---
conjecture: r3-b1-23
family: codex
model: "gpt-5.6-sol (codex-cli 0.144.0-alpha.4, ChatGPT-subscription auth)"
model_stamp_corrected: "2026-08-07 — archives were first written stamped gpt-5.5 by a runner bug (the stamper read config.toml's default instead of the -m flag actually passed). The calls themselves ran on gpt-5.6-sol throughout; only the label was wrong. Corrected in place, noted here rather than silently."
received: 2026-08-07
template: PROMPT_TEMPLATE_v1.md sha256 4344aabfacfe88362c56d89b6c89d594a7bf3a221e18a16b0e351482447e512f
rivals_parsed: 3
validation: VALID
---

{
  "rivals": [
    {
      "mechanism": "NAMAMI's publication pipeline preferentially includes holdings with sufficiently structured metadata, while poorly described holdings are delayed, rejected, or never entered as individual portal records. The apparent ceiling is therefore imposed before routing by catalogue inclusion rather than by the routing instrument.",
      "why_it_explains_the_same_evidence": "A shared inclusion process across NAMAMI states would keep abstention low in both training and holdout data. Variation in intake strictness or the admission of a broad legacy collection could produce the 41.26% outlier without implying a true routing ceiling, while continued use of the same publication process would make nine further passes likely.",
      "named_confounds": [
        "selection in what got catalogued at all",
        "publication and ingest filtering",
        "portal coverage bias"
      ],
      "discriminating_test": {
        "description": "Obtain complete accession registers or digitization queues for repositories represented in NAMAMI, including holdings absent from the portal. Apply the frozen router to their raw metadata and model portal inclusion as a function of whether a holding abstains, controlling for state and repository.",
        "computable_on_held_data": false,
        "what_result_favors_rival": "Abstaining holdings are substantially less likely to appear in NAMAMI, and one or more complete repository or state inventories exceed 45% when unpublished holdings are included even though their NAMAMI subsets remain below 45%."
      }
    },
    {
      "mechanism": "State totals are denominator-weighted mixtures dominated by a few very large institutions or bulk-import batches containing easily routed records. The observed bound is dilution by source size, not a causal limit on the fraction of records that can resist routing.",
      "why_it_explains_the_same_evidence": "Heavy concentration in low-abstention sources can keep every aggregate state below 45% even when smaller institutions or batches have majority abstention. The 41.26% training outlier is naturally explained by a different source mixture, such as a large high-abstention batch or the absence of a dominant low-abstention contributor; the holdout passes follow if their source weights resemble the other states.",
      "named_confounds": [
        "institutional composition of state holdings",
        "record-count denominator effect",
        "bulk-import or duplicate-record inflation",
        "holdings geography rather than manuscript origin"
      ],
      "discriminating_test": {
        "description": "Using institution and import-batch identifiers, calculate abstention within each source, source concentration within each state, leave-one-source-out state shares, and state shares standardized to equal source weights. Repeat after collapsing identifiable duplicate or parent-child record clusters.",
        "computable_on_held_data": true,
        "what_result_favors_rival": "Many source strata exceed 45%, and at least one state's standardized, cluster-corrected, or leave-one-dominant-source-out share exceeds 45%, with raw state shares closely predicted by the weights of a few low-abstention sources."
      }
    },
    {
      "mechanism": "Portal templates or normalization procedures populate standardized language, script, subject, or tradition-proxy fields that the router subsequently uses. Routing success is thus produced by upstream data-entry alignment or feature leakage, while nonstandard legacy imports generate the unusually high abstention state.",
      "why_it_explains_the_same_evidence": "Because all states use one portal, shared templates and normalization can reproduce low abstention across both training and holdout states without any intrinsic state-level ceiling. A state dominated by records imported under an older or less standardized workflow could account for the isolated 41.26% value.",
      "named_confounds": [
        "cataloguing and data-entry practice",
        "feature leakage from standardized metadata",
        "default-value imputation",
        "template-version or import-provenance effects"
      ],
      "discriminating_test": {
        "description": "Recover pre-normalization import payloads or record-version histories from NAMAMI and run the frozen router on both raw and portal-normalized versions of the same records. Attribute each abstention-to-route transition to fields added, defaulted, or vocabulary-normalized by the portal, and compare effects across template versions and import batches.",
        "computable_on_held_data": true,
        "what_result_favors_rival": "One or more states or major batches exceed 45% on pre-normalization metadata but fall below it after portal normalization, with most changed decisions traceable to automatically supplied or standardized fields."
      }
    }
  ],
  "no_viable_rival": false,
  "notes": "The aggregate held-out passes alone cannot distinguish a routing-instrument ceiling from mechanisms shared by the same portal's inclusion, aggregation, and metadata-normalization practices."
}
