Connection reader value and audience evidence
Status: executable local gates complete; real package tests, production observation,
independent review, and A+ evidence remain open.
Reader-value gate
No new Connection may enter full editorial drafting until its candidate record
answers five questions with specific language: what surprises the reader, why it
matters, what changes in their understanding, what question pulls them through,
and what visual payoff resolves the story.
`evaluateReaderValueGate` in `src/services/connection-reader-value.ts` enforces
these answers and the package-test contract. Exactly three headlines and two
openings must be prepared. At least five consented non-specialists must then
record package preferences; specialist, unconsented, or synthetic sessions are
rejected. An `awaiting-observation` package is preparation evidence, not proof
that drafting or publication should proceed.
Story and proof hierarchy
The Connection page leads with the reader-facing question and story. The bounded
claim, assurance tier, citations, uncertainty, rights, reproducibility, and
external-review state remain on the same page after the narrative path. This
presentation change does not weaken any publication or human-release gate.
Audience funnel
Consent-gated cultural-intelligence events are separate from the five PD0
baseline events:
| Event | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `connection_headline_impression` | Eligible story headline rendered |
| `connection_story_open` | Reader deliberately opens the story path |
| `connection_story_25`, `50`, `90` | Depth checkpoints become visible |
| `connection_meaningful_continuation` | Reader follows a source artwork |
| `connection_share` | Reader selects the story share action |
| `connection_save` | Reader selects the story save action |
| `connection_learned_something_new` | Reader explicitly answers yes |
Instrumentation is not outcome evidence. A+ requires a dated production window,
consented-session denominators, deduplicated counts, the rubric thresholds,
independent scoring, and human release decisions. Button selection measures
intent unless the underlying browser action can be confirmed. The public save
control persists the slug locally before recording success; the share control
records success only after native sharing or the clipboard fallback completes.
Import a real, privacy-safe production export with:
pnpm connections:audience -- --input=path/to/evidence.json --check
The executable contract rejects direct identifiers, synthetic evidence, missing
or zero denominators, impossible funnel ordering, duplicate package participants,
and approvals without retained evidence. Its initial explicit thresholds are 50%
open, 75/72/70% at the three depth checkpoints, 15% meaningful continuation,
5% share, 10% save, and 80% learned-something-new. Package sessions separately
require at least 80% continuation intent and 80% learning. Passing those numbers
still reports `aPlusAudienceGate: false` until independent review and accountable
operator-release evidence are both approved.
Rosenberg flagship: current research state
Working question: **How did one dealer name surface in the museum histories of
works by Monet, Cezanne, and Braque?**
The live cross-collection capture surfaced a three-museum Paul Rosenberg lead.
MoMA's Paul Rosenberg Archives describe his Paris gallery, his support and
promotion of Braque and other modern artists, his major role in the international
market for French painting, and the archive's importance for provenance research.
The Cleveland Museum of Art states that Rosenberg commissioned *The Crystal
Vase* from Georges Braque for his Paris home in 1929, that it belonged to a
four-work dining-room ensemble, and that the works were dispersed after the
apartment was sold in 1949. Cleveland marks the work as under copyright, so it
cannot be treated as an open-reuse visual.
The dated institutional records now establish three different roles that must
not be flattened:
Still Life with Flowers and Fruit by about 1904. The record marks Nazi-era
provenance gaps, so the story must retain that warning and cannot imply a
complete sequence.
Cezanne's The Basket of Apples by 1922 and states that the work was sold
through Joseph Stransky to Frederick Clay Bartlett by 1925, then given to the
museum in 1926.
Rosenberg** from 1929 to probably 1959, then by descent to Alexandre Rosenberg,
who gave it to the museum in 1975. Cleveland separately explains that the
painting was made for Rosenberg's Paris dining-room ensemble.
- Getty models Galerie Paul Rosenberg as a Group receiving title to Monet's
- The Art Institute's free-text provenance places Paul Rosenberg with
- Cleveland describes Braque's The Crystal Vase as passing from **Paul
This is dated, cross-museum story material with an identity-reconciled network.
Getty's Galerie is a Group while AIC and Cleveland name a person. The authority
gate rejects any person/group collapse even when a canonical ID is supplied. A
provisional `operated-by` relationship preserves both nodes using MoMA and Musee
d'Orsay authority context. A reproducible reconciliation run reports one
two-provider person network, one gallery-to-person bridge, zero unresolved
mentions, and zero structural decision conflicts; it does not perform historical
claim comparison or pretend the gallery and person are identical. Publication
still requires hashed excerpts proving the relationship bridge.
The latest capture now retains fresh live receipts for all three story objects:
14/14 manifest jobs completed with zero failures, including the Getty Linked Art
record, AIC object API, and Cleveland object API. The reconciliation input pins
their fetch times and SHA-256 hashes in
`artifacts/product-discovery/rosenberg-provenance-authority-input.json`; regenerate
the report with `pnpm connections:reconcile-provenance -- --input=... --check`.
The reader package in
`artifacts/product-discovery/rosenberg-reader-package-latest.json` contains the
five reader promises, three headlines, and two openings. Its executable gate is
deliberately `eligibleForDrafting: false` because no real non-specialist sessions
have been imported. This is the ethical stopping point before a full dossier.
Run genuine sessions with
`docs/product/rosenberg-package-test-field-guide.md`, then evaluate the observed
copy with `pnpm connections:package-test -- --input=... --check`. The gate also
requires opaque unique participant codes, timestamps, recorded presentation
order, and a qualitative reason so biased or untraceable rows fail closed. It
also rejects tied packages and continuation below 60%; drafting must use the
reported winning headline and opening rather than an internal preference.
The visual plan is independently fail-closed in
`artifacts/product-discovery/rosenberg-visual-rights-preflight-latest.json`.
Fresh source receipts support display of Getty's Monet image under CC0. The Art
Institute record marks the Cezanne artwork public domain but does not clearly
bind the selected IIIF surrogate to image-level CC0 terms, so it is withheld
pending a hashed policy/manifest receipt. Cleveland marks Braque's *The Crystal
Vase* copyrighted, credits ARS/ADAGP, and exposes no public image, so that asset
is also withheld and requires a labeled placeholder linked to Cleveland.
`validateConnectionVisualPreflight` rejects display without an HTTPS source,
SHA-256 receipt, alt text, attribution, rights URL, and CC0/public-domain status.
Recheck the artifact with `pnpm connections:visual-rights -- --check`.
The lead is not yet a publishable Connection. Before drafting, complete the real
package test. Before release, distinguish dealer stock, private ownership,
commission, sale, and gift roles in editorial review; recheck sequence
contradictions and release-time image rights. A shared or related name
does not prove interaction, one transaction, or a complete market history. No
scholarly-novelty, wartime-loss, restitution, title, value, or wrongdoing claim
is authorized by the current evidence.
Authoritative context sources:
- Museum of Modern Art, `The Paul Rosenberg Archives`, finding aid.
- Cleveland Museum of Art, `The Crystal Vase`, object record.
- J. Paul Getty Museum, `Still Life with Flowers and Fruit`, object/Linked Art record.
- Art Institute of Chicago, `The Basket of Apples`, object record.
- Musee d'Orsay, `Paul Rosenberg (1881-1959)`, personality authority record.
- National Gallery of Art, `Paul Rosenberg`, constituent record.
A+ exit evidence
The grade remains unearned until released stories pass the frozen rubric at
95/100 with every dimension at least 9/10, the triviality gate, five-person
non-specialist comprehension testing, the defined production engagement window,
independent assessment, rights review, and human operator release. Fixtures and
internally assigned reader-interest scores cannot satisfy these requirements.