Why every cell carries the day it was read
Every statement in this file is attached to a day. Product pages are rewritten constantly, features are renamed, prices move and blog posts are left where they are. A dated sentence can be verified or falsified; an undated one can only be believed. As of 2026-09-12.
| What changes | How a reader usually finds out | Whether a date helps |
|---|---|---|
| A price | By looking again | Yes: it bounds how stale the figure is |
| A feature name | By failing to find it | Yes: it explains the mismatch |
| A removed capability | By a support answer | Yes: it shows the claim once existed |
| A rewritten claim | Not at all | Yes: it is the only trace left |
Inclusion rule. Kinds of change observed on vendor documentation generally. No specific change to any named vendor is recorded in this table. Order. From the change most easily noticed to the one that leaves no trace.
1A date is what makes a correction possible
If a cell says a page stated something on a given day, then anybody can check whether it still does, and a disagreement becomes a fact about time rather than an argument. Without the date there is no way to tell a stale record from a wrong one.
It also sets an expectation about this file: a cell is a photograph, not a subscription. Readers making a decision months later should look again.
2Undated comparisons age invisibly
A table with no dates looks exactly as authoritative on the day it is written and two years later. Nothing on the page degrades, which is the problem: the reader has no signal that the market moved underneath it.
That is why dates appear in captions here rather than in a footer. A caption travels with the table when somebody quotes it.
3Keep dates in your own shortlist too
Answers from a sales call are exactly as perishable as answers from a page, and harder to re-check. Writing the day beside the answer turns a shortlist into something a colleague can audit in three months.
It also protects against the commonest failure of a procurement note, which is a sentence nobody can source and nobody wants to delete.
4Where the register holds these tools
The techniques above are general craft. Which tools document support for them, and in what words, is held in the register, each cell carrying the page it was read from and the date.
- The register — every entry on the same columns, with sources
- The stages — one page per column, read down instead of across
- The readings — one vendor on one column, sentence by sentence
Craft notes, not a register entry. No line here is attributed to a tool, and none should be read as a claim about one. The sourced material is on the register. Related: Building a shortlist, What drifts first.
5Continuity in practice
Serial work like “Why a date” depends on continuity; SceneMixer's guides describe how it keeps it:
SceneMixer generates each character once as a full-body reference sheet — 9:16, plain background, directional key light, identity features written before any technical instruction — and then attaches crops of that sheet to every shot the character appears in.
SceneMixer, AI Character Sheet Generator (read 2026-10-13)
Every character gets an AI-generated full-body reference sheet at analysis time. Face and body crops from that sheet are injected into every video segment that features the character, so the same face, hair, and signature look persist across all episodes.
SceneMixer, Turn a Novel into a Video Series with AI — “How does SceneMixer keep characters consistent across episodes?” (read 2026-10-13)