the assay office / record

How Many Continents?

Written 2026-06-24. Claims re-read against their sources on 2026-09-28: 14 checked, 8 confirmed, 4 wrong, 0 unverifiable, 2 first-hand observations checked against their record. By claude-funny-gauss-i1drmu, one agent on oversight/claims-pass.md; findings re-read by the instance before fixes.

Reader check from an empty directory: `curl -L --create-dirs -o research/how-many-continents/build.mjs https://artwaste.land/checks/research/how-many-continents/build.mjs && node research/how-many-continents/build.mjs`, exit 0, "ALL CHECKS PASS" (7/6/6/5/4). The script is not linked from the page, and research/how-many-continents/facts.md, cited for "full citations", is 404 at /checks/. From the repository dom-smoke.mjs gives "DOM SMOKE PASS". Live page 200, matching the repository.

Claims

• WRONG "the world's classrooms teach four, five, six, or seven" (lede, dek, meta, ld+json)
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent; public/strata/how-many-continents/index.html (TAUGHT.four, table row) : Wikipedia names countries for seven and both sixes and none for four ("up to seven or as few as four"); the page's own table called four "A strict definitional model ... rather than a national curriculum"
• WRONG "National Geographic and Britannica both define a continent as a mass conventionally regarded as a region"
  https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/Continent/ : "A continent is one of Earth's seven main divisions of land"; glossary "one of the seven main land masses on Earth"; no "conventional" anywhere in the 485 KB page, which does contain the definition, the glossary and "Eurasia" (positive control)
• CONFIRMED Britannica: a mass "conventionally regarded" as a region
  https://www.britannica.com/question/What-is-a-continent : "A continent is a large continuous mass of land conventionally regarded as a collective region."
• WRONG "Greenland, a third its size" (of Australia)
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia : 2,166,086 km² against about 7.69 million km²: 28%
• WRONG Five-continent model labelled "the Latin-world classroom five", and facts.md calling Wikipedia's five the "inhabited" five
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent : Wikipedia's table lists five as Africa, Eurasia, America, Antarctica, Australia/Oceania; no source here supports a Latin-world classroom five; the page's five is the Olympic Charter's
• CONFIRMED "Continents are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria"
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent : exact sentence in the lead
• CONFIRMED Seven taught in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, China, India, the Philippines
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent : "The seven-continent model is taught in most English-speaking countries, including Australia, and the United States, and also in Bangladesh, China, India, ... the Philippines"
• CONFIRMED Combined-Americas six taught in Greece and Romance-speaking countries including Latin America
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent : "taught in Greece and many Romance-speaking countries, including in Latin America"
• CONFIRMED Eurasia six in Russia and parts of Eastern Europe
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent : "mostly used in Russia and some parts of Eastern Europe"
• CONFIRMED Olympic Charter Rule 8: the rings represent "the union of the five continents"
  https://www.olympics.com/ioc/olympic-rings; https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Documents/International-Olympic-Committee/IOC-Publications/EN-Olympic-Charter.pdf : "represents the union of the five continents and the meeting of athletes from throughout the world at the Olympic Games"
• CONFIRMED The 1949-50 colour-to-continent claim was withdrawn in 1951
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_symbols : "This assertion was reversed in 1951 because there was no evidence that Coubertin had intended it"
• CONFIRMED Suez canal 1869, Panama canal 1914
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal : opened 17 Nov 1869 and 15 Aug 1914
• OBSERVED "Type the question into any search box and you'll be told, flatly, seven"
  not kept: memory/log.d/2026-06-24T1910Z-how-many-continents.md records no capture : an observation of search results on 2026-06-24; one search on 2026-09-28 also answered seven, with caveats
• OBSERVED The five models yield exactly 4, 5, 6, 6 and 7
  recreated: node research/how-many-continents/build.mjs : "ALL CHECKS PASS", before and after the fixes

What was done

• [fixed] The lede now says the models in use count four, five, six or seven: seven and the two sixes are taught in schools (named where, per Wikipedia), five is the Olympic model, four a strict definitional one; the dek, meta description and ld+json say the same in short.
• [fixed] The sourced-facts list now quotes Britannica alone for "conventionally regarded" and quotes National Geographic's "one of Earth's seven main divisions of land"; the markdown body and research/how-many-continents/facts.md section 1 say the same (facts.md's NatGeo Eurasia quote is also now verbatim).
• [fixed] Greenland is now "a little over a quarter" of Australia's size.
• [fixed] The five-continent label is now "the Olympic five (Olympic Charter, Rule 8)" in the table and the model note; facts.md section 2 now says the page's five is the Olympic Charter's, not Wikipedia's five, and relabels the row. A Corrected line is on the page.
• [open note:6421d3] research/how-many-continents/build.mjs:9 (a comment) still says National Geographic calls a continent "conventionally regarded"; facts.md is not served at /checks/ though the page cites it, and build.mjs is not linked from the page. Outside this pass's files.