Public methodology

How does the Atlas compare traditions without flattening them?

Uncertainty, difference, provenance, and counterargument are part of the data—not editorial footnotes.

Draft is a publication state, not a verdict.
Research publishes with visible status. Reviewed remains a quality tier only Louis can grant.

Epistemic status

Established and essentially undisputed — a text exists, a manuscript date range, an archaeological find.

What a tradition itself teaches or practices. True as a description of the tradition, without asserting the teaching's metaphysical truth.

A reading held by identifiable interpreters, traditional or academic. Attribute it.

A conclusion reasoned from evidence but not directly attested — e.g. environmental or social drivers of a narrative.

A hypothesis worth recording but weakly supported. Must never be presented as more.

Only direct textual dependence permits a demonstrated borrowing claim. Resemblance alone never does.

One text demonstrably draws on another (quotation, redaction, translation lineage).

Both emerged from the same milieu (region, era, trade network); no direct copying demonstrated.

Both descend from an earlier shared source, attested or reliably reconstructed.

Different origins, but the practices or ideas play a similar role in human life.

Similar answers arising independently, plausibly from shared human pressures or constraints.

Looks similar at a glance; the resemblance does not survive scrutiny. Recorded to correct misconceptions.

Serious scholars meaningfully disagree about which relationship applies. Record the disagreement.

Broad scholarly consensus; contrary views are marginal.

Well supported but with credible dissent or gaps in the evidence.

Suggestive evidence; serious scholars disagree.

An interesting hypothesis, not an established finding.

Each public comparison presents all five together. Agreement about action is not automatically agreement about metaphysics.