Retrial Method: How Each Case Is Checked

Every case page on Hoax and Hindsight is built to the same rules, so a reader can see where each statement comes from and how firm it is. This page sets out those rules. The courtroom words used here (charge, exhibit, verdict) are figures of speech for how a page is organized; none of it is a legal finding.

The Docket card

Each case page opens with a short answer, then a Docket card with seven fixed fields. The values on the card come from the same data table as the numbers in the text.

• Case: the name of the hoax, trial, prediction or find.
• Years: when it began and ended.
• Place: where it happened.
• The claim: in one sentence, what was asserted, charged or predicted.
• The verdict: the conclusion, with its kind stated at the start (see below).
• Hinges on: the key piece of evidence the conclusion rests on.
• Status: whether the matter is closed, reversed, or stands only as of current evidence.

A page that compares two cases carries one card for each. A page about a method, such as reading layers in a dig, carries a Method card with five fields instead: Method, What it measures, What it can show, What it cannot show, and Key case. A Method card has no verdict field.

Four kinds of verdict

The verdict field means different things on different pages, so its first words say which kind it is.

• Trials begin with Court finding: and give the judgment and year as the sentence or trial record states them. A later pardon or reversal is told in the text, not in this field, and appears under Status with its year.
• Hoaxes and forgeries begin with Finding of the followed by the year and the test or inquiry, then the conclusion in one sentence. A page that traces a famous quotation to its source works the same way and begins Finding of the source check:.
• Archaeological cases begin with Research consensus as of and a year. Where specialists disagree, the field says the question is unsettled.
• Predictions begin with Hindsight score: and give two hit rates with their denominators and the date of judgment, under the rules on the Hindsight score page.

Four layers that are never merged

A trial record holds statements of very different weight. Each page labels which of four layers a statement belongs to: the accusation (who charged whom with what), the testimony (who said what, and when), the court's finding (what the judgment or sentence says), and later interpretation (what historians have concluded since). A witness's sworn claim is not reported as a fact, and a historian's reading is not reported as the court's.

Exhibits

Primary sources are called in the text as Exhibit A, Exhibit B and so on, and listed under Exhibits at the end with full citations. Every quotation, date, place, sentence, test result and sum of money is tied to an exhibit. Sums of money state the basis of any conversion.

The popular version comes with a source

When a page tests a popular version of a story, that version is quoted or summarized from a named book, newspaper, broadcast or other publication, so readers can check that someone really told it that way. A version no one can be shown to have told is not set up just to be knocked down. Where the popular version matches the record, the page says it matches. In a side-by-side comparison, the record comes last.

Records have biases too

Court papers and trial reports can be excerpts, edited after the fact, or written from one side. A page that quotes a record says what kind of record it is and what is known to be missing. “The record says so” is not treated as “it happened so.” Accounts written in self-defense are read as testimony, not as settled fact.

When later tests overturn earlier ones

Dating and authenticity can change as testing methods improve. When a later test overturns an earlier result, both are shown, each with its year, and the page explains which one its conclusion follows and why.

Relative dating methods give an order, not a clock: they show that one thing is older or younger than another under comparable conditions, not how many years old it is. A charge of fraud needs independent evidence beyond a single dating figure. When a page says something is the “earliest known” example, it gives the range of dates the evidence allows and names the dated source that sets the limit.

Conclusions that may change

Conclusions about archaeological finds are written “as of current evidence,” with the year. Pages in that category are checked against recent literature every 12 months. Pages on hoaxes and trials are checked every 36 months for new studies or newly opened archives. Predictions are revisited when a forecast year falls due. A change of substance is logged as a correction.

Quotations, translations and limits on reuse

Original text is reproduced at length only when it is in the public domain in both the United States and the European Union. From works still under copyright, a page quotes at most one short sentence per source, with a citation, and puts the rest in its own words. Quotations in other languages come with a translation; translations made for the site are marked “translated by Hoax and Hindsight”. Sources whose terms allow only non-commercial use are paraphrased and linked, never quoted or copied into tables. Where a source could not be read in full, the Exhibits list says so and cites it as a bibliography entry, and the text attributes any point drawn from it by name.

Data tables

Timelines, comparison tables and score tables are drawn from data tables published with the page. Each table can be downloaded beside the article as a CSV file, and each column names its source. Facts from sources that do not permit reuse are left out of the file and cited in the Exhibits instead. Reuse terms are on the copyright policy page.

Illustrations

Some pages carry drawn scenes. Each one is labeled as an illustration, carries no evidence, and never stands in for a real person, object, document or historical photograph. Real people, objects and documents are shown only through historical images whose rights have been checked one by one.

Limits

The site does not write about living people or ongoing cases; a trial is covered only when its principal parties have died and the case has been closed for at least 30 years. It gives no legal advice. It explains which methods a forger used, but gives no steps for forging, ageing or staining anything. It does not encourage anyone to dig at a site or handle excavated bone.

Errors can be reported to contact@hoaxandhindsight.com, and every correction is listed on the Corrections page.