Disposition Categories
The small vocabulary an audit uses to say what becomes of each source: fold, canonical, reference, archive, or look again.
Auditing a large corpus needs a decision per source, and decisions need a shared word each. Fold — this book's substance belongs inside a canonical volume, and the audit says which one. Canonical — this book is a volume, or its substantive heart. Reference — keep it as supporting material and link to it from the canonical home; it is commentary, not canon. Archive — preserve it with its provenance as part of the procession; it is not folded. And a mark for this needs a deeper read before anyone decides, which is the honest answer more often than the others.
The categories are small on purpose. A vocabulary of five can be applied consistently by many readers across hundreds of sources; a richer one produces disagreements about the labels instead of about the work. What makes them usable is that each carries an action: a fold is work someone must do, an archive is a move someone must make, a reference is a link someone must write.
They also make the judgment visible. A first-pass disposition based on a title and a quick scan is recorded as exactly that, and the deeper audit either confirms it or overturns it — in the open, where the reasoning can be argued with. An audit that produces only a cleaned-up result, with no record of what was decided about what, cannot be checked by anyone afterward.
Nothing in the vocabulary permits deletion. Archive preserves; fold weaves before it consolidates.
Also called: the audit vocabulary Stands on: Weave, don't delete · One canonical home per concept · Provenance Opens onto: Phase-Gated Architecture · Progressive canonization · Every Page Lives Within A Volume · Pattern Card · The Sacred Codex · Decision Records In play: beyond Sources: Phase 2 — The Audit Ledger, disposition legend and method (draft) · the Wiki Turn's working decisions (draft) · lionsberg.wiki: The Great Weaving — Concept Ledger Open: the legend's fold targets are numbered by volume, and the volume numbering is itself contested in two places; a disposition citing a volume number is therefore less stable than it looks.