What this database is
A database of comparable lives. Every person is broken into the same five holdings, and every holding carries a citation back to the sentence or timestamp it came from.
One person, one case
Sources are narratives and each one is shaped differently, so they cannot be compared as they stand. This database forces them into one record: five holdings, always the same five, in the same order. That is what makes “these twenty people took a median of six years” or “their first step was usually the same” answerable at all.
Five holdings, fixed
The five holdings are fixed because comparability is the product, not the word count. A record missing a holding is not a shorter record; it is an incomplete one. Nothing is added between them and nothing is left out.
Not stated is a value
When a source does not provide something verifiable, the holding is marked not stated. It is not filled in, not inferred, and not estimated. A page of gaps is more useful than a page of guesses, because a gap can be counted and a guess cannot.
Every claim has a citation
Each holding carries the quotation or timestamp it was drawn from, set in the outer column. The citation is the record's evidence: follow it and you are reading the same material the editor read. Where a citation names another person in the database, it links to that person's case.
The source is not replaced
A headnote is an instrument for reading, not a substitute for the source. Every case keeps a link to the original article or video, and the extracted text is printed beside the holdings so the reader can judge the extraction directly.
Standing: reviewed and unreviewed
A record marked unreviewed has been written into the database but has not yet been checked by the editor. It is shown rather than hidden, and it is marked. A record marked reviewed is one the editor stands behind.
Filling it
Records are entered by the editor, not by visitors. A link is extracted into plain text, the five holdings are written with a citation each, and the record is stored in the language of its source. Translations are made to order; they are not produced in advance.