# ADR-0011: Sightings — a Reader report defers a Poll where being wrong hurts only them

Date: 2026-08-16
Status: accepted

## Decision

A **Sighting** is what a userscript PUT already carries: the Latest Chapter the
Reader's own browser read off the Series page. It is now allowed to stand in for
a Poll, under one restriction and one ceiling:

- **Solitary Series only.** A Sighting defers the Poll of a Series exactly one
  Bookmark points at. A Series two Readers share is Polled on schedule no matter
  how recently it was sighted.
- **One rest of standing.** A Sighting postpones Polls for one Rest
  (`defaultRest`, an hour), not forever: a Series nobody visits again returns to
  the normal schedule by itself.
- **Six-hour ceiling.** `sightingCeiling = 6 * defaultRest`. However many
  Sightings arrive, a Series unpolled for six hours is Polled.

Both live in the due query's HAVING clause (`store.DueForLatestCheck`), beside
the Rest cutoff — the same place the schedule has always been decided, so no
timer and no second code path can disagree with it.

Attribution and judgement:

- `Store.RecordSighting` runs *before* the Upsert that stores the reported
  value, because the raise test needs the row as it stands. A report that raises
  the stored Latest Chapter names its Reader in `series.latest_raised_by`.
- The Poll is the oracle. `Poller.checkOne` already compares what the Site
  publishes against what is stored, so judgement costs no extra request: a lower
  number contradicts the Sighting (`sighting_disagreements + 1`, both numbers and
  the Reader logged), the same number confirms it (`sighting_agreements + 1`), a
  **higher** number is the Site publishing and means nothing either way.
- At `SightingDisagreementLimit` (3) that Reader's Sightings stop deferring
  anything. They still write the Latest Chapter — the penalty removes a
  privilege, it does not silence anyone.
- `SightingAgreementsToClear` (20) consecutive confirmations forgive the
  disagreements. A disagreement resets the run to zero.
- The owner clears marks from the administration page (issue #102, shipped
  first precisely so a false mark has a remedy the day the mechanism lands).

## Why

Most of the backend's work was redundant. The userscript reads the Latest
Chapter on every Series page visit and PUTs it; minutes later the Poll Lane
fetches the same page for the same number. Deferring on a report converts a
visit into a Poll saved, which is Lane capacity handed back to Series nobody is
reading.

The restriction is the whole safety argument, and it is about **blast radius**,
not about trust arithmetic:

- On a solitary Series, a wrong report can only mislead the Reader who made it.
  There is nobody else's ember to falsify.
- On a shared Series it could mislead someone else, so a report never postpones
  anything there.

The ceiling bounds the damage in time: a false value dies within six hours
whatever happens, because the Poll that finds it is guaranteed. That is also
what makes lying pointless — the six-hour audit is certain, not sampled, so a
determined attacker buys at most three ceilings' worth of a wrong number on
their own Series and then loses deferral entirely.

The cost of recovery is deliberate. An agreement is only recorded when a later
Poll confirms a Sighting, so twenty agreements are twenty Polls of Series that
Reader bookmarks — hours to days of real time, not twenty page views. Waiting is
therefore not a strategy, and credit cannot be banked in advance.

## Tradeoffs and rejections

- **Trusting a Sighting on a shared Series** rejected: it is the only case where
  one Reader's mistake reaches another Reader's list, and no amount of
  reputation makes that recoverable within the six-hour window.
- **Cross-Reader agreement, voting, weighting, consensus scoring** rejected: a
  single-source report cannot have its confidence evaluated by comparison, and
  with the typical two Readers a disagreement identifies nothing. The Poll is
  the only oracle in the system, so it is the only judge.
- **A randomised audit** (Poll a fraction of deferred Series) rejected in favour
  of the fixed ceiling: a sampled audit makes the attacker's expected cost a
  probability, while a ceiling makes it a certainty, and a certainty is what
  makes the solitary-Series rule defensible in one sentence.
- **Blocking a marked Reader's writes** rejected: the Latest Chapter they report
  is still the best available value, and their Sightings must keep being judged
  or they could never earn the privilege back.
- **Per-Series flagging** rejected in favour of per-Reader marks: a Series is
  not the thing that can be wrong. Naming the Reader and logging both numbers is
  also what distinguishes a broken Site adapter (every Reader of that Site
  contradicted at once) from one bad actor.
- **Timers or a background reputation job** rejected: deferral is decided from
  live facts every round — Bookmark count, sighting timestamp, the Reader's
  marks — so a Series that gains a second Bookmark stops deferring at once, with
  nothing to invalidate.

## Constraints preserved

- A Sighting is not Progress: it may move the Latest Chapter and nothing else.
  `updated_at` never moves, so a report cannot reorder the list (ADR-0004).
- The Latest Chapter is a Series-level fact (ADR-0003): a Sighting writes the
  shared row, so every Reader of a shared Series sees it immediately — deferral
  is the only thing the solitary rule withholds.
- Ember means new chapter only (`docs/design-system.md`): a marked Reader
  renders no differently in their own list, and nothing about the trust model
  reaches the Series list's colour.
- The Poll remains authoritative. Where a Sighting and a Poll disagree, the
  Poll's value is what gets stored.