The Four-Tier Evidence Framework
The tier describes the evidentiary posture of a claim. It does not rank a publication, institution, or author by reputation. A strong source can support a narrow fact without proving a broader interpretation.
- Fact Documented, verified, and sourced.
- Pattern Multiple facts forming a trend.
- Analysis Interpretation of documented patterns.
- Speculation Inference beyond the available record.
Evidence tiers express certainty and analytical distance. They do not make a claim true by label, and they do not substitute for reading the cited record.
How a Record Is Evaluated
Amicus Index begins with the narrowest claim the available evidence can support. Primary records and peer-reviewed research are preferred when they exist. Reporting, historical work, financial records, and other sources are evaluated for the specific claim they support, their limitations, and relevant counterevidence.
Each chapter keeps its sources, evidence tiers, connections, and counterargument layer together. A connection documents a relationship between topics; it is not automatically a causal claim.
Said vs Did
Said vs Did compares a stated purpose or public promise with the documented function or outcome. The controlled verdict describes that comparison:
The documented function runs against the stated purpose.
The record supports part of the claim, with material limits or contrary outcomes.
The claim uses accurate elements in a way that creates a materially distorted impression.
The available record does not yet support a settled verdict.
Verdicts are editorial conclusions grounded in the cited record. They are not automated scores, legal judgments, or claims about a person's private intent.
Corrections and Source Intake
Readers can challenge a fact, citation, context choice, evidence tier, verdict, conclusion, or accessibility problem. A useful report identifies the exact page or stable item, explains what appears wrong or incomplete, and includes the strongest supporting evidence available.
Submissions move through a fixed review path: submitted, triaged, verified, editorially reviewed, then accepted or rejected. A public submission is an intake record, not an automatic change to canonical content. Accepted changes are published through the same reviewed and versioned workflow as the original record.
These forms create public GitHub issues. Do not include private personal information or material you do not have the right to share.
Authorship and Accountability
Amicus Index is a solo-editor project, not an institution presenting borrowed authority. Its founder and editor holds final responsibility for evidence tiers, verdicts, corrections, taxonomy, and publication. There is no corporate parent, investor, or automated system with editorial control.
Contributors may propose sources or changes. Research and drafting tools may assist. Neither a contributor nor an automated system can accept a correction, assign a final verdict, or publish a change without editorial review.
What Automation Checks
The build rejects invalid evidence tiers, malformed citation metadata, duplicate or unstable identifiers, broken internal targets, one-way connections, stale derived indexes, and unexplained changes to committed corpus counts.
Automation checks the structure and integrity of the corpus. It does not decide whether a source is true or an interpretation is fair.
Automated checks make structural failures visible and repeatable. They do not replace source verification, contextual judgment, legal review, correction handling, or the editor's publication decision.