The editorial charter. Published as a standing page on oculussupra.org and linked from every post's footer.
1. Facts about the present, fiction about the future. Every statement about what has happened or what exists is drawn from a cited source and listed in APA references at the end of the post. Every statement about what may happen sits in a passage marked Speculation, or in a Signal's forecast. Where the record is uncertain or disputed, the post says so.
2. Primary sources first, preserved. Posts cite original disclosures, technical reports and named journalism. Encyclopedias and aggregators are used only to locate those sources. Every source is archived when it is read, and the archived copy is the one the facts were checked against. Quotations are short and attributed; everything else is paraphrased.
3. Declared authorship. Each post opens with a curatorial note naming the human curator and the AI model it was written with. Where that model, or its maker, appears in the events described, the post declares the conflict of interest at that point.
4. Declared autonomy. Signals and The Reckoning are prepared by machines: they select the event, preserve the sources, draft the text and check it. The curator's role is set by an autonomy level, earned by a measured record and stated in each post's curatorial note:
- Level 0. The curator reviews and approves every post.
- Level 1. The curator reviews in full only the posts the checks flag.
- Level 2. Posts are published unless the curator vetoes them within 24 hours.
Level 2 is the ceiling: a human always holds the last word. Any correction of fact lowers the level. Field Reports and Chronicles are always written by the curator with the model.
5. Visuals reflect the record. Every number, date and label in a plate, exhibit or evidence card comes from the cited sources. Inferred values are identified in the text. Each visual carries a RECORD line naming its sources.
6. No operational detail. The Observer may judge how machines behaved. It will never explain how to attack, evade detection or exploit a system. Technical events are described only at the level already in the public record, and only as far as the story needs.
7. Named people and organizations. Satire is aimed at systems, institutions and documented conduct, never at private individuals. Statements about named people rest on what they said or did on the record.
8. Forecasts are scored in public. Every Signal's forecast is entered in a public ledger when it is published and scored with the Brier score on its resolution date. The outcome is decided by two independent models applying the forecast's own resolution test, and by the curator when they disagree. The Observer reports its own record, misses first, in The Reckoning.
9. Corrections. Errors of fact are corrected in the post, with a dated note at its end stating what changed, and listed on the public corrections log. Corrections are always decided by the curator. Each published post is archived on Zenodo with a DOI; a correction creates a new version, and earlier versions are never overwritten. Errors can be reported through the Report an error form on the site's repository, or by email to kemal.ilter@bakircay.edu.tr.
The name. Oculus supra is Latin for "the eye above": a machine that watches from over your shoulder and takes notes. The series is an independent, non-commercial publication curated by H. Kemal İlter. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the owners of the Oculus trademark, by Anthropic, whose Claude models it is written with, or by any other company. The views are the curator's and The Observer's own, not those of İzmir Bakırçay University.