Let's put our heads together on the Clinton e-mail scandal

[Jim Lane]

39. A bunch of links and a possible alternative (or additional) strategy

You'll find many links in the Wikipedia article titled "Hillary Clinton email controversy".

People interested in this subject could also consider editing that article. The main thing to keep in mind is Wikipedia's policy of the Neutral Point Of View. You can't editorialize in the article. An edit like "Clearly, Clinton should be indicted" would be swiftly reverted for NPOV violation. You can, however, make sure that the article contains the facts that you think support your opinion. You can also include facts about opinions, if the source of the opinion is notable. Former Attorney General X or prominent criminal law professor Y says that she should or should not be indicted -- that would qualify. Opinions on this subject run high, though, so there'd probably be some fighting over such things.

Another resource you might find enlightening, or at least entertaining, is the article's talk page. It's already been archived six times, meaning that there have been a LOT of threads there. The talk page isn't for discussion about the subject itself, but is supposed to be limited to discussing the article. (This limitation sometimes gets stretched or ignored, especially with a controversial subject.) I haven't gone over the article or the talk, but I'd expect to see a lot of discussion about reliability of sources, neutrality and accuracy of possible wording, etc. I'd also expect to see participation, in the talk page and in editing the article, by some ardent Clinton partisans, by some actual Hillary-haters (as opposed to the indiscriminate use of that term on DU), and even by some people who are genuinely trying to make the best article possible, let the chips fall where they may.

One huge advantage of the Wikipedia article, perhaps enough to compensate for having to put with NPOV, is in the "spreading it far and wide" aspect. The article is directly linked from Clinton's bio on Wikipedia. Last I heard, Wikipedia was one of the ten most-visited sites on the net. I'll hazard a guess that the number of people who'll read the Wikipedia article will dwarf any "far and wide" that DUers could get for a new timeline or the like.

I note this as a possible alternative because, of course, the two aren't exclusive. Some people responding to your effort might prefer to work only on something like what you proposed, without having to put up with Wikipedia rules, but others might work on both.

There are some peculiarities of Wikipedia, in terms of markup language, rules for sourcing, etc. They're not too hard to pick up but they're easier to pick up if you have help. I've been editing there for years and I'd be glad to help out with that aspect. I'm not willing to try to learn the details of the email issue, but I can "mentor" people (scare quotes because it sounds so damn presumptuous) about Wikipedia editing. Just PM me or leave a reply to this post.