Methodology
The three-color framework for evaluating evidence
Every claim in every piece of Signal Stack Research is sorted into one of three categories. The framework is intentionally simple — sophisticated frameworks are easy to game; simple frameworks are harder to fool yourself with.
- Multiple independent primary sources
- Publicly accessible documentation
- Source appropriate to the claim
- Stable over time
- Some documentation, not yet definitive
- Reasonable inference, not direct evidence
- Contested expert interpretation
- Awaiting verification or development
- Unreliable or unverifiable sourcing
- Unjustified or unfalsifiable inference
- Misread or misrepresented documents
- Refuted by primary documentation
How It's Applied
In every published piece, claims are marked explicitly or through the language used. "Documented in," "according to," "the available evidence suggests," and "I think but cannot prove" are all doing real work. Readers should pay attention to that language.
Inferences are marked as inferences. Uncertainty is named. When a claim is wrong and corrected, the correction is published.
The full method is described in How I Work, the foundational essay of The Serpent's Signal.
What This Method Refuses
Certainty without basis. If a claim is yellow, it stays yellow. Speculation is not dressed up as established fact.
Manufactured coordination claims. Patterns can be documented from the public record. Claims about coordination behind those patterns require direct evidence. The two are not the same, and the distinction is non-negotiable.
Naming individuals as bad actors without sources. If a specific person did a specific thing, the source must be available. Speculation about individuals based on inference alone is refused.
Mobilization writing. The work exists to inform, not to activate. What readers do with accurate information is their decision.
Read the Work
The method is applied across every piece published in The Serpent's Signal. Subscribe to follow along.