What is an evidence level?
Verbasil never says "this is true". It says "here is how many times I have seen it, and where". The evidence level is that counter, made visible.
The scale
| Evidence | Level | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Isolated observation | Seen once. Worth watching, not concluding from. |
| 2 | Weak observation | Seen twice. It could be coincidence. |
| 3 to 4 | Emerging observation | Something is taking shape. |
| 5 to 9 | Reliable observation | It recurs enough to lean on. |
| 10 or more | Strong observation | It is established in your memory. |
Why this beats a confidence score
A confidence score produced by a model is verifiable by nobody. A number of pieces of evidence is: every observation opens the list of items supporting it, with their sources. You can go back to the original email, meeting note or memo and judge for yourself.
That is the difference between a tool that asserts and a tool that shows.
What moves an observation up
Nothing automatic: it takes new material about the same thing. An isolated observation stays isolated until another item corroborates it, even if it happens to be right.
This is why variety of sources matters more than volume: five write-ups of the same meeting are not five pieces of evidence of a recurrence, they describe one moment.
Didn't work?
- Everything sits at "isolated". The memory is still young: there is not enough material for anything to corroborate anything. See What should I import.
- An observation looks wrong despite its evidence. Open its evidence and read the sources. If they do not say what the observation claims, the extraction went astray, and you can correct it.
- A true observation stays low. That is normal and not a problem. The level measures recurrence inside your memory, not truth about the world.
FAQ
Can a strong observation be wrong?
Yes. Ten pieces of evidence mean ten items point the same way, not that the world is that way. If all ten come from one customer, you have a strong observation about that customer, not about your market.
Can I force a level?
No, deliberately. A counter you can set by hand stops counting anything. What you can do is bring material, or correct a bad extraction.
Can a level go down?
Yes, if evidence is removed, for instance when you delete a source or fix an extraction.