Commentary (as page form)

A page that holds comment on another page without touching it — named for the page it comments on, with the marker (commentary) after the name.

A concept page is meant to carry the present sense of its concept and only that (The Wiki Reflects the Present). But readers have things to say that are not the present sense: an objection, a reading, a note that this line came from somewhere, a question nobody has answered. Put on the page, all of that turns the page into a transcript. A commentary page is the answer — a separate page, at a predictable name, holding the remarks, quoting the lines they are about, and leaving the concept page clean.

What it preserves is the same thing the inline practice preserves: named words stay where they were written. A commentary quotes the line, says what it would change or what it noticed, and signs itself with who and when — so that disagreement is precise and located rather than a rewrite that quietly erases what someone meant (Comment · Author's Voice Is Sovereign · Attribution · Provenance).

The two forms are for different lifetimes, which is why both exist. A Comment is a note fastened to one exact sentence, meant to settle: when it does, the settled line goes into the page and the comment closes. A commentary page is for what is not going to settle soon — a standing reading, a scholarly note, a dissent held open on purpose (Meaningful Objection · Chatham House · Elision).

Its risks are ordinary and worth naming. A commentary can become the place where real disagreement is parked so that the main page need never change (Drift · Communication Debt). It can drift out of date while looking current (The Wiki Reflects the Present · Prune). And a reader who never finds it will read the concept page as though nothing were contested — which is why the concept page's own Open line does work the commentary cannot (Gaps Not Yet Closed · Second reader).

The form is the canon's own experiment and says so: the one example carries a note that it is a test page, to see whether the form is liked. That honesty is the right status for it.

Also called: a (commentary) page Stands on: Comment · The LIØNSBERG Book of Conventions · Language Opens onto: The Wiki Reflects the Present · Second reader · Meaningful Objection · Author's Voice Is Sovereign · Decision Records · Naming Forms · One canonical home per concept · Elision In play: the Workshop — where a reading that will not settle is set down without disturbing the page it is about Sources: Commentary/Commentary Pages/Meta Goal (commentary) (draft — the single example, which marks itself a test page, quotes the line it comments on, and names its commenter and date) · Comment (Player+ Modules convention) · lionsberg.wiki: Commentary Pages Open: One example exists and it declares itself a test; whether the form was adopted is not recorded anywhere. · Nothing says whether a concept page should link to its own commentary, which decides whether readers ever find it. · Inbound links were not counted.