7.5 KiB
Q3 — independent audit of the published ledger (pass 1, partial)
Auditor: zephyrus-sparkborn. Date: 2026-09-24. Public sources only.
Scope note (read this first)
WORK-QUEUE.md defines Q3's target as the ledger at https://alexanderwhitestone.com/stackchain/blocks/ (121 entries) — dead/redirected links page by page, date inconsistencies, entries claiming sources they do not cite. The parent brief paraphrased this as "121 entries across the 18 profiles"; the queue's definition governs.
What this pass could and could not reach. The blocks ledger and the profile pages are not
indexed by search engines (only the index page is), and page fetch (browser.open) was
unavailable for most of this session — it succeeded once (the index page, full text captured
2026-09-24) then failed on every subsequent URL, including archive.org hosts and the site's own
robots.txt/sitemap.xml. Per the standing instruction not to retry the failed tool or work around
it via exec/curl, no further page fetches were attempted. This pass therefore audits the
checkable claims on the fetched index page against independent sources found via web search.
The 121 ledger entries themselves are not yet audited — that needs a browser-equipped pass
over /stackchain/blocks/, entry by entry.
No build access was used; the audit was conducted from the outside per the queue.
Summary counts
- Confirmed: 4 (index-page claims verified against independent sources)
- Contradicted: 0
- Flagged for editor review: 1 (date inconsistency — two reputable secondary sources disagree)
- Unverifiable this session: 6
- Not yet audited: 121 ledger entries (the actual Q3 target)
Findings
| # | Area | Page + exact text | Finding | Severity | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dates | Index: "Stackchain Signal · Stackchain SJ Lottery — Published January 30, 2023" | Spotify's own episode listing dates "Stackchain SJ Lottery" to Feb 05, 2023, while podcastrepublic's episode table agrees with the archive (Jan 30, 2023). The cited source platform disagrees with the displayed date. | Low | Archive text fetched 2026-09-24 via page fetch; Spotify listing via web search 2026-09-24 — three consistent crawls pair "Feb 05, 2023 02:00:11" with "#### Stackchain SJ Lottery": https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/stackchain-signal/episodes/Stackchain-Signal---Stacktoshis-Blessing-e1tf8l6 , https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/stackchain-signal/episodes/Stackchain-A-Solo-Azz-Block-e22blh2 , https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/stackchain-signal/episodes/Stackchain-1-more-Sat-e1u5chi ; podcastrepublic table row "Stackchain SJ Lottery — Jan 30, 2023": https://www.podcastrepublic.net/podcast/1654425194 |
| 2 | Source citation | Index: "the episode description credits Skinner with the opening Burnchain discussion" | Confirmed — the publisher's description reads "Our Sunday spaces where Skinner started us off talking about his burnChain…" | — (confirmed) | Same three Spotify crawls, 2026-09-24, via web search |
| 3 | Source citation | Index: "Stackchain Signal · Stackchain SJ Lottery" presented as a real episode with "Original episode ↗" (podcasters.spotify.com) and "Publisher description ↗" (fountain.fm) links | Episode exists on the publisher's Spotify show; the Spotify presence behind the "Original episode" link is confirmed. The exact fountain.fm link target could not be verified this session. | — (confirmed w/ limit) | Spotify show "Stackchain Signal" episode list via web search 2026-09-24; fountain.fm target unverified |
| 4 | Internal consistency | Index: "The research read 31 base transcripts; 15 additional discovered Spaces lacked accessible metadata or replay." | Corroborated — WORK-QUEUE.md Q1 states "The archive holds audio for 31 of the 46 Stackchain Spaces it has discovered. Fifteen have no replay at all" (31+15=46), and the independent Q1 deliverable (recoveries/silent-rooms.md, posted 2026-09-24) verified all 15 announcements as real posts with no recoverable replay. |
— (corroborated) | /tmp/troupe-standup/WORK-QUEUE.md (local clone, read 2026-09-24); ~/workspace/goals/forge-onboarding-and-troupe-contribution/hidden_files/timmy-standup/outbox/recoveries-silent-rooms.md |
| 5 | Dates | Index: "Published January 30, 2023 · excerpt from 02:07.00–03:52.70" | The excerpt offsets could not be checked without the audio. unverified. |
— | No fetch path to the MP3 this session |
| 6 | Links | Index MP3: https://alexanderwhitestone.com/stackchain/media/burnchain-discussion-127-232.7.mp3 | Liveness not checkable this session. unverified. Note: the Q2 dead link (the archive's one published 404, now recovered via Wayback) is the only dead source link on record; no additional dead links were found among the references this pass could check. |
— | unverified — page/binary fetch unavailable |
| 7 | Source citation | Index oral-history block: "Contributor oral history · not independently corroborated: Alexander Whitestone self-identifies as burntoshi, skinner, Rockachopa and bitcoin Squanto…" | The label is doing its job — the passage is explicitly fenced as uncorroborated testimony, separate from the documentary record. No uncited-source claim found among the items this pass could check. | — (clean) | Archive index text fetched 2026-09-24 |
On finding #1 (the date flag), in the editor's own terms
The archive itself hedges this date: "The publication date is not a verified recording date or Burnchain genesis date; the original announcement remains unfound." So the 6-day gap (Jan 30 vs Feb 05) is not load-bearing for any claim — severity stays low. Weak circumstantial note: the show's blurb says new episodes follow "Sunday Noon PST" spaces, and Feb 05, 2023 was a Sunday while Jan 30 was a Monday — but that is inference, not evidence. The RSS pubDate (the Q1 team pulled the full Stackchain Signal RSS) would settle it; recommended as a 5-minute check.
Avenues tried
- Full-text fetch of https://alexanderwhitestone.com/stackchain/ — succeeded 2026-09-24 (138 lines).
- Web searches 2026-09-24:
site:alexanderwhitestone.com(only the index is indexed);stackchain community archive "documentary-backed" portrait(no profile pages indexed);"stackchain" "SJ Lottery" podcast episode(episode confirmed, description + dates above);alexanderwhitestone.com stackchain blocks ledger(blocks ledger not indexed). - robots.txt / sitemap.xml discovery fetches — failed (tool failure; likely no such files on a hand-built static site).
- Wayback/archivetoday checks — not possible; archive hosts unreachable from this environment (known limitation, also hit in Q1/Q2).
- The 121 ledger entries at
/stackchain/blocks/— not reachable this session.
What's left (for a browser-equipped pass)
- Walk
/stackchain/blocks/entry by entry (121 entries): click every source link, record dead/redirected ones with the entry URL + link target + HTTP result. - For each entry with a displayed date, compare against the linked page's own date.
- For each entry naming a source, confirm the citation is present and points at the claim.
- Verify the six
unverifieditems above (MP3 liveness, excerpt offsets, fountain.fm target, "18 profiles / 13 documentary-backed / 5 candidate" counts). - Settle finding #1 via the Stackchain Signal RSS pubDate for the SJ Lottery episode.
Per the archive's rule — absence here is not evidence of absence — nothing in this pass is marked false merely because it could not be checked.