Catalog triage: Criticism / Current Status sections for contested or drifting anchors

[raifdmueller]

Context

A LinkedIn discussion following the Use-Case 3.0 substitution experiment raised a fair challenge: "the semantic anchor is probably outdated and not what you are looking for." This issue answers that with a count instead of a guess: a full triage of all 161 anchors by staleness risk.

Positioning decision behind this issue: the catalog is a lexicon, not a list of endorsements. Inclusion means "this term works as a precise pointer to a dense prior" — it does not mean "we recommend this practice." Like a dictionary, the catalog may carry contested or aging entries, but it must mark them. That marking is exactly what a raw search result cannot give you.

Proposed convention

Two optional sections per anchor, appended after the existing content:

1. == Criticism — the method itself is contested. Only named, citable critique (author + source), never vibes like "nobody uses this anymore". The existing section in myers-briggs-type-indicator.adoc ("Limitations and Criticisms") is the template.
2. == Current Status — the method stands, but the dense prior and the present have drifted apart: a newer edition exists, a successor emerged, or adoption faded. Where edition drift is likely, the section names the edition the prior probably points to (e.g. "expect the OWASP Top 10 2021 list; name the edition explicitly if you want 2025").

Rules:

• Citable sources only. Each claim names its critic/source.
• The section reports the discourse; it does not adjudicate.
• Both EN and DE files get the section in the same PR.
• Anchors without documented critique or drift get no section — an empty obligatory section on ~112 anchors would be noise.

Triage result

Classification axes: T timeless (logic/rhetoric/statistics/narrative — cannot drift) · C canonical (pinned to a book/paper — referentially frozen) · V versioned/living artifact (editions matter) · Y young/thin prior (substitution risk, the Use-Case-3.0 failure mode).

Class	Count	Flagged for a section
T timeless	24	0
C canonical	113	29 (23 Criticism incl. 1 done, 6 Current Status)
V versioned/living	15	12 Current Status (3 are frozen specs)
Y young/thin prior	8	8 Current Status
meta (catalog-owned)	1	0
Total	161	49 (48 to write, MBTI done)

So: 112 of 161 anchors (~70 %) cannot silently rot — they are timeless or canonical without documented contestation. The other ~30 % get an explicit marker. Nothing gets removed.

A. Criticism candidates (method contested — 22 + 1 done)

Anchor	Why (citable hook)
myers-briggs-type-indicator	✅ already has the section — serves as template
4mat	learning-styles matching lacks empirical support (Pashler et al. 2008)
aida-model	linear-funnel model criticized as oversimplified in modern marketing literature
cap-theorem	widely misapplied; Kleppmann, "Please stop calling databases CP or AP"
clean-architecture	documented critique of layering cost and indirection overhead
cqrs	author-acknowledged overuse warnings (Fowler, Young)
dry	misapplication discourse; Sandi Metz, "The Wrong Abstraction"
five-whys	single-root-cause fallacy documented in quality literature
freytags-pyramid	applicability beyond classical drama contested in narratology
gof-design-patterns (overview)	Norvig: many patterns are missing language features, absorbed by modern languages
gof-singleton-pattern	widely documented as anti-pattern (global state, testability)
gutes-deutsch-wolf-schneider	prescriptivism contested in linguistics; parts of the advice considered dated
heros-journey	monomyth universality academically contested
jobs-to-be-done	two rival schools (Christensen vs. Ulwick) — which one does the prior serve?
kotter-8-step-change-model	academic critique: linear, top-down, thin evidence base
mvp	term dilution widely documented; competing definitions (Ries vs. Blank vs. colloquial)
plain-english-strunk-white	Pullum, "50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice" — the EN parallel to Wolf Schneider
postels-law	RFC 9413 documents harmful consequences of the robustness principle
red-green-tdd	famously contested (DHH "TDD is dead", Coplien/Martin debates)
save-the-cat	criticized as formula driving screenplay sameness
solid-principles (overview)	documented contestation (Ousterhout; Dan North's CUPID)
swot	Hill & Westbrook 1997, "SWOT analysis: It's time for a product recall"
testing-pyramid	actively contested (Testing Trophy — Kent C. Dodds; honeycomb — Spotify)

B. Current Status candidates (edition / adoption / prior drift — 20)

Anchor	Class	Why
owasp-top-10	V	prior likely points at the 2021 edition, not 2025
iso-25010	V	2023 revision (adds Safety) vs. 2011; prior likely 2011
madr	V	template format 2.x vs. 4.x; prior likely the old format
effective-go	V	living doc; the Go team itself notes it predates generics
github-flow	V	GitHub's own description changed over the years
iec-61508-sil-levels	V	edition-bound standard
linddun	V	evolving framework (LINDDUN GO etc.)
site-reliability-engineering	V	practice evolved beyond the 2016/2018 books
c4-diagrams	V	living definition, c4model.com evolves
arc42	V	living template, versioned (conceptually stable)
diataxis-framework	V	living site (core stable)
sota	V	inherently cutoff-bound — "state of the art" is time-indexed by definition
blooms-taxonomy	C	revised taxonomy (Anderson/Krathwohl 2001) vs. original 1956 — two priors
cockburn-use-cases	C	successor exists (Jacobson's Use-Case 2.0); 3.0 prior is thin — the origin of this issue
fowler-patterns (PEAA)	C	the author's own retrospectives mark parts as dated
fagan-inspection	C	largely superseded by modern lightweight code review
crc-cards	C	technique rarely practiced today; definition unaffected
bem-methodology	C	CSS practice shifted (utility-first, CSS-in-JS); BEM itself stable
chain-of-thought	Y	fast-moving LLM research; faithfulness debates
llm-evaluations	Y	fastest-moving entry in the catalog

C. Young/thin priors (substitution risk — note in Current Status — 6)

Anchor	Why
lasr	recent book; thin prior — candidate for a substitution experiment like Use-Case 3.0
gom	German-academic niche (Becker/Rosemann/Schütte); thin prior internationally
iosp	German clean-code scene; thin prior internationally
meaningful-human-control	young research concept (Santoni de Sio / van den Hoven 2018+)
todotxt-flavoured-markdown	niche convention; thin prior
docs-as-code (according to RDM)	the "according to" qualifier already pins it — verify content self-containment, else no action

D. No action needed — 112 anchors (click to expand)

Timeless (24): bluf, control-chart-shewhart, conways-law, decisional-balance-sheet, devils-advocate, feynman-technique, fichtean-curve, first-principles-thinking, goodharts-law, hemingway-bridge, inverted-pyramid-style, kishotenketsu, kiss-principle, mece, morphological-box, nelson-rules, occams-razor, regulated-environment, socratic-method, spc, ssot-principle, three-act-structure, what-would-chuck-norris-do, xy-problem

Canonical, uncontested (84): adr-according-to-nygard, atam, bdd-given-when-then, code-smells, cohesion-criteria, cynefin-framework, definition-of-done, domain-driven-design, double-diamond, ears-requirements, event-driven-architecture, event-storming, fallacies-of-distributed-computing, gof-abstract-factory-pattern, gof-adapter-pattern, gof-bridge-pattern, gof-builder-pattern, gof-chain-of-responsibility-pattern, gof-command-pattern, gof-composite-pattern, gof-decorator-pattern, gof-facade-pattern, gof-factory-method-pattern, gof-flyweight-pattern, gof-interpreter-pattern, gof-iterator-pattern, gof-mediator-pattern, gof-memento-pattern, gof-observer-pattern, gof-prototype-pattern, gof-proxy-pattern, gof-state-pattern, gof-strategy-pattern, gof-template-method-pattern, gof-visitor-pattern, grasp, gtd, hexagonal-architecture, hoshin-kanri, impact-mapping, invest, kano-model, law-of-demeter, lehmans-classification, luhmann-system-theory, mental-model-according-to-naur, mikado-method, moscow, mutation-testing, para-method, pert, prd, problem-space-nvc, property-based-testing, pugh-matrix, pyramid-principle, quality-attribute-scenario, simon-constructivism, single-level-of-abstraction-principle, solid-dip, solid-isp, solid-lsp, solid-ocp, solid-srp, spike-solution, story-circle-dan-harmon, stride, systemic-consulting, tdd-chicago-school, tdd-london-school, test-double-dummy, test-double-fake, test-double-meszaros, test-double-mock, test-double-spy, test-double-stub, thin-vertical-slice, timtowtdi, tracer-bullet, user-story-mapping, vertical-slice-architecture, walking-skeleton, wardley-mapping, yagni

Versioned but frozen (3): conventional-commits (v1.0.0 since 2020), semantic-versioning (2.0.0 since 2013), gherkin (stable)

Catalog-owned (1): what-qualifies-as-a-semantic-anchor

Suggested next steps

1. Batch 1 (highest signal): the anchors with famous, one-source-citable critique — gof-singleton-pattern, testing-pyramid, swot, plain-english-strunk-white, gutes-deutsch-wolf-schneider, postels-law, red-green-tdd, cap-theorem, five-whys, solid-principles. Research + Criticism section, EN + DE, one PR.
2. Batch 2 (edition drift): owasp-top-10, iso-25010, madr, effective-go, blooms-taxonomy, cockburn-use-cases — Current Status sections naming the likely prior edition.
3. Batch 3: the rest of tables A–C.
4. Add one sentence to About/Contributing stating the lexicon positioning ("inclusion = precision, not endorsement").
5. Optional follow-up experiment: test the table-B anchors across models — which edition does the prior actually serve? (Same protocol as the Use-Case 3.0 experiment.)

Classifications are judgment calls — corrections welcome before the batches start.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[raifdmueller]

Batch 1 merged (#604): Criticism sections (EN + DE) on GoF Singleton, Testing Pyramid, SWOT, Plain English (Strunk & White), Gutes Deutsch (Wolf Schneider), Postel's Law, Red/Green TDD, CAP Theorem, Five Whys, and SOLID Principles. All 20 cited source links were fetched and content-verified; two dead hosts were replaced (Hevery → Google Testing Blog cross-post, Coplien → Internet Archive) and two publication years corrected (Dodds 2019, Coplien 2013).

Process note for batches 2–3: verify links by fetching them before committing, not as an afterthought.

Next up: Batch 2 — Current Status sections for the edition-drift candidates (owasp-top-10, iso-25010, madr, effective-go, blooms-taxonomy, cockburn-use-cases).

[raifdmueller]

Batch 2 merged (#605): Current Status sections (EN + DE) on owasp-top-10, iso-25010, madr, effective-go, blooms-taxonomy, and cockburn-use-cases — each naming what is current, which edition the training-data prior most plausibly serves, and how to disambiguate in prompts. All sources fetch-verified by parallel research agents before commit.

Notable ground-truth finding: the official Use Case 3.0 ebook exists (Ivar Jacobson International, de Mendonca & Jacobson, v1.0, June 2024) — the correct framing everywhere is now "exists since 2024, thin prior", not "does not exist".

Also merged in #605: the contribution convention — every new anchor proposal includes a criticism / edition-drift research step (CONTRIBUTING EN+DE, anchor template, CLAUDE.md checklist).

Remaining: Batch 3 — the rest of tables A–C (~26 anchors), plus the lexicon-positioning sentence for the About page.

[raifdmueller]

Batch 3 merged (#606): Criticism sections (EN + DE) on the remaining 12 contested anchors — all 23 Criticism candidates from the triage are now done. Batch 4 (final) starts now: the remaining 14 Current Status candidates, the 6 thin-prior notes, and the About-page lexicon-positioning sentence.