Evidence structure

Claim Evidence Ledger

An article explains. A claim asserts. A source supports, contradicts, or complicates.

The ledger keeps those roles separate.

Why prose is not enough

A paragraph can sound true while hiding the structure underneath it. The wiki.us approach is to make the structure inspectable.

Important claims should be separable from the article prose, connected to sources, and marked with confidence, uncertainty, freshness, and review state.

What belongs in a claim ledger

• the claim
• the article it belongs to
• the sources connected to it
• whether a source supports, contradicts, or contextualizes the claim
• the confidence boundary
• the freshness boundary
• whether the claim was generated, reviewed, revised, or deprecated

Contradiction is not failure

Contradiction is a signal. A good knowledge system should not erase disagreement to make an answer feel clean. It should show where sources differ and what that means.