GMEOW Evidence Module

• IRI: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/slices/evidence
• Tier: core
• Group: core

What This Slice Covers

This slice owns 35 terms and contributes 4 mapping or projection rows. Use it when its terms match the native fact you want to preserve; use the linkage tables to see how those facts leave GMEOW for consumer vocabularies.

Dependencies

• gmeow:slices/citations
• gmeow:slices/kernel

Consumers

• The claim spine's EvidenceSpan (EvidenceSpan audit machinery); evidential warrant for citations and deception analyses.

Local Map

Examples

Notability Assessment

• Source: slices/core/evidence/examples/notability-assessment.ttl
• GMEOW terms: gmeow:CitationAct, gmeow:CreativeWork, gmeow:Organization, gmeow:citationIntent, gmeow:citedEntity, gmeow:citingEntity, gmeow:coverageDepth, gmeow:coverageDepthRoutineFiling, gmeow:coverageDepthSignificantCoverage, gmeow:evidenceIndependentTradePress

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Blackcat Informatics® Inc. <paudley@blackcatinformatics.ca>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
#
# Worked example: grading citations as evidence. The evidence slice hangs
# quality dimensions on a gmeow:CitationAct (from the citations slice): its
# gmeow:hasEvidenceClass, gmeow:sourceTier (primary/secondary/tertiary),
# gmeow:sourceIndependence and gmeow:coverageDepth together decide whether the
# citation gmeow:supportsNotability. The Wikipedia-notability discrimination falls
# straight out: independent + secondary + significant coverage SUPPORTS it; a
# routine self-originated passing mention does NOT — same predicate, graded.
@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/examples/evidence/> .

ex:subject a gmeow:Organization ; gmeow:name "Acme Robotics Inc."@en .

ex:feature a gmeow:CreativeWork ; gmeow:title "Acme Robotics: the rise of a warehouse-automation contender"@en .
ex:pressRelease a gmeow:CreativeWork ; gmeow:title "Acme Robotics announces Series B"@en .

# --- Strong evidence: an independent trade-press feature with depth → supports.
#     The subject (citingEntity, generic Entity) is supported by the cited work
#     (citedEntity, a CreativeWork): gmeow:intentSupports reads "the cited work
#     supports the citing entity", and the evidence dimensions grade that support.
ex:goodCite a gmeow:CitationAct ;
    gmeow:citingEntity       ex:subject ;
    gmeow:citedEntity        ex:feature ;
    gmeow:citationIntent     gmeow:intentSupports ;
    gmeow:hasEvidenceClass   gmeow:evidenceIndependentTradePress ;
    gmeow:sourceTier         gmeow:sourceTierSecondary ;
    gmeow:sourceIndependence gmeow:sourceIndependenceIndependent ;
    gmeow:coverageDepth      gmeow:coverageDepthSignificantCoverage ;
    gmeow:supportsNotability true .

# --- Weak evidence: the subject's own press release, a passing routine notice →
#     same predicate, graded the other way: does NOT support notability.
ex:weakCite a gmeow:CitationAct ;
    gmeow:citingEntity       ex:subject ;
    gmeow:citedEntity        ex:pressRelease ;
    gmeow:citationIntent     gmeow:intentSupports ;
    gmeow:hasEvidenceClass   gmeow:evidenceSelfControlledSite ;
    gmeow:sourceTier         gmeow:sourceTierPrimary ;
    gmeow:sourceIndependence gmeow:sourceIndependenceSelfOrIssuerOriginated ;
    gmeow:coverageDepth      gmeow:coverageDepthRoutineFiling ;
    gmeow:supportsNotability false .

Terms

Classes

Properties

Individuals

Linkages

• Rows: 4
• Projection profiles: -
• External vocabularies: crminf, prov, schema

Guide

Evidence — warrant and notability, two axes that never bridge

Slice: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/slices/evidence · tier: core The evidential substrate of the citation link: how strong the evidence is, and — separately — whether it makes anything notable.

No SOTA vocabulary unifies evidential warrant with source-independence typing (Principle 1), so GMEOW does, as two orthogonal axes that travel with the evidence link (CitationAct / EvidenceSpan), never with the asserted fact. Axis A — evidential warrant: the kind and strength of evidence for a claim, an open value vocabulary (EvidenceClass) reached non-functionally — a multi-source claim legitimately carries several evidence classes at once (Principle 9). Axis B — source independence and coverage typing: four facets on the citation that feed notability assessment, not truth. The axes are explicitly orthogonal: a primary legal filing may verify a fact beyond doubt (high warrant) while establishing no notability at all (supportsNotability false). Bridged by reference to CRMinf, PROV-O, schema.org, C2PA, DataCite, nanopublications, and WP:GNG (Principle 5).

On the claim spine (Source → Chunk → EvidenceSpan → Claim, Principle 14) this slice owns the EvidenceSpan anchor — the EvidenceSpan audit machinery link from a claim back into the exact span of its source — and the warrant facets that ride on each citation edge. Weak evidence is recorded, never deleted: rumour-tier claims are suppressed by projection (Principle 10), and every eligibility decision is the solver's, not the reasoner's (Principle 12).

The spine anchor

gmeow:EvidenceSpan

An anchored target span within a resource — text quote, character position, fragment identifier, page, or generic locator. Generalised from the citation-selector model to serve both evidentiary claims (GraphRAG provenance design/EvidenceSpan audit machinery) and annotation targets (annotation target span): the citations slice's Selector specialises it, the notes slice's annotation targets reuse it, and no second selector model is ever minted (Principle 4). Re-homed to core in the slice-dependency doctrine dependency refactor because the spine anchor is core evidence machinery.

Axis A — evidential warrant

gmeow:EvidenceClass

The kind and strength of evidence supporting a claim — a value vocabulary (individuals, never subclasses), and open: a new evidence kind is data, not a schema change. Coarse tiers (evidenceVERIFIED, evidenceSELF, evidenceANECDOTAL, evidenceRUMOR) coexist with fine refinements (legal filing, public registry, independent trade press, OCR extract, family narrative, source-code archive, private correspondence…). Note the Principle 9 inflection in evidenceSELF: self-assertion is top authority for the subject's own standpoint while remaining low warrant for third-party verification — two different questions, both answered honestly.

gmeow:hasEvidenceClass

The warrant facet on a CitationAct. Non-functional by doctrine: one citation may be both a legal filing and the trade-press coverage of that filing, and competing classifications coexist rather than collapse (Principle 9).

Axis B — independence & coverage (the notability axis)

gmeow:sourceIndependence

Whether the cited source is editorially and financially independent of its subject, or self/issuer-originated (press releases, self-published sites, the subject's own filings). Range is the SourceIndependence value vocabulary. About notability eligibility, never factual truth — competing assessments from different standpoints coexist (Principle 9).

gmeow:sourceTier

The standard bibliographic tier — sourceTierPrimary / sourceTierSecondary / sourceTierTertiary (SourceTier vocabulary, cf. WP:GNG). A value vocabulary naming an evidentiary reality, not a selector privileging one co-equal claim. Non-functional: tier assessments are themselves contestable.

gmeow:coverageDepth

How deeply the source treats the subject — coverageDepthSignificantCoverage, coverageDepthPassingMention, or coverageDepthRoutineFiling (CoverageDepth vocabulary). Orthogonal to tier and independence: a secondary independent source can still mention the subject only in a list.

gmeow:supportsNotability

The explicit boolean assertion that this citation is offered as notability support, as distinct from factual verification. The keystone of the two-axis doctrine: warrant and notability never bridge automatically — a citation must be claimed as notability evidence, and competing notability assessments coexist (Principle 9).

Open-world policy & solver boundary

No existential restrictions are asserted on CitationAct: every facet here is an optional annotation on the evidence link, with closed-world enforcement left to SHACL at instance-validation time (Principles 7–8). And the question the axes exist to answer — "is this subject notable?", "is this claim adequately evidenced?" — is never answered in OWL: eligibility folds over independence × tier × depth × warrant are projection-time solver policy (Principle 12). The graph records the facets; the consumer's policy decides.

Dependencies

Depends on citations (the CitationAct the facets attach to) and kernel. Consumed by the claim spine's EvidenceSpan (EvidenceSpan audit machinery), citation warrant in every sourced slice, and the deception analyses' evidence grading.