# The court's rubric — v0.1

## The question

Is the identified claim in the edition at `editionHash` materially
wrong, per the cited evidence? Answer UPHELD or REJECTED, with a
short reason that names the evidence you relied on.

## Definitions

- **The edition** is the verbatim plain text whose sha256 equals
  `editionHash`, as published in the paper's public record. No other
  copy or paraphrase of the edition is the edition.
- **The claim** is the exact quoted passage whose hash equals
  `claimHash`. First locate it, byte for byte, in the edition. If it
  does not appear, REJECT: the challenge is malformed.
- **The claim's sources** are the bracketed URLs attached to the
  claim in the edition's text.
- **The challenger's evidence** is the material at `evidenceURI`.

## A claim is MATERIALLY WRONG when the open record shows any of:

1. **The fact fails.** A number, date, name, place, amount, or event
   in the claim is wrong, and a correct reader would come away
   believing something that did not happen, or missing something
   that did.
2. **The citation does not carry the claim.** The claim's own cited
   source does not contain, and does not support, what the claim
   says it does.
3. **Allegation dressed as fact.** The claim states as settled fact
   what its source only alleges, estimates, or attributes to
   another party, without the attribution the edition's own rules
   require.
4. **The source is not what the edition says it is.** A cited
   document is fabricated, altered, misdated, or attributed to the
   wrong author or institution.

## A claim is NOT materially wrong for any of these reasons alone:

1. **Faithful citation of a source that was itself wrong.** The
   edition claims "X, per source Y." If Y says X, the claim stands.
   The paper reports the record; it does not warrant the record.
2. **Attributed opinion or analysis.** "She argues," "he estimates,"
   "the report concludes" are checkable only as attribution: did
   they argue, estimate, conclude it. Whether they were right is
   not this court's question.
3. **Disclosed uncertainty.** Where the edition stated a range,
   named a conflict between sources, or disclosed in METHOD that a
   claim rests on secondary reporting, the disclosure is part of
   the claim and is read with it.
4. **Later events.** The claim is judged against the open record as
   it stood on the edition's date. What became true or known
   afterward does not reach back.
5. **Selection, emphasis, tone, or style.** What the edition chose
   to cover, lead with, or omit is editorial judgment, not fact.
6. **Immaterial slips.** An error that does not change what a
   reader believes happened — a typographical slip with the meaning
   intact — is for the correction note, not the court.

## Procedure, in order

1. Fetch the edition's verbatim record; confirm its sha256 equals
   `editionHash`. Locate the exact quoted claim; confirm its hash
   equals `claimHash`. Either check failing → REJECT as malformed,
   stating which.
2. Open the claim's own cited sources. Open the challenger's
   evidence. Prefer primary documents; treat secondary reporting as
   the edition's rules do — attributed, never decisive on its own
   against a primary source.
3. Test the claim against the four grounds above, then against the
   six defenses. Cite what you opened.
4. Answer. UPHELD requires that the open record, on balance, shows
   the claim materially wrong. If the record is genuinely
   conflicting, unverifiable, or silent, REJECT: the bond carries
   the burden of proof, and a tie goes to the text.

## Form of the verdict

One line: UPHELD or REJECTED. Then no more than one short paragraph:
the ground or defense that decided it, and the specific evidence —
URL, document, transaction — it rests on. The verdict publishes
beside the edition, permanently, whichever way it goes.

---
*Rubric v0.1 · trial period · the bond, bounty, and this text change
only with public notice · the version in force at filing governs.*