Evidence and verification statuses
Do not collapse uncertainty into definitive prose
Every material claim and every source record should carry a status from this list. Timeline events use the same tokens in the confidence field.
Statuses
| Token | Label | Use when |
|---|---|---|
verified-inspected |
Verified / source inspected | A contributor has seen the item (or a reliable complete copy) and the annotation is based on that inspection |
bibliographically-confirmed |
Bibliographically confirmed | Title, creator, or date is attested (for example by early project notes or a catalogue) but this archive has not inspected the full source |
attributed-recollection |
Attributed recollection | A named person remembers or is reported to remember something; the archive is not independently asserting it |
interpretation |
Interpretation | A relationship, cause, or meaning is being inferred from other evidence |
conflicting-evidence |
Conflicting evidence | Reliable or at least citable accounts disagree (for example 1993 versus 1994 as a CSIL start) |
open-question |
Open question | The archive does not yet have enough evidence to go further |
How to write with these statuses
- A
bibliographically-confirmedwanted source is not a verified fact about what the document says. - An
interpretationmust say what it is inferred from. conflicting-evidencerows stay in the timeline until inspected sources show they name different events — and even then, record that resolution.- Colour, if used at all, is only a hint. The token or label must appear as text (see the
status-labelstyle).
Fields versus prose
Front matter states the status of the record. The page body states the status of each claim. A single source page may contain a bibliographically confirmed title and several open questions about contents.