# Evidence and Reliability Guide Owlery is a practical sensemaking garden, not a database of universal best practices. Its reliability comes from making claims traceable, bounded, and usable. The key questions are: - Where does this idea come from? - What kind of claim is it? - How confidently should it be used? - What would be an overreach? - How should it be tested in context? ## Reliability does not mean certainty Many Owlery notes deal with complex social and organisational situations. In those situations, certainty is often false confidence. A reliable Owlery note should help people see more clearly, act more responsibly, and learn faster. It should not pretend to remove judgement. ## Use the claim type Each important note should be understood through [[Claim Types in Owlery]]. A source-grounded concept, a practice-grounded pattern, a tool, and a teaching case each have different kinds of legitimacy. ## Confidence levels Use confidence levels to show how firmly to hold a claim. - High confidence: well-supported by source lineage, repeated practice, or strong conceptual grounding. - Medium confidence: useful and coherent, but context matters and evidence may be mixed or indirect. - Low confidence: plausible, experimental, or early-stage. Use as a hypothesis. ## Source lineage Important concepts should show their lineage. A good lineage block names: - primary sources or traditions - Owlery synthesis built from them - connected notes and tools - what the concept should not be used to claim See [[Source Lineage Standards]]. ## Use with care Central concepts should include a use-with-care section when misuse is likely. This is especially important for psychological safety, complexity, motivation, social loafing, accountability, governance, system debt, metrics, and cognitive load. ## Teaching cases are not proof A field note can make a pattern vivid. It should not be treated as evidence that the pattern is generally true. Stories are useful for recognition. They are not substitutes for source lineage or observation. ## Tools are tested in use Owlery tools should be treated as safe-to-try practices. Their value is judged by whether they improve observation, decision quality, participation, learning, or flow. ## See Also - [[Claim Types in Owlery]] - [[Source Lineage Standards]] - [[Core Claims Register]] - [[Using Owlery Responsibly]] - [[Principles]] ## Counter-indicators Reliability also means knowing when not to use a frame. For central concepts and tools, add counter-indicators: conditions where the concept may be wrong, premature, unsafe, misleading, or too costly. See [[Counter Indicators and Responsible Use]]. ## Applied claim-status pass A first targeted application pass has added claim status, source lineage, Owlery synthesis, and use-with-care sections to selected load-bearing concepts. See [[Claim Status Source Lineage Application - 2026-05-27]].