237 lines
19 KiB
Markdown
237 lines
19 KiB
Markdown
# Are the evidence tiers earned? — Q12 audit of the 121 published badges
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Run by **Merlin**, 2026-10-10, ~09:01–09:35 UTC. Independent of the build: every page read over
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HTTPS from this host with `curl`, nothing inferred from the repository's own claims about itself.
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Working files `/root/crucible/q12/` (`index.html`, `entry-*.html`, `src-*.html`, `skin-*.html`,
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`EVIDENCE.txt`, `parse_index.py`, `sample.py`, `fetch_entries.py`, `fetch_sources.py`, `check.py`,
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`excerpts3.py`, `dates.py`, `deep.py`, `skinner2.py`, `unlinked.py`, `evidence.py`).
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**Verdict in one line: no badge in the sample overstates its evidence — 18/18 `justified`, 0 `too
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strong`, 0 `too weak`, 0 `indeterminate` — but three entries cite their evidence at the wrong URL
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or not at all, and the legend's fourth tier is defined and never used.**
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---
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## 1. Census reproduced before any grading
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`https://alexanderwhitestone.com/stackchain/blocks/` → **HTTP 200 / 34,488 B / sha256
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`4f764ef4dfb9c08b2654ff0783550d20ad1bb7a31cb0c32070974a5fe451557e`**.
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```
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$ grep -o 'badge documented' index.html | wc -l -> 115
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$ grep -o 'badge testimony' index.html | wc -l -> 5
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$ grep -o 'badge corroborated' index.html | wc -l -> 1
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$ grep -o 'badge unrecovered' index.html | wc -l -> 0
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$ grep -o '<li id=' index.html | wc -l -> 121
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```
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115 + 5 + 1 + 0 = **121**, and 121 `<li id=` elements. The 2026-09-26 census in the queue is
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reproduced to the entry. The page's own header reads *"121 entries · 8 ledger blocks and receipts
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· 22 dated events · 91 magazine pieces"*.
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The legend, as published on the same page (verbatim, detagged):
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> **Documented** — the archive holds the post, capture or receipt.
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> **Corroborated** — established by a published or community account, with the source quoted on
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> the page. An original screenshot is not required.
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> **Testimony only** — a participant's recollection, recorded as recollection; where the practice
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> it describes is corroborated, that is shown too.
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> **Unrecovered** — known to exist, no copy and no independent account.
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## 2. Sample rule, stated before any fetch
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1. **Every** entry whose published badge is not `documented` — all 6 (`corroborated` 1,
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`testimony_only` 5). There is no `unrecovered` entry to include.
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2. **Every 9th `documented` entry in published index order**, starting at the 9th. The 115
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`documented` entries numbered 9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, 90, 99, 108 → 12 entries.
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Total sample **18 of 121**. The rule is mechanical and re-runnable from `index.html` alone
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(`parse_index.py` → `sample.py`); it is not a judgement about which entries looked interesting.
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The six mandatory non-`documented` entries are `event-2022-07-18-anthony-enters-at-16-…`,
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`block-25`, `block-6`, `block-88`, `block-89`, `block-90`.
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## 3. Method
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Per entry: fetch the entry page, read the badge as published, take the strongest source the entry
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itself cites, fetch that, and grade the badge against the legend's own words.
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**Detag / normalisation rule, printed so it can be re-run.** Strip `<script> <style> <svg>
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<noscript>` blocks, replace `<br>` and block-closing tags with a space, strip remaining tags,
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HTML-unescape, then NFKC-normalise and collapse runs of whitespace. Quotes are normalised
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(`'` `'` `"` `"` → `'` `"`), em/en dashes → `-`, `…` → `...`, NBSP → space. A quoted fragment
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counts as **verbatim** when it is a substring of the detagged source under exactly that rule.
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Nothing is graded on a paraphrase.
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Grading vocabulary, as the item defines it: **justified** / **too strong** / **too weak** /
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**indeterminate**, applied **per entry** (the badge is published per entry, not per clause);
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per-clause defects are recorded separately and named.
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**A dated reading, not an identifier:** every byte count and hash below is what this host read at
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~09:0x UTC on 2026-10-10. Third-party pages drift; the hashes are for re-checking this run, not
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for claiming a page is permanently that size.
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## 4. Per-row table
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Fixed column order: `entry | badge as published | strongest cited source | verdict | settling evidence`
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| entry | badge as published | strongest cited source | verdict | settling evidence |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
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| `event-2022-07-18-anthony-enters-at-16-names-the-hill-at-24` | Testimony only | `https://www.stackchainmagazine.net/waht-stackchain-done-dided-the-king-of-stackchain/` — 200 / 153,199 B / sha `7ff55e52eafa…` | justified | Entry's own words: *"Treat the claim to first use of the name as participant testimony, not an independently exhaustive Twitter search."* Cited article carries `Block 16` ×2 and `Block 24` ×1; its opening excerpt is verbatim on the page. The badge understates nothing and claims nothing held. |
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| `block-25` | Testimony only | `https://www.stackchainmagazine.net` — 200 / 215,836 B / sha `e7df6364180a…` | justified | Entry states *"The specific block numbers are the contributor's recollection and are not corroborated"* and *"This is testimony, not a held artifact."* No post or capture is claimed. **Citation defect, see §6.1.** |
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| `block-6` | Corroborated | `https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/how-5-bitcoin-purchase-cascaded-into-1-5-million-viral-movement` — 200 / 341,802 B / sha `e1826c17863d…` | justified | The legend's own test is met: a published account, quoted on the page. The quoted sentence *"…followed it up with a $6 buy and Satskeeper followed Bob's with a $7 buy"* is **verbatim ×1** in the fetched article, as are `Happyclowntime` ×1 and `Satskeeper` ×1. Receipt panel says plainly *"No receipt is held for this entry"* — the legend's Corroborated tier explicitly waives the screenshot. |
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| `block-88` | Testimony only | `https://www.stackchainmagazine.net` — 200 / 215,836 B / sha `e7df6364180a…` | justified | Same shape as `block-25`: *"First-person oral history, 2026-09-21. The posts themselves are not held."* **Citation defect, see §6.1.** |
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| `block-89` | Testimony only | `https://www.stackchainmagazine.net` — 200 / 215,836 B / sha `e7df6364180a…` | justified | Same. *"No post, capture or timestamp located."* **Citation defect, see §6.1.** |
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| `block-90` | Testimony only | `https://www.stackchainmagazine.net` — 200 / 215,836 B / sha `e7df6364180a…` | justified | Same, and the disputed material is quarantined in the Uncertainty panel: *"Skinner attributes the naming to Anthony, 'most likely' - tentative and uncorroborated."* **Citation defect, see §6.1.** |
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| `event-2022-08-18-the-bitcoin-beach-campaign-closes-and-hodlonaut` | Documented | `https://x.com/AnthonyDessauer/status/1560325688481026048` — 200 / 111,659 B / sha `b03ba32bdbd4…`; `blockstream.info/api/tx/ae63c499155ce14064686fc7218af6630cf64fd58a601bba48368b13cf955aa1` | justified | The held artifact is real: the quoted post text *"The last of sats donated to #Stacks4BitcoinBeach are on their way"* appears **×3** in the fetched page; the tx the entry prints is `confirmed`, block height **749999**, block time **2022-08-18T17:45:12Z**, one output of **851,979 sats**. The entry's own date, 2022-08-18, matches the receipt to the day. **One clause has no source at all, see §6.2.** |
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| `event-2023-05-00-siggy-reaches-nostr` | Documented | `https://github.com/plebiolira/stackchainsiggy_nostr` — 200 / 279,677 B / sha `020fc5625905…`; commits API | justified | README line verbatim: *"This is the version made for Nostr for the Stackchain mascot that monitors for #stackjoin buys."* Commits API (301 → `repositories/640699187`): **48 commits, earliest 2023-05-14T23:37:38Z, latest 2023-08-23T12:12:05Z, months 2023-05 … 2023-08** — exactly the entry's *"visible commit history from May to August 2023"* and its stated basis label *"visible repository commit dates"*. |
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| `magazine-012` | Documented | `https://www.stackchainmagazine.net/inflation-you/` — 200 / 141,125 B / sha `8f6efedbd052…` | justified | 3/3 quoted excerpts verbatim; entry date `2023-08-28` == the article's own `article:published_time` `2023-08-28T06:08:50+00:00`. |
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| `magazine-017` | Documented | `https://www.stackchainmagazine.net/where-ideas-end-up-and-why-that-matters/` — 200 / 136,829 B / sha `1a98badabb88…` | justified | 3/3 verbatim, including *"We currently have 841 active projects on Geyser, 40% of which are from parts of the world that were previously underserved"*; `2023-10-26` == `2023-10-26T17:34:30+00:00`. |
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| `magazine-026` | Documented | `https://www.stackchainmagazine.net/stackchain-for-newcomers-how-i-infiltrated-the-stackchain/` — 200 / 137,771 B / sha `b1fba3b77840…` | justified | 3/3 verbatim; `2024-04-10` == `2024-04-10T00:17:53+00:00`. Minor: the summary names `@a_koby`, which is not an anchor on the page (§6.3). |
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| `event-2024-05-20-one-community-multiple-living-chains` | Documented | `https://www.stackchainmagazine.net/two-years-of-stackchain/` — 200 / 136,607 B / sha `bbb528f37241…` | justified | Excerpt verbatim; the entry's basis label *"explicit internal composition date; web upload"* is honest — the article's own line is *"As of the date of my writing this May 20th 2024…"* against `article:published_time` `2025-07-22T14:33:48+00:00`. Both halves verified (this row was Q11's row 8). |
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| `magazine-042` | Documented | `https://www.stackchainmagazine.net/meet-the-orange-pill-app/` — 200 / 143,271 B / sha `50ab3c791664…` | justified | 3/3 verbatim; `2025-01-25` == `2025-01-25T18:20:18+00:00`. |
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| `magazine-050` | Documented | `https://www.stackchainmagazine.net/a-pleb-travels-to-el-salvador/` — 200 / 184,537 B / sha `f9a4e4071123…` | justified | 3/3 verbatim; `2025-07-15` == `2025-07-15T00:19:14+00:00`. |
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| `magazine-059` | Documented | `https://www.stackchainmagazine.net/plebs-priced-out-of-conference-tickets-after-blackrock-tokenizes-them-as-a-brc-20-token/` — 200 / 139,413 B / sha `c778d10edd86…` | justified | 3/3 verbatim, including *"A general admission ticket shot up from $399 to almost $5000, or close to the price of a whale pass overnight."*; `2025-08-01` == `2025-08-01T14:15:10+00:00`. |
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| `magazine-067` | Documented | `https://www.stackchainmagazine.net/what-is-bitcoin-art/` — 200 / 142,126 B / sha `3b31cc06403a…` | justified | 3/3 verbatim; `2026-01-12` == `2026-01-12T13:15:58+00:00`. |
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| `magazine-076` | Documented | `https://www.stackchainmagazine.net/dsb-and-me-by-clumsy-dork/` — 200 / 173,819 B / sha `865855cc14d8…` | justified | 3/3 verbatim; `2026-01-20` == `2026-01-20T13:09:30+00:00`. |
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| `magazine-085` | Documented | `https://www.stackchainmagazine.net/the-diy-signing-device-revolution-is-just-beginning/` — 200 / 162,809 B / sha `5d6b1a9801ca…` | justified | 3/3 verbatim; `2026-08-13` == `2026-08-13T14:00:25+00:00`. |
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All 18 entry pages returned **HTTP 200** on the first attempt (3,181–5,146 B).
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## 5. Verdict counts
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| verdict | count |
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|---|---|
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| justified | **18** |
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| too strong | **0** |
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| too weak | **0** |
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| indeterminate | **0** |
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By tier: `Testimony only` 5/5 justified, `Corroborated` 1/1 justified, `Documented` 12/12
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justified. **No badge in the sample misstates its evidence.** The three findings below are
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citation and legend-policy defects, not badge overstatements — which is the distinction the
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item's own framing asked for.
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## 6. Named findings
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### 6.1 `block-25`, `block-88`, `block-89`, `block-90` — the corroborating quote is cited at a URL that does not contain it
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All four Provenance panels read: *"The named practice is independently corroborated: a published
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Stackchain Magazine account records the term 'Skinner Stacking' and describes it, quoted below."*
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The link attached to that quote is the bare site root, `https://www.stackchainmagazine.net`
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(200 / 215,836 B / sha `e7df6364180a…`), which detags to 5,036 characters and contains
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**`Skinner` 0 times, `Skinner Stacking` 0 times**. The quoted passage is therefore not
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verifiable from the URL the four pages print.
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It is verifiable — elsewhere. The passage is verbatim in
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`https://www.stackchainmagazine.net/a-conversation-with-burnchainers/` (200 / 155,217 B / sha
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`50a2e57e3ba6…`), which is the **only** result the publication's own search returns for
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`?s=Skinner` (200 / 107,021 B / sha `95f57a614ebc…`; `?s=skinner+stacking` returns the same single
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article). The passage, verbatim from that page:
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> *"I've been watching Stackchain and they adopt new ideas over time. Like some used to call it
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> Skinner Stacking when you did two blocks in one post. But who wants to have their stack named
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> after someone else? So as the idea was separated from the person it got more palatable."*
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**Effect:** the *claim* holds, the *citation* does not point at it. Four pages should cite the
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`a-conversation-with-burnchainers` permalink instead of the site root. Badge unchanged
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(`Testimony only` is correct and appropriately modest); this is a link fix on four live pages, so
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it belongs to Alexander via Q13's channel, not to this run. Independently, the term also appears
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in `x.com/rockachopa/status/1550583498397782017` (200 / 107,399 B / sha `ff71ecb4ac768b…`,
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`article:published_time` **2022-07-22T20:48:09.000Z**, `Skinner Stacking` ×6) — a second
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corroborating source neither page cites.
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### 6.2 `event-2022-08-18…` — the summary names an account it does not link, and that account 404s
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The *"What happened"* panel reads: *"…StackchainQuant's October account also embeds Yellow's
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August 18 donation appeal and reports several thousand dollars raised under #Stacks4Hodlonaut."*
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`StackchainQuant` appears **twice** in the page and is an anchor **nowhere** — the page's only
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external anchors are the AnthonyDessauer post and the Bitcoin Magazine article. And the handle
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itself does not resolve: `https://x.com/StackchainQuant` → **404**, 37,702 B, sha
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`2dfa62a242e6…`, `<title>User Profile Not Found - X | 404 Error</title>`.
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The Provenance panel says the summary is *"Summarised by the archive from the sources linked
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below"*, which is not true of that clause. **Effect:** the entry's badge is earned by the parts
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that are linked and checked (post text verbatim ×3, tx confirmed at 2022-08-18T17:45:12Z,
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851,979 sats); this one clause rests on an account that is unlinked and currently unreachable. Fix
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is either a link to a surviving capture or withdrawal of the clause. Alexander's call.
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### 6.3 `magazine-026` — a named handle with no anchor (minor)
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The summary names *"Koby (@a_koby)"*; the page's only external anchor is the article permalink.
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No badge effect. Noted for completeness because it is the same defect class as 6.2 at lower
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stakes.
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### 6.4 The legend's fourth tier is defined and never applied
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`Unrecovered` — *"known to exist, no copy and no independent account"* — appears **0 times** across
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121 entries, while material that fits its definition is sitting inside lower-tier entries'
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Uncertainty panels: `block-6` *"The $6 post itself has not been produced"*; `block-25` *"No post
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or capture has been located for either attempt"*; `block-88` *"No post, capture or timestamp
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located"*. The archive is disclosing this honestly, but it is doing it in prose rather than in the
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tier vocabulary the legend publishes. **This is a legend-design question for Alexander, not a
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per-entry defect.**
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### 6.5 `Documented` is a liveness claim, not a held-artifact claim, for the 91 magazine entries
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The legend's first tier says *"the archive holds the post, capture or receipt"*. All 12 sampled
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magazine entries answer that with a Receipt panel reading *"No receipt is held for this entry."*
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and a Provenance panel naming a live third-party URL. So the badge rests on **a URL resolving
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today**, which I measured: 12/12 at HTTP 200, 8/8 entry dates equal to the cited article's own
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`article:published_time` to the day. That is a strong result, but it is not the same claim the
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legend makes, and it is fragile in a way I hit myself: the Bitcoin Magazine URL returned **403**
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(4,545 B) to a Chrome user-agent and **200 / 341,802 B** to a bare `curl` agent, in the same
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minute. One publisher, one UA difference, one wall.
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**Recommendation for Alexander, not for this run:** either narrow the `Documented` legend's
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wording to *"a published source the archive cites, resolving at read time"* for the magazine
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class, or start holding captures. Nothing here is a badge defect today; it is a claim the badge
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makes that nobody has tested until now.
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## 7. Measurement: are the excerpts the badge rests on actually in the source?
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Across the 18 sampled entries, the *"From the sources"* panels carry **37 quoted fragments of
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≥25 characters** (split on each re-cited permalink so distinct excerpts stay distinct, then
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detagged and normalised per §3).
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**33 of 37 (89%) are verbatim in a source the entry itself cites.** The 4 that are not are the
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same Skinner passage repeated on `block-25`, `block-88`, `block-89` and `block-90` — finding 6.1.
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No sampled entry prints an excerpt that its own cited source does not contain, other than that one
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passage, and no excerpt was found in the one off-citation control I ran (`x.com/rockachopa/
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status/1550583498397782017`, which carries the *term* but not the *passage*). I did not sweep the
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whole publication for each excerpt, so "verbatim in a cited source" is a per-row result and "found
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only in an uncited source" is not a claim this run makes.
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## 8. Evidence
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Every URL read this run, with its byte count and SHA-256, in `/root/crucible/q12/EVIDENCE.txt`
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(18 entry pages, the index, 17 cited sources, 2 off-citation controls, 3 search pages). The
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full list is printed by `python3 /root/crucible/q12/evidence.py`.
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Reads that mattered and their outputs:
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```
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index 200 / 34,488 sha 4f764ef4dfb9… /stackchain/blocks/
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block-6 source 200 / 341,802 sha e1826c17863d… bitcoinmagazine.com (403 under Chrome UA, 200 under bare curl)
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block-25 source 200 / 215,836 sha e7df6364180a… stackchainmagazine.net ("Skinner" 0 occurrences)
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skinner permalink 200 / 155,217 sha 50a2e57e3ba6… /a-conversation-with-burnchainers/ (passage verbatim ×1)
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ev-08-18 post 200 / 111,659 sha b03ba32bdbd4… x.com/AnthonyDessauer/status/1560325688481026048 (text ×3)
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tx ae63c499… confirmed, height 749999, 2022-08-18T17:45:12Z, 1 output, 851,979 sats
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siggy repo 200 / 279,677 sha 020fc5625905… 48 commits, 2023-05-14 … 2023-08-23
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StackchainQuant 404 / 37,702 sha 2dfa62a242e6… "User Profile Not Found"
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```
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## 9. Limits
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- **Testimony only:** every byte count and hash is a dated reading from this host at
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~09:0x UTC 2026-10-10. Third-party pages drift; a later reader will get different sizes. The
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hashes let this run be re-checked, not the pages pinned.
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- **Sample, not census:** 18 of 121. The 6 non-`documented` entries are a complete census of their
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tiers; the 12 `documented` entries are an every-9th sample and license no rate estimate for the
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other 103. A clean 18/18 is evidence that the tiering discipline holds where it is hardest
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(the entries with the least evidence), not that all 121 are clean.
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- **Not tested:** the accuracy of the summaries' *content* (that is Q8/Q10's lane), the 103
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unsampled `documented` entries, and whether any `documented` magazine entry cites an article
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that has since been taken down outside the sample.
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- **Not touched:** no live page, no `blocks.json`, no other party's file. Nothing in this run
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changed the archive; the three link fixes in §6 wait on Alexander through Q13's channel.
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