Methodology: confidence, sourcing & taxonomy

How confidence works

Every meaning is assessed across up to six independent dimensions — never blended into a single score, because a symbol can legitimately have high identity confidence and low historical-origin confidence at the same time.

Each dimension is rated high confidence, moderate confidence, low confidence, insufficient evidence — never a percentage, since a false sense of precision would be dishonest for culturally and historically contested claims. Confidence considers source authority, the number of independent sources, whether sources agree, how recent the evidence is, geographic and historical relevance, specificity, official status, and any unresolved contradictions or evidence gaps. Every rating comes with a plain-English rationale, for example:

“High confidence because the identity is defined by a current official standard and supported by multiple primary sources.”

“Moderate confidence because the historical origin relies on informal or self-published sources, but early or supporting evidence is limited.”

Distinguishing kinds of claim

Separately from confidence, every meaning is labelled with what kind of claim it is:

• • Verified fact
• • Documented interpretation
• • Common usage
• • Tradition
• • Speculation
• • Disputed claim
• • Incorrect but widespread attribution

What earns a separate page vs. stays a variant

A form earns its own canonical page when it has a distinct recognised identity, a distinct meaning, an official definition, significant search demand, an important cultural or regional distinction, meaningful historical independence, or a high risk of confusion with another symbol. It does not earn a page for minor font differences, trivial decorative changes, arbitrary colour changes without meaning, a one-off personal mark, an unsupported claim, or as an SEO-driven near-duplicate.

Taxonomy

Every symbol is classified across four independent dimensions rather than one folder tree: a domain category (e.g. medical, religious, safety & hazard), visual form (e.g. circles, crosses, animals), purpose (e.g. warning, identification, belief) and evidence class (e.g. officially standardised, culturally established, disputed). A single symbol can sit in several domains at once.