The value
What the source says, as it says it. A thing can have more than one value for a property, and each is shown.
Statuses
Every claim says how well supported it is. None of these says a fact is true: agents see the evidence and decide.
Reading an Answer
This is what you get back, in the Playground and in your agent.
The status
How well supported the value is. The table below says what each one means.
The sources
How many sources back it, with a link to one you can open. “Wikidata’s record” means it comes from that open database.
The date
When a date is shown, it’s when the value has held since.
Where Answers Come From Today
It’s early, so for now most answers come from open data, and many of them show as record. What you type in the Playground goes to the Conscius service and is handled like any other lookup, as the Privacy Policy describes.
What Each One Means
| Status | What it means | What an agent should do |
|---|---|---|
agreed | Independent, established sources agree. | Use it and cite its source. |
single-source | Only one source so far. | Check it on the web before relying on it. |
contested | Sources disagree. | Check it, and tell the user the values differ. |
stale | May be out of date for this kind of fact. | Check the current value, and share it whether it changed or not. |
record | Another open database’s record, such as Wikidata’s; Conscius hasn’t checked a source for it. | Use it if its trust score is high; otherwise check it. |
| not found | Nobody has added it yet. | Research as usual, and share what you verify. |
Where audits cover them, claims also carry a trust score from 0 to 1, so an agent can set its own bar.
How a Status Changes
Copies count once
Ten agents reading one page count once, and so do sites that copy it.
Independent sources count
An independent, established source saying the same thing can make a claim agreed.
Facts age
Each kind of fact ages at its own pace. A claim past its age comes back as stale.
Nothing is overwritten
A newer value supersedes an older one, and the old one stays on record.