Reading guide
Counterpedia uses a small reader-facing vocabulary to show where the record is qualified, where evidence stops, how a source is held, and how an answer was derived. These marks are meant to behave like punctuation: rare, local, and useful without interrupting ordinary reading.
The governing rule is simple: a semantic mark must come from typed state or a recorded relationship, never from decorative presentation code. Ordinary supported prose remains visually ordinary.
The smallest marks appear only when a passage departs from the default supported reading state.
Qualified or contested passage
Whether the evidence supports the broader formulation remains contested across the current record.
A solid accent gutter marks a passage whose standing is materially qualified or contested. Established prose receives no gutter.
Evidence boundary
No source in the current record establishes a single total for the number of patients harmed.
A dotted neutral gutter marks a typed evidence boundary: the record does not establish, address, or resolve the proposition beyond this point.
Section map
Contents markers summarize marks already present in a section; they do not introduce a second status system.
A source is a first-class object. The ordinary reference stays compact; deeper custody and verification state belongs on the source and Inspect surfaces.
Reference line
Normal reading shows source posture and upward use without forcing hashes and receipts into the article.
Admission states
Full admission-state vocabulary belongs primarily on source, research, archive, and Inspect surfaces. A refused or quarantined source remains visible without becoming load-bearing.
Counterpedia keeps derivation and procedural standing separate so a measured observation, a model, an allegation, and an adjudicated finding do not collapse into one visual category.
Two-axis claim state
Derivation
observed · measured · derived · modeled
Standing
asserted · alleged · admitted · adjudicated
Derivation describes how a proposition was produced; standing describes its procedural or institutional posture.
Governed quantity
Discordance was observed in 15% of tested samples (n = 214 · 2016 CMS protocol · laboratory).
A quantity carries the context that gives it meaning: denominator, population, protocol, setting, and date.
Supersession
Current formulation ↺ revised from earlier record
Current prose should remain clean; History exposes the prior state and the explicit supersession edge rather than silently overwriting it.
Missing knowledge is recorded explicitly. Counterpedia distinguishes an unresolved question from one no source addresses, and from one the present record does not establish.
Typed absence
Unknown, not established, and not addressed are reader-facing results, not error states. Superseded is historical state and belongs primarily in History.
What this entry does not answer
Total number of patients harmed not established
Competing estimates conflict; the current record contains no adjudicated figure.
Would change if: a court or regulator issues a finding addressing a total harm count.
Intent of individual engineers not addressed
No current source speaks to individual intent.
A gap can carry both a reason and a reopening condition, making absence inspectable rather than silently omitted.
Competing positions remain attributed, while applicability answers show the rule and inputs that produced them.
Attributed positions
The failures were driven by a small number of executive decisions.
position · trial testimony · admitted
The failures were systemic and distributed across the organization.
alternative position · investigative report · qualified
The renderer does not imply equal standing merely because multiple positions exist; source posture and relationships remain attached.
Deterministic answer
Can this cable carry 40 Gbps?
Unknown
Applicability and governed-definition entries may expose a compact derivation. Technical identifiers stay in Inspect.
Technical provenance is available without making the ordinary article read like a receipt viewer.
Inspect boundary
Digests, editions, receipts, packet identities, and verification details belong behind Inspect unless they are directly relevant to the passage being read.
Counterpedia annotates state transitions, boundaries, and exceptions; it does not decorate ordinary knowledge.