Check thresholds
The thresholds the record and source checks judge by: plausibility, integrity, manufacturers against Wikidata, corroboration and links. What each measures, where the line is, and what crossing it means.
Plausibility
The plausibility checks ask whether a firearm's figures could all be true at once. The loaded weight and the physical bounds have pages of their own; these are the rest.
| What is judged | Threshold | What crossing it means |
|---|---|---|
| A category's median | 15 records | The fewest records a category needs before a figure is measured against its median. |
| Distance from the median | 5x, or under 1/5 | Inside this, a figure is never questioned: a heavy anti-tank rifle is five times the median rifle and real. |
| A unit mistake | 66% to 150% | Outside that distance, a figure is questioned when converting it (pounds read as grams, inches as millimetres, feet per second as metres per second) lands it within this share of the median. |
| Far off | 10x | Past this, a figure is questioned even when no unit explains it. It is often a gun filed in the wrong category. |
| Energy against velocity | 0.4 to 2.5 × ½mv² | The stated muzzle energy against half the cartridge's typical bullet mass times the velocity squared. Loads vary, so the band is wide; outside it the energy, the velocity or the cartridge is wrong. |
| A variant against its family | 2.5x, at least 3 members | A variant whose barrel, capacity or weight sits this far from its family's median, in a family with at least this many members, usually carries another gun's figure. |
| A variant before its parent | 2 years | A variant dated more than this many years before the gun it is filed under. |
| The same gun twice | Same reduced name, same maker | Two records of one maker whose names reduce to the same model once the maker's name, the words model and mark, and punctuation are taken out. |
The Falconet's weight, 90718 g, against the rifle median the latest run found, 3500 g, is 25.9 times it: past 10 times, and no conversion lands it near the median, so it is questioned, along with whether a cannon belongs in the rifle category at all.
"Colt 1877 Lightning" reduces to "1877lightning" and "Colt Model 1877 Lightning" to "1877lightning", so the two records are listed as one gun held twice.
Integrity
The integrity checks look for data a generator filled in rather than a source stated: the same figures, the same sentences or the same feature lists across makers who share nothing.
| What is judged | Threshold | What crossing it means |
|---|---|---|
| The same weight, barrel and length | 3 makers | Shared by this many different makers, the set is a question for a person: a licensed copy or a common design is the honest reason. |
| The same set, certain | 10 makers | Shared by this many makers, no licence explains it, and the figures are removed as invented. |
| The same sentence | 25 records, 10 makers | Repeated across this many records from this many makers, a description sentence is filler rather than a source's words. A templated factual sentence is exempt. |
| The same feature list | 50 records, 20 makers | Repeated across this many records from this many makers, a feature list was copied rather than read. |
A record's confidence is capped by what its evidence supports: at 0.4 when its figures or features are cloned, at 0.5 when it cites one source or none, and at 0.6 when its description carries filler.
Manufacturers against Wikidata
Each manufacturer is looked up in Wikidata by its name and the names it is known by. Every item the search finds is scored on what agrees with our record:
| What agrees | Points |
|---|---|
| Wikidata records it making something | 4 |
| Its country matches ours | 2 |
| It has an official website | 1 |
| It has a founding date | 1 |
- High: the best item records making something, its country does not contradict ours, and its own label shares a word with a name we hold.
- Medium: a score of 3 or more that the high rule does not settle, or the only item found, of our country, recording nothing made. A lead for a person.
- Ambiguous: two items score the same. Neither is chosen, and a person decides.
Corroboration
A figure one source states is a claim; two independent sources agreeing is evidence. A firearm's mass or length is compared with Wikidata's, converted to our units, and the two agree when they differ by no more than 15% of the larger. A disagreement is for a person, because Wikidata does not say whether a mass includes a magazine.
Links
Every published link is fetched and its answer classed. A refusal says something about the reader, not the page, so it is never counted as a verdict about the link.
| What is judged | Threshold | What crossing it means |
|---|---|---|
| Gone | 404, 410 | The page answers not found or gone, the host no longer resolves, or a deep link now lands on a not found page or on the site's front page. |
| A closed store | 402, 423 | The platform answers that the store is closed or suspended. |
| Refused | 401, 403, 405, 406, 429 | A firewall's answer to an automated reader, or a challenge page. Counted as unverified: never as passing, and never as broken. |
| Not what was cited | Read in the page | A parked or for-sale domain, a casino or betting page on a lapsed maker domain, or a placeholder page. |
| A hidden not found | Read in the page | A page that answers normally but is titled not found or no longer available. |
| Moved | A redirect to another domain | A maker's website that now redirects to another domain. It still works for a reader and is still a stale record. |