For this reason, I believe that, at least in the early stages, Deep Dives is best suited to a contest format. It also provides an opportunity to gauge community interest in this type of project and to gain direct feedback.
As always, the question will arise – who’s able to judge quality research?
Quality content is for the most part subjective, yet I believe there are certain principles and guidelines that can be followed to surmise what is and what is not considered quality research.
Presence of Quality
- Original content - Work that is your own, unique perspective or angle
Ex: leak/email/doc/court filings that have not been widely reported on - Corroborating evidence - backup what you say
- Well sourced – links/ citations/ quotes/ etc.
- Clear and concise - Explain the significance of your findings
- Analysis - Dot connecting
- Well written - clarity
Absence of Quality
- Plagiarism
- Lack of supporting evidence
- Lack of sources
- Overabundance of links
- Analysis – Scattered, muddled or perplexing
- Poorly written – unclear
Everyone is welcome to participate in Deep Dives, the more the merrier. Still, those wishing to have their contributions chosen as first-rate research should meet certain criteria to have their work recognized and earn additional rewards.
Support for Deep Dives
This project has been in the making for some time. In lengthy conversations with fellow researchers and Steemians @fortified and @ausbitbank we’ve been discussing how to best organize an initiative that harnesses the power of open source investigations and the blockchain.
The Writer’s Block (TWB / @thewritersblock) is also in full support of this project and TWB administrator @rhondak has created a special channel called ‘The Big Dig’ dedicated to bringing this project to life.
“The Big Dig” channel will be a place for sharing ideas, investigative resources, reviewing the work of fellow researchers, and providing a space to discuss research oriented topics.
Along with myself, these individuals will form part of the core group behind Deep Dives in the early stages.
Here’s a link to The Writer's Block discord main channel - https://discord.gg/n88PSw
Tell the Writers' Block hosts in Welcome Center that you're there for The Big Dig channel, and they will give you a role that creates instant access.
Be aware that the Big Dig is fresh as can be and will need a bit of time before it gets rolling ;)
Community Engagement Feedback
Community feedback, participation and engagement are crucial to the success of this initiative. It’s hoped that through community input this project can be refined over time and produce sustainable quality content on a continuous basis.
With Communities / Hivemind / and _SMT_s on the horizon, there’s never been a better time to create the necessary scaffolding for community based research.
Who exactly do I have in mind when I speak of community? Well that’s easy.
- Independent Journalists
- Citizen Journalists
- Open source investigators
- Researchers
- Activists
- Information, news and political junkies
- Crowd Sourced Investigators
- Writers
- Those looking for a challenge
There are already communities forming in these areas. #informationwar, #familyprotection and #donaldmarshall are several examples that quickly come to mind as well as numerous communities blossoming on various discord channels from the Minnow Support Project to @Suzi3d’s discord group – Suzie’s Steemit Club.
A quick note, @suzi3d and @elizbethleavos host a weekly live YouTube research project called Decipher You based on the Snowden Files made available to the public. I highly recommend that you tune in and check it out.
This post would not be complete without mentioning the excellent people and free-thinkers at the MSP Truth-Conspiracy-Politics channel on Discord as well.
@perceptualflaws, @tremendospercy, @an0nkn0wledge, @venomnymous, @lyndsaybowes, @jimbobbill, @johnvibes, …
Deep Dives does not seek to compete with these initiatives but rather to compliment them.
You may already be a member of one of these communities and many of us have common ground.
- Counter Propaganda
- Exposing corruption
- Honest Reporting
- Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)
- Digging Deeper
- Political commentary
- Activism
- “Truth”
- Self-Improvement
By participating in Deep Dives I hope to bring people together to share information, debate hot topics and to discuss current events and research related research.
Importance of Community Feedback
To be clear, Deep Dives is the name of a research based challenge series. It’s not a community per se but a puzzle piece towards connecting communities through active research.
What will this research community look like?
Well a number of items will need to be addressed going forward.
- Creation of Community account / Naming the account
- Regular contest vs #deepdives hashtag
- Directing future research / Prioritizing research focus
- Community leadership framework
- Creating a Discord channel
- Long term research models
- Onboarding Devs / creating research tools
If you have any feedback or questions of any kind, please leave a comment below. I would love to hear your honest opinions and suggestions.
As I’ve been putting this post together, I’ve noticed a few successful examples of the use of #hashtags in fostering community engagement.
I’d like to tip my hat to those working to bring people together around common interests Kudos to @canadian-coconut, @fulltimegeek, @markwhittam, @stevescoins, @truthforce, @wakeupnd
#informationwar
#familyprotection
#donaldmarshall
It is my personal opinion that Deep Dives could work just as well as a hashtag as in contest form. I’d like to test the waters with Deep Dives challenge to see if the community responds positively to the initiative and to take into consideration any feedback you might have.
As the host of several successful contests on the blockchain with the Conspiracy Writing Contest and Tin Foil Raps competitions, I’ve seen firsthand that providing the right prompts and incentives absolutely results in the creation of high-quality original content.
Future Editions of Deep Dives
The first edition of Deep Dives will focus on the Wikileaks archive at Wikileaks.org.
Subsequent editions may focus on particular archives such as the CIA Library, The FBI’s -The Vault, the Paradise Papers or FOIA documents.
Other Deep Dive challenges may be guided by themes instead. For example, the Middle East, US politics, human trafficking, surveillance the deep state, etc.
Archives
The emphasis on using archives as the starting point is that they provide a strong foundation to build on top of. Grounding your research in government cables/emails/documents can add weight and legitimacy to your work. It also makes it more likely that solid research posted to the blockchain will be cited or referenced elsewhere. This has the potential to bring more views and generate more interest in original works produced on the platform.
Personally, I’m very excited to see how this initiative unfolds. I hope you join me on this journey deep below the surface.
If you’d like to get involved please feel free to contact me on discord or steemchat.
Deep Dives 1st Edition to Follow Shortly
Deep Dives | Research Challenge | First Edition (1.0) |The Wikileaks Archive
EDIT / UPDATE - @deepdives account is UP!
Here's the link to Deep Dives Research Challenge - First Edition - The Wikileaks Archives
Image Credit - Image1 - Image2
Awesome work my friend. At first I thought you were gonna talk about when Scarlett Johanson took a deep dive in the movie "Ghost in the Shell", but this idea might even be more interesting haha.
With regards to topic and scope, is there a minimum amount of affected individuals to make the piece relevant? I mean micro versus macro, A small town scandal versus millions of refugees type story? Or is the world our oyster so to speak?
Lol, right because I love Scarlett Johanson...
The topic/scope will be announced officially in a separate post within the next 12-24hrs. This post is more of an introduction to the project we're trying to organize. More details are on the way, but yes, the first edition will be quite broad and really up to the individual contributors. Future installments will be more specific.
The world is your oyster @jasonshick ;)
Another great initiative buddy, I’m sure it’ll help get more truth posts out onto the steemit blockchain. The more folks researching truth posts the better for the future.
Thanks for the mention too mate.
Upvoted and resteemed!
Love the name and the goal. 100000000000%!!!
The future is looking bright for teaching people to question/analyze everything and seek the truth. I have been saying for the last few months that once more people realize they can use Steempower as a tool to pay content creators it is going to change everything.
Appreciate the mentions :)
Thanks @truthforce writing
Thank you!
You're doing great work and we are literally in an 'information war' right now - a battle for our minds.
I'm stoked this resonates with you , as I hoped it would!
We have a real opportunity to build something substantial here, together.
100000000000% appreciate your support, cheers!
Great idea @v4vapid! This is right up my alley! Steemit is such a wonderful platform for exposing corruption and spreading information I think in part because of the anonymity of the authors. I'm currently trying to spread awareness about organized gangstalking, as well as what's happening in my life with CPS under the #familyprotection tag. I mostly write from my own experience, and reading your post I realized that when I do share information or statistics, I don't cite my sources often enough. It's funny you're using Julian Assange too because I just wrote about what's happening to him the other day, and didn't cite my sources. Something I definitely have to work on.
Looking forward to reading the contributions to your deep dives challenge as well! :)
I hope you are further encouraged not only to cite sources, but to download and archive them on the blockchain, where they are relatively secure from the ongoing scrubbing of relevant information from the net.
There are moves afoot to divest even extant archival solutions online of informative and damning material. Sources cited won't matter if those sources have been deleted. We need to preserve the actual material.
Thanks!
Great point @valued-customer, this is something that NEEDS to happen. I 100% agree that we need a blockchain based archival system where documents can be permanently preserved.
Have you heard of the new journalism blockchain on the ETH network? If you haven't it's worth checking out. It's called CIVIL.
https://joincivil.com/
It's an interesting system with approval periods, challenges, rejections and appeals. They will have a 'challenge' option where pieces can be disputed. It also costs crypto in order to challenge. I've only had time to skim over it but it does seem that there will be an 'entity' called the J.A.B. that will rule over challenges. Certainly, worth a look.
I have heard of Civil, and my impression of it is mostly dependent on it's challenge system. I am not particularly skilled at math, but saw that whoever was able to apply the largest sum would surmount the challenge.
I was not convinced that this would best deliver forthright information to folks seeking it.
Perhaps I misunderstood the mechanism. If you have a better grasp of that mechanism, and I am wrong, I'd be grateful to be disabused.
Regardless, journalism =/= information, and a robust archival solution would potentiate citizen journalists to gain and disseminate that information as they felt appropriate, without the present danger of that information being buried, purged, or otherwise made unavailable by those that might not want it to be known.
Thanks!
Like I said, I haven't had time to inspect the system thoroughly and I don't completely understand the mechanism myself either. For instances, who makes up the JAB that is suppose to rule on challenges?
I also see your point about how the biggest wallet could have undue influence across the forum, a valid concern. I'll have to take a closer look though before I make any conclusions.
For exposing corruption, it's would be best if the post is supported by legit photos to make it even more interesting and credible enough to read or people will just ignore it. I'm looking forward to communities who're brave enough to discuss about corruption issues because people should be aware of that.
I think this gonna be great. It's easy to for new Steemian to give up writing quality articles after few written articles because those articles are usually lost in sea of new posts and they get only few upvotes and views. After few of those unnoticed articles most of them give up. That is big problem of this platform.
Well if they are new, they wouldn't know for this initiative too, so I would encourage you to encourage others to post in comments of articles related to this initiative mention about this initiative, so newcomers and other Steemians will have support of this community.
To be honest I want to write quality articles about subjects of this initiative. Have problem with of lack of time, but that is not key issue for me. The issue is I feel my post will be lost in sea of posts and after few posts it's super easy to give up, especially if you gave everything to that posts and got nothing in return.
I hope this initiative will help everyone willing to do some research...
Thanks.
I'm having that exact problem and have been trying to decide what to do on this platform. This gives me the hope to stand my ground and keep making actual quality content.
It seem you found your spot :) Keep it going...
Really well said @cmoljoe! And that's so great to hear @adamkent, I'm glad you've found a niche!
Thanks @lyndsayhaejin
Trying to make me physically ill? lol
hahahaha
This is an awesome idea! I am in, and also interested to see what people will come up with.
Thanks for the mention :-)
Yessss Johnny!
You're exactly the kind of person I want involved with this initiative.
I'd love to see what we are all capable of working together towards common goals!
Cheers brother ;)
I will check it out, thanks!
Hi - this sounds like just sort of thing I'm looking for to support two threads of research I'm interested in developing through steemit: a critical approach to understanding social media (seems like an obvious place to do it) and critical approach to what I call the 'painfully ordinary life of the worker consumer'... I might have to get in touch on discord if the themes ever head in those directions!
Cheers!
Karl.
When I read this I did wonder about a few people who might be keen - analytical researcher types, roll up!
Ps. Your comment is here twice if you fancy tidying up V's comments feed a little!
I prefer to think of myself as a 'pseudo-academic'.
I'll clear up the feed, that was just a function of steemit's dysfunctionality.
P.S. have you sent any money dustbuster's way? It might help me save a little VP if you have.
'pseudo-academic' it is then :)
Yes I'm sure the tools are to blame for the double comment - won't be the last duplicate i'm sure!
I did send @dustbuster a little, and delegated some too as I think it has cracking potential.
This is a totally fantastic idea, it is hard to say more than that, I hope I can contribute and look forward to reading others research and posts, bring on the "TRUTH" Superb.
Great idea!
I love the concept here. There's so many folks here putting out interesting and insightful content on their own, and doing research on their own. Gathering those investigative and curious minds together and harnessing that power for a specific purpose...well, that ought to yield some interesting results. I'm glad The Writers' Block is involved in supporting this!
I'm happy to finally be bringing this to life too!
I'm always blown away by the talent that comes out for the contests so I hope we're right that we can do the same for Deep Dive research on the block!
Glad to have you onboard!
Agreed - I created a Steemit profile to do something just like this. I am extremely interested in writing about these topics.
Ideally something like this can lead to red pilling of the masses about the crazy times we live in.
Thanks for the shout out.
I like the #deepdives idea and having another platform for free thinkers and truthers to share informations is never a bad thing. With any luck we can make Steemit a safe haven for citizen journalist and activist to counter the censorship campaign of the big social media sites.
Good luck with your new endeavor.
I agree wakeupnd. It's quite hard to even mention these topics to people without an instant ban hammer or block. Steemit makes thing a heck of a lot better, no way to block or ban us. The cat will be let out the bag eventually.
Storming potential here!
I do feel this sort of thing requires a consistently good creator and communicator to get out of the blocks, and so with you spearheading #deepdives, and having TWB in place to run with it, I think you are onto a winner here. The competitions of recent months are a testament to the ability of people here to produce brilliant, interesting content - deffo a good way to kick things off.
I'm wondering if as time progresses if any data pulls (maybe tag based for a tackle of contents?), might be useful, and if so, I'd be glad to help.
If ancient history pops up as a topic I'll be looking to contribute too!
Like it!
Thank you for your kind words and support @abh12345!
I couldn't agree more, there's plenty of talent here already and I'm excited to see what people come up with in the weeks ahead!
I'm sure we could use your expertise in data pulls in a variety of ways, so really appreciate the offer.
Not sure if WL has an archive on ancient history but certainly there must be a stash out there somewhere ;)
Thanks for dropping by, cheers mate!
This is pretty exciting to me as well. I particularly hope that ensconcing this work on the blockchain will help to preserve information being scrubbed presently from the net, and that networks and associations might result in deeper insights into obscure and nefarious actors and events being more widely available, at least for folks accessing Steem based interfaces.
Thanks!
V! Why have you not stopped being awesome!? :')
Love this concept. Like, LOVE this concept. Hopefully i can get back online properly in the next few weeks and i can be apart of theinformation wave that will be sure to ensue after this is properly launched! <3
My friend, I hope you are well. <3
Oh shit! @ancientmystique returns! I hope you do get back online and get involved, I would LOVE that too;)
That's a fantastic idea which will both foster quality on Steem and also help to make the brand Steem become more reliable in the area of journalism, research and investigation.
How can one get involved more? Will you set up your own dicord channel?
Enjoyed and resteemed
@surfermarly, yes we feel that producing original works in theses areas will be of great value to the platform.
We've started a discord channel at The Writer's Block called the big dig. It's only just gone live but people are already in there asking questions. I'll be posting the first 'challenge' focused on the WL archives soon with more details.
Here's the link to TWB main page - https://discord.gg/n88PSw
Thank you very much for your support and resteem ;)
Awesome, I've now joined the discord channel and will try to get more involved with the community though :-)
Have a great start into the week!
This is pretty deep @v4vapid. It feels like you don'r like the C.I.A very much and want to counter strike. Fir that I'm in. I am a writer and would like to contribute in this fashion..
What a fantastic initiative @v4vapid .. in a world of imposed and oft self-imposed division this is an opportunity to become a truth force to be reckoned with! The more eyes that are focused on the task at hand .. the less places the manipulators have to hide. Great work as always my friend.
Thank you friend, always a pleasure to hear from you!
Yes, I believe we have a diverse community capable of producing significant works here.
Bringing people together from all corners to engage in such projects is something we want to encourage, absolutely.
Let the games begin ;)
This is exactly what we need .. unity in the face adversity. In reality that is what the system fears the most and that is why it spends billions on dividing us! Excellent stuff brother and big respect to you for making it happen!
This post gets to the heart of Steemit's potential, laying out the divide that will keep it from evolving from a social media/cryptocurrency phenomenon from a societal force to be reckoned with.
"Societal force to be reckoned with" may seem like a dramatic or overheated notion, but I believe that Steemit is already a societal force in waiting, by which I mean the infrastructure is in already in place - it's up to the users to engage in serious, quality work in whatever realm they are passionate about, while not forgetting to do so with joy and gusto like the happy warriors this world so sorely needs.
great project !
thanks for the mention as well, and we will work to promote this project as complimentary to ours.
let me know if you decide to do a curation trail
A curation trail is certainly going to be considered, ideally a manually curated one ;)
Thank you for your support, it's very much appreciated!
This is a great idea. It's along the same lines as Project PM, the work of Barrett Brown, but with the added blockchain element to make it more secure.
https://freebarrettbrown.org/project-pm/
This is a great concept!
I basically have been doing this type of writing because it's what I like to do. Writing about information which has been abandoned by the mainstream media because of the bias imposed by their editors or sponsors or for whatever reasons.
I believe that this type of collective effort to bring information to light is exactly what is needed by the public. With approval rates and trust of the corporate media falling, readers and viewers have a hunger for this type of content.
I found this post because you upvoted my blog about 86'ed homeless people.
awesome resource! I'll have to check out the discord group when I get a chance! :)
That is wonderful! I have spent nights and days studying the Vault7 archives! Thanks for this initiative, no censorship means we should be filling this platform with such information and I aim to start participating in this one. May I use that deepdives - Julian Assange photo in my deepdives posts? Thank you in advance @v4vapid!
ps: I did not upvote because this post has expired!
Hi @lordneroo, happy to hear from another researcher ;)
This particular WL deep dives challenge has also expired.
HOWEVER, they'll be many more in the weeks to come!
Next week, we'll announce the 2nd Deep Dives challenge but this one revolves around the CIA Library.
Check out this post -
https://steemit.com/deepdives/@deepdives/deep-dives-or-wikileaks-archive-or-winners-announced-80sbd
Follow @deepdives account for the latest.
I will keep an eye for the next challenges! Thanks for the response!
Have a great day!
Buddy I am with you on this.
There are a number of other platforms who claim to be rewarding good authors but I don't see much from them, so let's hope this one is different from them while executing it's plans.
Would this kind of articles fit into Deep Dives? Link
I think it will be specific topic contest for start.
To do something in life, it should be done deeply !! In all cases :)
At the same time, Deep Dives aims to reward original content creators who contribute high-quality articles to the challenge, the community and the platform.
Really a good initiative, it will help those who upload good quality content, people pay bots and get rewarded for what ever they post. Good quality content does not get upvoted, so this initiative will help people like us who upload quality content.
Yes, thank you . That's what we're hoping to do with this project ;)
I have read your article and benefited to some extent and this information is very good for the promotion of quality in society, but this future because the majority beginner and I am among them and always learn to give the appropriate quality and last but not last really hope to cooperate with each other in order to reach the desired purpose.
Really nice effort.Before I reach the end of the article I wasn't sure if there is a specific subject that is allowed.
I assume it will have to do more about (news conspiracy stuff politics etc) rather than every day writing right?And it is accepted only if there are well written sources references etc?
Good to know there are powerfull people out there who have a great vision about the blockchain and are willing to reward those who try!
Have a great day @v4vapid
We will be releasing the first 'Challenge' soon. So be on the look out for that, it will provide more details on what we're looking for ;)
So this will be challenge by challenge on specific topic and not choosing your subject of writing?
I agree, someone has to do something to know how deeply understanding it is. and in this case you've helped beginners like me to keep learning, keep going.
An honor I can read all your posts @v4vapid
This is something that has greatly benefited me as the current steemit enthusiast about Deep Dives.
This is a very remarkable project that is great for the many connected steemial works that the stealthists are supplying nowadays is not qualified but the thing you write is a reference for change, this is a challenge that will make the whole steeminial more mature and this will motivate them this is a very noble thing done by Deep Dives a lot of steeminial which has a very extraordinary ability but appreciation is very less.
I believe this is the beginning of a tremendous power forward that we will feel and this will be the benchmark of a future success.
The thing steeminials need to know is the consistency that becomes a trigger for the success of roles performed by Deep Dives something that is most valuable in keeping personal accounts and all the dummies very valuable.
Hopefully all the steeminials will be the winners later on.
We win together
See you on the top
Community feedback is very important. It's one way of knowing if the direction of one thing is still on track or not anymore. It's just that some people are not open to it.
It has been a really good research. an impressive share. I decided to do a 'deep dive' after reading your share. thanks for this nice sharing. I will be more careful and systematic now.
great idea.. nice contant...
I applaude and support this project so much! It seems impossible to find quality content that actually answers questions, or actually makes you think about a subject rather than feed you your bias. I have been trying to write this exact kind of content in my personal writings. Please support this!
Hello. I liked your post, keep it up. Good luck to you and have a nice day :)
Thank you!
It sounds good and it feels good.
I wrote a book about the technicale evolution, from the beginning of industrialization to the transhumanism, in german language. Unfortunately, too few people know about it.
Many things that happen today can only be understood if we look from the future to the present.
Quality Press, an expanded sense, themes such our evolution, repurposing, scalability, labour, intersectionality and nature, however: Let us begin with a NEW THINKING.
Love the concept! As I am an advocate for exposing corruption about several things, I will try to join.. Maybe not right away with wikileaks, but huma trafficking for sure. I mostly write from my own experiences, and from the heart (most of the posts are in the familyprotection community) But I will challenge myself to make a "deep dive" for this concept! Especially as I love to analyze things.. this seems perfect.. Thanks for setting this up!
In the current economic world it is so hard for and individual team to achieve excellent result. But by apply the Deep-Dive methodology can possible an organization to improve the performance and can be achieve the organization goal. Good writing about different subject@ v4vapid.
Wow! I just posted a post saying I wanted Science back in the peoples hands and than visited informationwar Discord channel to find this post pined with a recommendation to come read this post.
Sadly I am having problems with the editor and the post got scrambled. I of course fixed it, but it is not up to par in my opinion. However to see that I am as serious about this as you are you might want to check it out.
You will be seeing me participate in Deep Dive.
Sadly for some reason the invite is sending me to an old Discord user I no longer have the password to access. Here is an invite to my Societies Discord channel. I am hoping to get it involved in this too.
https://discord.gg/hbeykEM
If for some reason you cannot accept the invite please respond and let me know what other solution to this problem you would like to use. I am really interested passionately in your Deep Dive program.
Ingenious, I loved and captivated the idea friend, Steemit has all the tools to become even bigger, with the right people in them.Already has a faithful follower from South America, greetings
Sounds like an amazing initiative. I consider myself a political junkie, looking for a challenge. I will be looking into the discord channel. Is there any other action required on my part to be involved with this project? Thanks.
the discord channel link you shared shows up as invalid for me! FYI!
really awesome idea! i hope you have a great day Xx
I hope you find my research good quality.
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The Fake Q-Anon from Q-Research Flow-Chart Illustrated.
https://busy.org/@motherlibertynow/the-fake-q-anon-from-q-research-flow-chart-illustrated
