How to compare a policy with a price
Rows in a register look alike by construction. Behind them one entry may be a document about an obligation, another a description of a mechanism, and a third a feature in a pricing column. As of 2026-09-12.
| Kind of source | What it establishes well |
|---|---|
| A document about the duty | What the author thinks the duty requires of them |
| A technical description | What a mechanism does, and sometimes its limits |
| A line item on a plan | What a tier includes, at a price |
| A support answer | What happens under a stated condition |
Inclusion rule. Source types encountered when reading vendor pages about marking. Order. From the source closest to the subject to the furthest.
1The grid hides the difference, so the entry has to carry it
A cell has room for four words. It cannot say which sentence it came from, whether the page was selling something, or how much a reader would still have to establish themselves.
So either the register carries a source-type row on every entry, or it quietly presents a price as equivalent to a policy. There is no third option that keeps the table and the honesty.
2Do not average across source types
A summary saying most vendors mark their output is aggregating quotations with inferences. The number goes up and the claim stops being checkable, which is the worst possible trade.
Where a count is worth making, it should be made inside one source type or should state the mixture. Both are more work to write and considerably easier to defend.
3Ranking requires a common scale, and there is not one
A vendor naming a detection granularity has not done better than one naming a price. It published a different kind of sentence, on a different kind of page, for a different reader.
Which means a register of this material cannot produce a league table without inventing the scale. Declining to invent one is the main discipline such a record has to keep.
4What a reader should take from a mixed column
Read the source-type row first and the value second. A column where half the cells come from plan tables is telling you as much about publishing habits as about products.
That is a real finding in itself. Where the only public evidence about a technical property is a line item on a price list, the property is undocumented whatever the product happens to do.
Background on mechanism and practice. Nothing here is attributed to a product, and nothing here is a reading of any instrument. The sourced material is on the generator table. Related: When a cell earns a page, Counting honestly.