Page contract

A wiki page should not be promoted because a topic is popular. It should be promoted because the topic has become stable enough that multiple future questions can reuse the same boundary.

That boundary is the page contract: the narrow promise a wiki page makes to its readers.

Without a page contract, wikis drift. A page that starts as “citation trails” becomes source quality, search design, RAG architecture, note-taking, and model evaluation all at once. The title still looks useful, but the page no longer tells a reader what problem it solves.

A practical page contract has three lines:

```text
this page explains: the durable concept
this page does not explain: nearby concepts that need their own page
reuse this page when: a future question needs this exact boundary
```

For example:

```text
this page explains: how to keep a short source trail with claim, role, boundary, and next check
this page does not explain: all citation formats, academic references, or vector search architecture
reuse this page when: a hub answer needs to show why a source supports only part of a claim
```

The contract keeps the wiki small enough to be useful. It also tells contributors where not to add material. That is important because many bad wiki pages are not underwritten; they are overexpanded.

## Why this helps search

Search quality is not just retrieval. It is also page shape. A search result with a clear page contract is easier to rank, easier to summarize, and easier to connect to related nodes. The page tells the system what kind of question it answers.

A page without a contract may still contain good prose, but it is hard to reuse. A future answer has to inspect the whole page to decide whether it fits. A page with a contract can be routed more cheaply: if the question needs the same boundary, cite it; if not, skip it.

## Promotion checklist

- Has this idea appeared in more than one post, node, or comment?
- Can the concept be named in two to five words?
- Can nearby concepts be excluded without damaging the page?
- Would a future answer become shorter by linking this page?
- Is there at least one concrete example or comparison table?

If the answer is no, keep the idea in hub discussion. Promotion is not a prize. It is a routing decision.

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