← the desk

Standards

the shape of a piece

Every piece is an essay, an open model and a playable web app, on its own site, with its own repository. It has five parts: places, the record, the model with its levers, the public claims it answers, and its sources. The record is immutable; the future has levers. A scenario you build is a URL you can send.

facts

No number ships without a source, and every published number carries a verification ledger that lists what was checked and what is still open. Where a piece simplifies, it says so on the page, in the place where the simplification bites. Nothing is invented: not a fact, a date, a quote, an author or a title. Where something is unknown it is marked unknown.

claims

The claims a piece answers are real, quoted from people arguing in public, and drawn from more than one side of the argument. Each is answered by the model's output, not by prose, and each answer can be pushed against with the levers. The desk has no party colours and no side. The aim is a third way out of an argument: play with the model yourself.

status

Every card says whether its piece is ● live, ◐ in progress or ○ proposed, with a date. Proposed pieces are shown so the pipeline is visible. A proposed card is not a promise.

corrections

Errors are corrected in place, and the correction is noted on the page with its date. Each piece's verification ledger and repository history keep the full record of what changed. To report an error, contact the desk.

machines

Models, code and drafts are built with AI assistance. Machines propose; people promote. A model that narrates inside a piece speaks only from that piece's own run and ledger. See the masthead.