{ "model": { "rank": 6195, "code": "thing-q192909", "model_id": "vr.tr.scandal", "name": "scandal", "purpose": "Enable an AI agent to recognise a scandal, assess the relationship between alleged wrongdoing, public condemnation and institutional response, and identify justified next actions without treating publicity as proof.", "family": "Thing Registry", "category": "Activities and processes", "status": "research-draft", "kind": "thing", "plane": "ACT", "domain": "ACT.ACT", "industry": "", "version": "", "url": "/models/thing/q192909/", "tier": 2, "score": 62, "payload": { "layer": "wikidata", "aliases": [ "sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers", "journalistic scandal", "Sushi terrorism", "corruption scandal", "vaccinegate", "military scandal", "social scandal", "Yaroslav Hunka scandal", "BYD Slavery-Like Conditions Controversy in Brazil", "food scandal", "South Korean nuclear scandal", "Videoscandals", "sex scandal", "corporate scandal", "health scandal", "sports scandal", "meat scandal", "Grannygate" ], "aliasCount": 18, "merged": 18, "knownIn": 62, "facets": null, "markers": [], "lexicalClass": "", "senseRank": null, "alsoRegisteredAs": null, "source": { "dataset": "wikidata", "item": "Q192909", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q192909", "license": "CC0 1.0" } }, "research": { "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-07T12:07:03Z", "providers": [ "Codex", "Grok" ], "missingProviders": [], "pass": 2, "cost": { "grok": { "usd": 0.01145018, "turns": 1, "seconds": 162, "error": null }, "codex": { "seconds": 83.7, "error": "Reading additional input from stdin...\nOpenAI Codex v0.153.3\n--------\nworkdir: R:\\02_PROJECTS\\02_Meta_Models_Platforms\\Ver.cy\\current\\thing-registry-backlog\nmodel: gpt-6-astra\nprovider: openai\napproval: never\nsandbox: read-only\nreasoning effort: none\nreasoning summaries: none\nsession id: 01a07bbe-a43d-7392-a2d8-16ce8596bfc5\n--------\nuser\nYou are drafting a Vercy meta-model for one registered thing. Answer as JSON only, no prose around it.\n\nThing: scandal\nRegistry id: vr.tr.scandal\nPlane / domain: ACT / ACT.ACT\nRegistry definition: (none recorded)\nNames folded into this entry: (none)\n\nA Vercy m" } } }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q192909", "registryId": "vr.tr.scandal", "name": "scandal", "version": "0.1.0-research.1", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "ACT.ACT" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q192909/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.scandal", "name": "scandal", "purpose": "Enable an AI agent to recognise a scandal, assess the relationship between alleged wrongdoing, public condemnation and institutional response, and identify justified next actions without treating publicity as proof.", "definition": "A scandal is a publicly mediated episode in which an alleged breach of a shared moral, legal, or role-specific norm is made visible to a non-participant audience that treats the exposure as a betrayal of trust and answers with condemnation and pressure for sanction, so that reputational, institutional, or legal damage follows the publicity as much as the underlying act.", "scope_statement": "This model owns the scandal as an episode in which an alleged or established norm violation attracts condemnation among a relevant public and puts an actor's standing or legitimacy at issue, including contested boundaries, evidential status, escalation and resolution.", "in_scope": [ "The conduct alleged, the norms invoked and the basis for treating their violation as scandalous.", "The people or institutions implicated and the distinction between allegation, responsibility and association.", "Disclosure, circulation and condemnation among identifiable publics.", "Effects on reputation, trust, authority and continued participation in roles or institutions.", "Responses, accountability demands and the scandal's changing or disputed state." ], "out_of_scope": [ "The underlying offence, misconduct or operational failure as an independently modelled event.", "A legal proceeding's evidence rules, procedural history and binding determinations.", "The complete identities, biographies and organisational structures of implicated actors.", "The production and distribution mechanics of individual news articles or social posts.", "A broader political campaign, protest movement or organisational crisis extending beyond the scandal." ], "distinguishing_features": [ "Distinguish scandal from private misconduct by identifying a public beyond the immediate participants that knows of the allegation and expresses condemnation.", "Distinguish scandal from general controversy by identifying an attributed norm violation, rather than disagreement alone.", "Distinguish scandal from a damaging accident by recording why observers attribute culpability, concealment or a breach of duty.", "Distinguish scandal from an uncirculated rumour by recording observable disclosure and reaction; neither establishes that the allegation is true.", "Distinguish a renewed phase from a separate scandal by testing whether new disclosures concern the same conduct, implicated actors and accountability dispute." ], "characteristics": [ { "name": "Alleged transgression", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "Recorded conduct and locally applicable categories, such as corruption, deception, abuse of authority or breach of professional duty; multiple categories permitted.", "why_it_matters": "Identifies what the scandal concerns without presuming a universal taxonomy or established wrongdoing." }, { "name": "Norm invoked", "kind": "relation", "unit_or_values": "Links between each allegation, the rule or expectation invoked, and the public or institution asserting it.", "why_it_matters": "Makes condemnation intelligible and exposes disagreement over which standards apply." }, { "name": "Claim support status", "kind": "state", "unit_or_values": "Per claim: unassessed, unsupported by material reviewed, supported by identified material, contested, contradicted or determined by a named authority; record qualifications and date.", "why_it_matters": "Prevents the intensity of public reaction from substituting for evidence." }, { "name": "Implication basis", "kind": "relation", "unit_or_values": "Per actor and claim: alleged direct conduct, authorisation, oversight failure, concealment, benefit or association only.", "why_it_matters": "Separates distinct grounds of responsibility and limits guilt by association." }, { "name": "Public visibility", "kind": "measurement", "unit_or_values": "Audience reach or awareness using a named measure, population, observation window and source; unknown where unmeasured.", "why_it_matters": "Helps assess exposure while keeping audience size separate from condemnation." }, { "name": "Condemnation pattern", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "By identified public and date: observed condemnation, mixed reaction, defence, no observed reaction or unknown; include the observation basis.", "why_it_matters": "Allows one episode to be scandalous to some publics and defended or ignored by others." }, { "name": "Episode phase", "kind": "state", "unit_or_values": "Provisional labels: emerging, escalating, sustained, subsiding, dormant, reopened or disputed closure; qualify by public and date.", "why_it_matters": "Supports decisions about monitoring and response without equating falling attention with resolution." }, { "name": "Standing consequences", "kind": "relation", "unit_or_values": "Links to observed loss or retention of trust, office, membership, sponsorship or authority, with timing and causal confidence.", "why_it_matters": "Separates demonstrated consequences from predictions and coincident events." } ], "affordances": [ "Assemble a qualified account that separates allegations, supporting material, public judgments and authoritative determinations.", "Identify which publics condemn which conduct under which norms, including disagreements and defences.", "Trace escalation to particular disclosures, reactions or institutional decisions.", "Assess whether proposed accountability actions match the evidence, the actor's role and the decision-maker's authority.", "Identify claims requiring verification, correction or more careful attribution before further circulation.", "Review whether an episode has subsided, been resolved for particular parties or reopened on materially new grounds." ] }, "sources": [ { "id": "thompson-2000", "title": "Political Scandal: Power and Visibility in the Media Age - John B. Thompson, Polity Press, 2000", "url": "", "what_it_supports": "Specialist definition of scandal as mediated publicity of transgression; the practical split into sex, financial, and power scandals; how visibility, denial, and further disclosure drive the episode." }, { "id": "adut-2008", "title": "On Scandal: Moral Disturbances in Society, Politics, and Art - Ari Adut, Cambridge University Press, 2008", "url": "", "what_it_supports": "Sociological account of scandal as disruptive publicity rather than as the transgression itself; conditions under which exposure becomes a public event; use in distinguishing scandal from hidden corruption and from mere controversy." }, { "id": "adut-2005-ajs", "title": "A Theory of Scandal: Victorians, Homosexuality, and the Fall of Oscar Wilde - Ari Adut, American Journal of Sociology 111(1), 2005", "url": "", "what_it_supports": "The mechanism of audience, norm, and publicity; how delayed or concentrated disclosure, not the act alone, produces the scandal." }, { "id": "wikipedia-scandal", "title": "Scandal - English Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandal", "what_it_supports": "Common-language scope (social, political, religious, and colloquial senses), everyday kinds people name, and the contrast with theological skandalon.", "url_status": "live" } ], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "transgression-and-norms", "name": "Transgression and norms", "description": "The alleged conduct and the standards that make it a focus of condemnation.", "rationale": "An agent must distinguish a scandal's moral or institutional grievance from mere notoriety or disagreement.", "layers": [ { "id": "alleged-conduct", "name": "Alleged conduct", "description": "The acts or omissions at issue, expressed as bounded claims.", "findings": [ { "id": "claim-boundaries", "name": "Claim boundaries", "description": "Record what is alleged to have happened, when, and which details remain disputed rather than collapsing the episode into a scandal label.", "questions": [ { "text": "What specific act or omission is alleged, and what time period does the allegation cover?", "kind": "definition", "id": "claim-boundaries-q01" }, { "text": "Which allegations concern the same episode, and which would require a separate scandal account?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "claim-boundaries-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "standards-and-expectations", "name": "Standards and expectations", "description": "The rules, duties and expectations invoked by those condemning or defending the conduct.", "findings": [ { "id": "basis-of-condemnation", "name": "Basis of condemnation", "description": "Record whose standard is allegedly breached, why it applies to the actor and whether its applicability is contested.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which law, professional duty, public commitment or social expectation is invoked, and by whom?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "basis-of-condemnation-q01" }, { "text": "Is the condemnation directed at the conduct itself, hypocrisy, concealment or a combination of these?", "kind": "definition", "id": "basis-of-condemnation-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "evidence-and-implication", "name": "Evidence and implication", "description": "The support for scandal-related claims and the grounds on which particular actors are implicated.", "rationale": "Scandal can spread through accusation and association, so an agent needs separate judgments about claim support and responsibility.", "layers": [ { "id": "claim-provenance", "name": "Claim provenance", "description": "The origins, supporting material and revisions of allegations and rebuttals.", "findings": [ { "id": "support-and-contestation", "name": "Support and contestation", "description": "Record the material supporting or challenging each consequential claim, including whether repeated reports depend on the same source.", "questions": [ { "text": "What original material supports or challenges each allegation, and which reports merely repeat it?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "support-and-contestation-q01" }, { "text": "What verification, contradiction or correction would justify changing the recorded status of the claim?", "kind": "action", "id": "support-and-contestation-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "actor-responsibility", "name": "Actor responsibility", "description": "The distinct roles through which people and institutions become implicated.", "findings": [ { "id": "grounds-of-implication", "name": "Grounds of implication", "description": "Separate alleged participation, supervisory duty, benefit and concealment from mere proximity to an accused actor.", "questions": [ { "text": "What conduct, decision or duty connects each implicated actor to the allegation, and who asserts that connection?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "grounds-of-implication-q01" }, { "text": "Where does the account infer responsibility from employment, kinship or affiliation without evidence of a relevant act or duty?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "grounds-of-implication-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "disclosure-and-public-condemnation", "name": "Disclosure and public condemnation", "description": "How allegations become visible and acquire scandal significance among particular publics.", "rationale": "A scandal account must establish observable public reaction while allowing audiences to disagree about the conduct and its significance.", "layers": [ { "id": "disclosure-path", "name": "Disclosure path", "description": "The transition from restricted knowledge to wider awareness and subsequent waves of attention.", "findings": [ { "id": "public-emergence", "name": "Public emergence", "description": "Record the disclosures that made allegations available to relevant publics and distinguish new information from recirculation.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which identifiable disclosure first brought the allegation to each relevant public, and what was already known?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "public-emergence-q01" }, { "text": "How did observed reach or attention change after later disclosures, using which population and measurement window?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "public-emergence-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "public-judgment", "name": "Public judgment", "description": "Condemnation, defence and disagreement within and between affected or observing publics.", "findings": [ { "id": "reaction-by-public", "name": "Reaction by public", "description": "Record who treats the allegation as discrediting, who rejects that judgment and what evidence supports descriptions of their reactions.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which publics visibly condemn or defend the actor, and what observations support that assessment?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "reaction-by-public-q01" }, { "text": "Does the available evidence establish widespread reaction within a public or only statements from a few prominent participants?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "reaction-by-public-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "standing-and-accountability", "name": "Standing and accountability", "description": "The scandal's consequences for legitimacy and the demands or decisions made in response.", "rationale": "An agent needs to distinguish reputational pressure from warranted, authorised accountability and from harms caused by the underlying conduct.", "layers": [ { "id": "consequences-for-standing", "name": "Consequences for standing", "description": "Observed changes to trust, authority, roles and relationships associated with the scandal.", "findings": [ { "id": "attributable-consequences", "name": "Attributable consequences", "description": "Record consequences and the evidence connecting them to exposure or condemnation, separately from direct harms of the alleged act.", "questions": [ { "text": "What changes in office, employment, support, membership or expressed trust have been observed?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "attributable-consequences-q01" }, { "text": "What supports attributing each change to the scandal rather than the underlying conduct or another concurrent event?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "attributable-consequences-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "accountability-demands", "name": "Accountability demands", "description": "Calls for explanation, investigation, remedy or sanction and the authority to act on them.", "findings": [ { "id": "demands-and-decision-rights", "name": "Demands and decision rights", "description": "Record who seeks what response, on what grounds and through which authorised decision process.", "questions": [ { "text": "Who is requesting an explanation, investigation, remedy or sanction, and which alleged breach is the request meant to address?", "kind": "definition", "id": "demands-and-decision-rights-q01" }, { "text": "Which actor has authority to decide or implement the requested response, and what evidence or process is still required?", "kind": "action", "id": "demands-and-decision-rights-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "response-and-episode-state", "name": "Response and episode state", "description": "How responses and later developments change the scandal's trajectory and claims of closure.", "rationale": "An agent must distinguish communication from completed corrective action and declining attention from settled allegations or fulfilled obligations.", "layers": [ { "id": "responses-and-follow-through", "name": "Responses and follow-through", "description": "Denials, admissions, apologies, corrections and remedial commitments in relation to specific allegations.", "findings": [ { "id": "response-coverage", "name": "Response coverage", "description": "Record which claims a response addresses, what it concedes or disputes and whether promised actions have occurred.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which allegations does each denial, admission, apology or correction address, and which does it leave unanswered?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "response-coverage-q01" }, { "text": "What observable evidence would establish that a promised investigation, correction or remedy has been completed?", "kind": "action", "id": "response-coverage-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "trajectory-and-closure", "name": "Trajectory and closure", "description": "Escalation, subsidence, dormancy and reopening assessed separately from substantive resolution.", "findings": [ { "id": "qualified-episode-state", "name": "Qualified episode state", "description": "Record the episode's current phase, whose perspective supports it and which unresolved matters survive any decline in attention.", "questions": [ { "text": "What observations support the current phase, and do attention, institutional action and affected parties' assessments point to different states?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "qualified-episode-state-q01" }, { "text": "What unresolved claim, outstanding remedy or materially new disclosure would prevent closure or justify reopening this episode?", "kind": "action", "id": "qualified-episode-state-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "evidence-and-external-alignment", "name": "Evidence and external alignment", "description": "What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.", "rationale": "A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.", "layers": [ { "id": "reported-evidence", "name": "Reported evidence", "description": "Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.", "findings": [ { "id": "evidence-kinds", "name": "Kinds and varieties", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "political and public-office scandal", "corporate and financial scandal", "sex and private-conduct scandal", "sports-integrity scandal (doping, match-fixing, eligibility)", "scientific and academic misconduct scandal", "religious and clerical scandal", "intelligence and national-security scandal", "media and journalistic scandal" ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-kinds-q01", "text": "Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of scandal this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-identifiers", "name": "Identifiers and schemes", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ { "scheme": "Library of Congress Subject Headings", "value_or_pattern": "Scandals", "note": "Authorized subject heading for the phenomenon; used in library and archival cataloguing of cases and commentary." }, { "scheme": "English Wikipedia title", "value_or_pattern": "Scandal", "note": "Common public name for the general concept; disambiguates from named historical episodes (e.g. Watergate) that have their own articles." } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-identifiers-q01", "text": "Which of these identifiers and schemes hold for the sense of scandal this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-standards-and-regulation", "name": "Standards and regulation", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), Supreme Court of the United States - actual-malice rule that frames libel risk in political-scandal reporting about public officials.", "Defamation Act 2013, Parliament of the United Kingdom - serious-harm and public-interest tests that condition how British media can publish scandal allegations.", "Directive (EU) 2019/1937 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law, European Parliament and Council - whistleblower channels that often supply the first public facts of a scandal.", "Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, Congress of the United States - post-Enron disclosure, audit, and officer-certification rules that now structure corporate financial scandals in the US.", "Editors' Code of Practice, Independent Press Standards Organisation (UK) - privacy, accuracy, and public-interest tests used when British newspapers report scandals.", "Code of Ethics, Society of Professional Journalists - professional norms for independent verification, minimization of harm, and accountability in scandal coverage." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-standards-and-regulation-q01", "text": "Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of scandal this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-real-world-use", "name": "Real-world use", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "Newsrooms treat it as a story form: allegation, denial, document drip, hearing, and resignation or acquittal, often outlasting the original act.", "Legislatures, prosecutors, and regulators open inquiries after publicity, so the scandal is frequently the trigger for formal process rather than a later label for it.", "Opposition campaigns, confirmation fights, and impeachment articles reuse prior scandals as evidence of character or fitness.", "Listed companies and public figures retain crisis-communications and law firms specifically for scandal response, including controlled leaks and apology rituals.", "Compliance, audit, and safeguarding regimes inside firms, churches, and sports bodies are commonly rewritten after a named scandal (for example post-Enron controls, post-abuse safeguarding).", "Historians and journalists use landmark scandals as period markers (Watergate, Tangentopoli, Lockheed, FIFA, Boston clerical abuse)." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-real-world-use-q01", "text": "Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of scandal this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-measurements", "name": "Typical measurements", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ { "quantity": "volume of news and social mention during the peak", "typical_range": "local cases: tens to a few hundred items; national political or corporate cases: thousands to tens of thousands over the peak window", "unit": "published items (or comparable mention count)" }, { "quantity": "duration of peak public attention", "typical_range": "a few days for a contained gaffe; several weeks to a few months for a standard political or corporate scandal; multi-year for institutional-abuse or inquiry-driven cases", "unit": "days" }, { "quantity": "shift in leader or brand approval after exposure", "typical_range": "often about 2-15 percentage-point drops for major political cases; null, partisan split, or later rebound also occur", "unit": "percentage points" }, { "quantity": "equity-price move for a listed organisation", "typical_range": "contained incidents often about 1-10 percent; severe accounting or product-safety scandals can run to loss of most market value or insolvency", "unit": "percent of market capitalisation" }, { "quantity": "time from first public exposure to first formal sanction (resignation, indictment, fine, or official censure)", "typical_range": "same day to a few weeks when resignation is the script; months to several years when courts or inquiries dominate", "unit": "days" } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-measurements-q01", "text": "Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of scandal this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards", "name": "Failure modes and hazards", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "A cover-up or lie about a smaller breach becomes the larger, career-ending offence.", "False, inflated, or stolen allegations produce irreversible reputational harm and, in extreme cases, violence or suicide.", "Partisan or commercial weaponisation empties the charge: every opponent is said to be in a scandal, so genuine breaches are discounted.", "Trial by media substitutes for investigation and due process, including naming of the uncharged.", "Institutions protect insiders, retaliate against whistleblowers, or run reform theatre that leaves the generating structure in place.", "Contagion: one well-documented case licenses a cascade of weaker or opportunistic claims.", "Chilling of legitimate reporting through defamation cost, privacy injunction, or state secrecy." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards-q01", "text": "Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of scandal this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-regional-variation", "name": "Regional variation", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "United States: high salience of sex-and-office scandals; impeachment and congressional hearing as public stages; polarised cable and platform media lengthen and split the audience.", "United Kingdom: tabloid-driven personal scandal and parliamentary-expenses cases; post-Leveson press self-regulation sits beside a plaintiff-friendly defamation tradition.", "France and several other civil-law privacy regimes have historically treated politicians' private sexual conduct as less automatically scandalous than Anglo-American coverage does, while financial conflicts appear as an affaire and are more readily judicialised.", "Japan: public apology and resignation (shazai) after shūbun are highly scripted; factional politics can absorb or redirect the hit.", "In authoritarian systems, anti-corruption drives may be elite purges with managed publicity rather than independent scandal in Thompson's sense.", "Catholic clerical sexual-abuse patterns became a transnational scandal only after concentrated journalistic exposure (notably Boston, 2002), despite earlier local knowledge - a reminder that the underlying harm and the scandal are not the same event." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-regional-variation-q01", "text": "Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of scandal this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-neighbours", "name": "Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ { "name": "crime", "difference": "A crime is a legal element that can remain private; a scandal requires publicity plus a moral audience. Many crimes never become scandals, and some scandals rest on legal but illegitimate conduct." }, { "name": "corruption", "difference": "Corruption is the hidden abuse or exchange; scandal is the publicization and the reaction. Successful corruption is precisely what never becomes a scandal." }, { "name": "controversy", "difference": "A controversy is a live disagreement over policy or values; a scandal alleges that an identifiable actor already broke a norm the audience thought was settled." }, { "name": "crisis", "difference": "A crisis is operational threat or failure (war, crash, outage). It becomes a scandal only if the audience reads it as culpable breach of duty rather than as misfortune or incompetence alone." }, { "name": "gossip", "difference": "Gossip circulates in a limited network without institutional publicity or organised demand for sanction; scandal is public and aims at office, market, or membership." }, { "name": "moral panic", "difference": "A moral panic inflates or invents a threatening class of actors; a scandal is indexed to a specific alleged transgression by named parties, even when the reaction is disproportionate." }, { "name": "theological skandalon (stumbling-block)", "difference": "In Christian usage, skandalon is an occasion of sin or loss of faith, not a news episode. The registry sense is the modern public-moral event, not the scriptural metaphor." } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-neighbours-q01", "text": "Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of scandal this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "What minimum evidence of awareness and condemnation should qualify an episode as a scandal, especially within small professional or local publics?", "How should the model represent historical cases where conduct became scandalous only after the applicable public norms changed?", "When should allegations of concealment or retaliation constitute a separate scandal rather than an extension of the original episode?", "What evidence can reliably distinguish broadly held condemnation from coordinated amplification or a few highly visible statements?", "How should closure be represented when institutions declare resolution but affected parties or other publics continue to contest it?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 6, "layers": 11, "findings": 18, "questions": 28 } }, "draft": { "generator": "vr.draft.v3", "status": "draft-generated", "researched": false, "archetype": "abstract concept", "method": "Written from the archetype playbook - what this kind of thing needs beyond identity and provenance - and from the structure that recurred across 6,333 models already researched by two engines. Applied to this entry by rule. No source was read for this thing and no claim here is researched. This entry carries no facets of its own, so they were inferred from its domain - a guess about a whole domain applied to one thing.", "facetsInferred": true, "nextPass": "A researcher replaces this draft with a sourced specification. Treat every sentence below as a proposal to argue with.", "purpose": "Give an agent a durable, checkable way to recognise a scandal, record what state it is in, and decide what may be done with it.", "whatItIs": "Enable an AI agent to recognise a scandal, assess the relationship between alleged wrongdoing, public condemnation and institutional response, and identify justified next actions without treating publicity as proof.", "characteristics": { "substance": "activity", "origin": "conceptual", "agency": "inert" }, "whatYouCanDoWithIt": [ "observed and measured" ], "distinguishingFeatures": [ "Names folded into this entry, which a task may need to split apart again: sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers, journalistic scandal, Sushi terrorism, corruption scandal, vaccinegate, military scandal, social scandal, Yaroslav Hunka scandal, BYD Slavery-Like Conditions Controversy in Brazil, food scandal, South Korean nuclear scandal, Videoscandals.", "18 finer distinctions are held as aliases rather than separate entries, because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it.", "Described in 62 Wikipedia languages, which is a measure of how widely the thing is known, not of how important it is." ], "openQuestionsForResearch": [ "Which of the bundles below does a real task actually need, and which are ceremony?", "What does this thing have that the facets do not capture at all?", "Which neighbouring kind is most often confused with a scandal, and on what evidence are they told apart?" ], "whatItIsMadeOf": "something that happens over time", "physicalCharacter": [ "Does nothing on its own; everything it does, something else did to it.", "These come from the domain this entry sits in rather than from the entry itself, so treat them as a first guess about the whole domain applied to one thing." ], "whatCanBeDoneWithIt": [ "observe it, measure it, record its state" ], "howItIsRecognised": [ "Nothing to see. What is recognised is an instance of it, and which instances count is exactly what is argued about." ], "relatedModels": [ { "relation": "covers", "note": "Finer kinds folded into this entry because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it. Each is a model waiting to be split out when one does.", "targets": [ "sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers", "journalistic scandal", "Sushi terrorism", "corruption scandal", "vaccinegate", "military scandal", "social scandal", "Yaroslav Hunka scandal", "BYD Slavery-Like Conditions Controversy in Brazil", "food scandal", "South Korean nuclear scandal", "Videoscandals" ] } ], "standing": "Described in 62 Wikipedia languages, which measures how widely it is written about rather than how important or how common it is. 18 finer distinctions are held inside this entry as names rather than as separate models.", "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "identity-and-classification", "name": "Identity, naming and classification", "description": "How an agent tells one scandal from another, and a scandal from things that resemble it.", "rationale": "Recognition comes before every other claim. Without stable identity nothing else in the model can be trusted to be about the same thing twice.", "layers": [ { "id": "naming-and-identifiers", "name": "Names and identifiers", "description": "The names this thing goes by and the identifiers that survive translation and time.", "findings": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases", "name": "Preferred name, aliases and local names", "description": "Which name to use, which names mean the same thing, and which merely sound similar.", "questions": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the name of a scandal, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the name of a scandal, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the name of a scandal is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers", "name": "Stable identifiers and external keys", "description": "Identifiers that keep pointing at this kind of thing across systems and languages.", "questions": [ { "id": "stable-identifiers-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an identifier for a scandal, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an identifier for a scandal, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an identifier for a scandal is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "classification-and-granularity", "name": "Classification and granularity", "description": "Where a scandal sits among kinds, and how finely a task needs to cut it.", "findings": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents", "name": "Kind, parents and neighbouring kinds", "description": "The classes this thing belongs to and the ones it is next to.", "questions": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the kind of a scandal, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the kind of a scandal, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the kind of a scandal is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features", "name": "Distinguishing features", "description": "What separates a scandal from the things most often confused with it.", "questions": [ { "id": "distinguishing-features-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes what distinguishes a scandal, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about what distinguishes a scandal, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once what distinguishes a scandal is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "state-and-lifecycle", "name": "State and lifecycle", "description": "The states a scandal passes through and the events that move it between them.", "rationale": "Most decisions about a thing depend on what state it is in now, which is a claim with a time on it, not a property.", "layers": [ { "id": "lifecycle-stages", "name": "Lifecycle stages", "description": "From coming into existence to ceasing to be one of these.", "findings": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions", "name": "Stages and transitions", "description": "The stages worth naming and what moves a scandal between them.", "questions": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the lifecycle of a scandal, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the lifecycle of a scandal, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the lifecycle of a scandal is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "observations-and-status", "name": "Observations and current status", "description": "What is observed about a scandal, how often and by whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "observation-record", "name": "Observation record", "description": "How an observation of a scandal is recorded so that it can be superseded rather than overwritten.", "questions": [ { "id": "observation-record-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an observation of a scandal, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an observation of a scandal, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an observation of a scandal is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "process-and-outcome", "name": "Process, inputs and outcome", "description": "How a scandal proceeds, what it needs and what it leaves behind.", "rationale": "An activity is known by its steps and its results, and both have to be recordable while it is still running.", "layers": [ { "id": "steps-and-sequence", "name": "Steps and sequence", "description": "The steps of a scandal, their order and what may run in parallel.", "findings": [ { "id": "steps-and-preconditions", "name": "Steps, preconditions and completion", "description": "What has to be true before each step of a scandal and what marks it done.", "questions": [ { "id": "steps-and-preconditions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a step of a scandal, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "steps-and-preconditions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a step of a scandal, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "steps-and-preconditions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a step of a scandal is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "inputs-and-results", "name": "Inputs, resources and results", "description": "What a scandal consumes and what it produces.", "findings": [ { "id": "inputs-and-outputs", "name": "Inputs, outputs and side effects", "description": "The resources a scandal takes and the results it leaves, wanted or not.", "questions": [ { "id": "inputs-and-outputs-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the inputs and results of a scandal, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "inputs-and-outputs-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the inputs and results of a scandal, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "inputs-and-outputs-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the inputs and results of a scandal is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "definitions-in-contest", "name": "Definitions and who holds them", "description": "What scandal is taken to mean, and by whom.", "rationale": "When a field disagrees about a concept, the disagreement is the content. A model that picks one definition silently destroys the information.", "layers": [ { "id": "competing-definitions", "name": "Competing definitions", "description": "The main readings and the traditions behind them.", "findings": [ { "id": "definition-map", "name": "Definitions and their holders", "description": "Each definition with the school or body that holds it.", "questions": [ { "id": "definition-map-q01", "text": "Which definitions of scandal are in use, and which tradition or body holds each?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "definition-map-q02", "text": "What turns on the difference between them in practice?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "operationalisation", "name": "Operationalisation", "description": "How it is measured or applied when it has to be.", "findings": [ { "id": "operational-record", "name": "Measures and proxies", "description": "Instruments and indicators used to stand in for it.", "questions": [ { "id": "operational-record-q01", "text": "How is scandal operationalised or measured in practice, and by what instrument?", "kind": "measurement" }, { "id": "operational-record-q02", "text": "What does that operationalisation leave out, and when does that matter?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "instances-and-use", "name": "Instances, use and consequence", "description": "What counts as an instance of scandal and what follows from calling something that.", "rationale": "Applying a concept is an act with consequences, so a model must say what the label licenses and what it does not.", "layers": [ { "id": "instances", "name": "What counts as an instance", "description": "Clear cases, borderline cases and non-cases.", "findings": [ { "id": "instance-tests", "name": "Tests for an instance", "description": "What would settle whether something falls under it.", "questions": [ { "id": "instance-tests-q01", "text": "What would settle whether something is an instance of scandal?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "id": "instance-tests-q02", "text": "Which borderline cases are argued about, and on what grounds?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "consequence", "name": "Consequence of application", "description": "Rights, duties or decisions that follow from the label.", "findings": [ { "id": "consequence-record", "name": "What the label licenses", "description": "What an agent may do once something is classified this way.", "questions": [ { "id": "consequence-record-q01", "text": "What follows practically once something is treated as scandal?", "kind": "action" }, { "id": "consequence-record-q02", "text": "What must an agent not infer from the label alone?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "provenance-and-evidence", "name": "Provenance, evidence and time", "description": "Where every claim about a scandal came from and when it held.", "rationale": "A claim without a source and a time cannot be superseded, only overwritten, and an agent that overwrites loses the ability to explain itself.", "layers": [ { "id": "source-and-authority", "name": "Source and authority", "description": "Who said it, on what evidence, and how strongly.", "findings": [ { "id": "claim-provenance", "name": "Claim provenance and confidence", "description": "The authority behind each claim about a scandal and how confident it is.", "questions": [ { "id": "claim-provenance-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a claim about a scandal, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a claim about a scandal, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a claim about a scandal is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "time-and-versions", "name": "Time, versions and supersession", "description": "When a claim was true, when it was learnt, and what replaced it.", "findings": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession", "name": "Validity period and supersession", "description": "How an old claim about a scandal is retired without being erased.", "questions": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the validity of a claim about a scandal, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the validity of a claim about a scandal, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the validity of a claim about a scandal is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "statistics": { "bundles": 6, "layers": 12, "findings": 14, "questions": 38 } } } }