Established to combat misinformation, misplaced certainty and the increasingly widespread circulation of facts that have not been properly discussed with somebody who knows something, GBC Verify has provided independent information verification since 1894.
Operating from the GBC’s Department of Data, Forensics and General Suspicion, the service employs a highly trained team of data analysts, investigative researchers and forensic wool specialists. Its principal responsibility is to establish whether a statement is true, mostly true, probably true, unlikely to be true, or something that somebody has clearly made up.
Methodology
GBC Verify employs a sophisticated range of investigative techniques and research methodologies. These include:
Asking Around: The primary investigative technique. Researchers make discreet enquiries among residents, lodge members, shopkeepers and people who appear to know what is going on. At least three independent opinions are sought, unless the first person is sufficiently convincing.
Encyclopaedia Galgormica: The definitive reference work for matters of local, scientific and historical importance. All significant claims are cross-referenced against the latest available editions, including its supplementary volumes on knitted aviation and the taxonomy of wool.
Archive Examination: Historical records, old photographs, newspaper cuttings, Lambeg drum receipts and miscellaneous documents discovered beneath hall furniture are examined for supporting evidence.
Data Forensics: Advanced computational procedures are used to identify numerical inconsistencies, suspicious patterns and statistics that appear to have been rounded up rather generously.
Witness Assessment: Statements are evaluated according to the reliability of the source, their proximity to the original event and whether they have previously been known to exaggerate.
The Tea Test: Where evidence remains inconclusive, researchers may conduct further enquiries over a cup of tea. This has historically produced some of the service’s most significant breakthroughs.
Verification Ratings
Following investigation, GBC Verify assigns each claim one of six official classifications:
Verified: Confirmed beyond reasonable Galgorm doubt.
Mostly True: Substantially accurate, allowing for local variations in the telling.
Plausible: Supported by at least one person who sounds as though they know.
Under Investigation: Further enquiries are being made, particularly among people who were there at the time.
Unverified: No satisfactory evidence has been located, although somebody is quite sure it happened.
Complete Nonsense: Contradicted by the available evidence, the Encyclopaedia Galgormica and possibly the laws of physics or common decency.
The Data and Forensics Team
The GBC Verify Data and Forensics team operates a secure research facility equipped with advanced wool-based computing systems, archival magnification equipment and a dedicated rumour containment unit.
Its senior investigators have access to the GBC’s extensive historical broadcasting archive, dating back to the corporation’s foundation in 1894. The team is also believed to maintain a confidential register of individuals whose recollections require additional verification.
Editorial Independence
Although GBC Verify is a division of the GBC, it maintains strict editorial independence from the corporation’s news desk, weather department and Lambeg Drumming Meteorological Unit.
Its findings are published without fear or favour, except where the subject of an investigation is particularly well connected.
The service has repeatedly warned that a claim does not become true simply because it has appeared in print, been repeated at a lodge meeting or been attributed to a man who once worked for the council.
GBC Verify’s official motto is:
“We’ve checked. We’ve asked around. We’ve looked it up.”
About Wackipidia
Wackipidia: A clatter o Galgorm Fowk is the world’s first entirely fictional Ulster Scots digital encyclopaedia. Established in 1967, its extensive collection of biographies, historical records and questionable facts has been preserved on a single floppy disk at the Galgorm Central Telephone Exchange.
One floppy disk. Countless entries. A clatter o Galgorm fowk.