# 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](/playground) and in your agent.

### 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.

### 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](/privacy) 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| `stale` | May be out of date for this kind of fact.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.

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Source: https://consci.us/docs/statuses