The principle
Every card on geople depicts a public figure through caricature and a cited factual act. We get things wrong. When we do, the priority is fixing it visibly — not defending the original. Factual correction always wins.
geople is a single-editor draft as of v0.1. There is one human responsible for every card, every citation, and every change. That responsibility includes reading every dispute and acting on it within the SLA below.
What you can dispute
- The cited fact is wrong. Wrong date, wrong vote, wrong sentence, wrong dollar figure, misattributed quote. This is the highest-priority fix — geople is only useful if its facts are right.
- The source link is broken or outdated. Especially common as agencies reorganize and court systems migrate.
- The net-effect framing overclaims or misattributes. "X did Y, which caused Z" — Y must be true, and the chain to Z must not overstate one person's contribution.
- The caricature crosses into false light. If the art depicts an event, posture, or context that the subject did not actually do — not just an unflattering stylization, but a depiction of a thing that didn't happen — that's a hard fix.
- The card belongs in a different set. Particularly: someone in "Criminals" whose conviction was later vacated should move; a "Public Conscience" figure whose conduct turns out to have been judicially sanctioned moves accordingly.
- The card should not exist. If the cited act turns out not to be a public act, or the subject is a private citizen, or the primary source does not support the claim, the card gets pulled with a public correction entry.
What we cannot fix on request
- The framing offends you. If the cited act is true and the source verifies it, an unfavorable framing of a documented public act is not grounds for removal. We will reconsider language; we will not rewrite history.
- You'd like to be removed because you don't like being depicted. Public figures are subject to public commentary on their public conduct. That is the entire legal posture of this project. We will however always re-verify on request, and remove if the underlying facts no longer hold.
How to dispute
Include in your message:
- The card slug (visible in the dispute link, e.g.
alito-dobbs-majority) - What you're disputing (fact / source / framing / art / set / removal)
- Your evidence — ideally a primary source URL
- Your relationship to the subject, if any (the subject themselves? counsel? journalist? unrelated reader?)
If you are the subject of a card or that subject's authorized counsel, identify yourself as such. We will respond on a faster SLA and treat the dispute as pre-litigation correspondence in good faith.
Response SLA
| Severity | What it means | Acknowledgement | Resolution target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Critical | False statement of fact actionable as defamation; false-light art depiction; minor depicted. | 24 hours | 72 hours to verify and remove or correct. Card pulled from circulation pending review if not immediately resolvable. |
| High | Cited fact is wrong but not actionable; conviction vacated and not yet reflected; source link 404 with no archive. | 72 hours | 14 days to verify and update or pull. |
| Standard | Framing dispute; date/figure precision; co-actor chain disagreement. | 14 days | 30 days to triage and respond, even if response is "no change." |
Every accepted change writes an entry to the public correction log below. Every rejection writes one too — including the reasoning and the source(s) that supported the original framing. We don't make corrections silently.
What happens during review
- Editor re-reads the card, the cited source, and the dispute.
- Editor independently re-verifies the underlying fact via at least one source not previously consulted.
- Editor decides one of: correct as proposed, correct differently, pull the card, or no change with explanation.
- If the change is non-trivial, editor also reviews any card with this card in its
co_actorschain to check that the chain is still accurate. - Resolution + reasoning posted to the correction log. Disputer receives a reply with the resolution and a link to the log entry.
Correction log
This is the canonical record of every change made to a published card after it shipped. Order: most recent first.
v0.1 just shipped. The log is empty. It will not stay that way.
Standing policy
Anyone may dispute any card. We do not require you to be the subject, the subject's counsel, a credentialed journalist, or anything else. The bar is evidence, not identity.
If we get sued anyway
We won't quietly delete cards under pre-litigation threat. If a card's facts hold up, we keep the card and answer the suit. If a card's facts do not hold up, we pull the card and log the correction — and would have done so on a good-faith dispute email at zero cost to you.
Subjects litigating in jurisdictions with strong anti-SLAPP statutes should expect us to invoke them. Subjects litigating in jurisdictions chosen to avoid such statutes should expect that to feature prominently in our response.