The Boston ArchiveBoston, Massachusetts

The reconciliation ledger

Every identity this archive asserts, holds, or declined

A record page links here when it says a candidate was held. This is that ledger. It carries the verdict on every candidate the archive has ever weighed, the method that produced it, the value it was matched against, and the date it was decided.

An identity in this archive is not a link. It is an assertion, and under owl:sameAs it instructs a consumer to merge two things into one. So it is made only where the archive can defend it, and where it cannot the refusal is published rather than left as an absence — because a record with no identity and no visible refusal looks exactly like a record nobody tried.

The accounting

AuthorityVerdictCount
gnisasserted470
gnisheld1
wikidataasserted307
wikidataheld31
wikidatarejected77
wikipediaasserted125
wikipediaheld31
Asserted
902 — emitted as sameAs on the record they belong to
Held
63 — the archive could not settle them, and asserts none
Declined
77 — considered and refused, each with its reason

Held — the archive could not settle these

Ambiguity is not resolved by choosing. Where two candidates survive every test, or where two records of this archive answer to one identifier, the archive asserts neither and records why here.

Declined

77 candidates were considered and refused, each with its reason. They are listed at the declined candidates — a separate page because one page carrying all of it would be larger than any page this archive serves, and a ledger nobody can load is the same problem as a ledger that does not exist.

This page is generated from the same table the record pages read, so the ledger and the archive cannot disagree. The machine rendering is at /reconciliation.json and carries every note in full.