Internal page. Set to No Index in super.so. This is operational history, not reader content.

What this is

An append-only log of significant work on wiki.paulmaxwell.dev. Newest entries at the top. Each entry captures (a) what changed, (b) why it changed, (c) any decisions worth carrying forward. The companion to this page is Wiki Working Memory & Plan — that page tracks what is in flight; this page records what is done.

Entry format

Each entry uses this skeleton:

## YYYY-MM-DD — short session label
**Goal.** One sentence on what the session set out to do.
**Done.** Concrete artifacts created or edited (page names, counts, ranges).
**Decisions.** Anything codified that will affect future work.
**Open at end of session.** The unfinished thread and the question the next session needs to answer.

Keep entries tight. Anything that grows to more than ~250 words probably belongs in its own Story, ADR, or Working Memory section instead.

2026-05-31 (evening) — Pre-Socratic Tradition (Thread E.1.1)

Goal. Begin executing Thread E (coverage closure) under the new 101-level + AEO standards. Start with the highest-leverage missing tradition page.

Done.

• Pre-Socratic Philosophy Tradition page drafted (~3,200 words). Covers founding moment (Thales, c. 585 BCE eclipse prediction), five shared commitments (naturalistic explanation, search for archē, monism vs pluralism, being vs becoming, logos vs myth), six groupings (Milesians, Pythagoreans, Eleatics, Heraclitus, pluralists, atomists, Sophists), the fragment tradition (Diels–Kranz, Laks–Most Loeb, Graham), four contemporary debate areas with named scholars (Curd, Graham, Osborne, Mourelatos, Palmer, Kerferd, Schiappa, Barney, Burkert, West), the modern reception arc through Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger.
• Written under new standards: definition-first opening sentence, ~80–140-word standalone first paragraph, plain canonical section headings, in-line primary-source citation with year (e.g., Metaphysics 983b6–27), proper-noun anchoring instead of pronouns, no decorative characters, lists for groups of three or more.
• Closes five dangling Figure references (Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Democritus) by giving them a tradition home.

Decisions.

• Slug is pre-socratic, not pre-socratic-philosophy — cleaner under /traditions/ prefix and matches how the schema Era option is named.
• The Sophists are included in the page despite Plato's hostility to them, following Diels–Kranz and the Oxford Handbook convention.

Open at end of session.

• Page in Draft. Needs Paul's review before promotion to In Review.
• Thread E.1 has five Tradition pages remaining: Skepticism, Cynicism, Epicureanism, Continental, Postmodernism.
• Several forward-references in the page (the Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Xenophanes Figures; the Epicureanism, Skepticism Traditions) will resolve as Thread E proceeds.

2026-05-31 (late afternoon) — AEO infrastructure + 101-level standards + llms.txt

Goal. Codify three Paul-priorities into the wiki's persistent standards: (1) every page must be 101-level foundational so a cold reader can pick up anywhere; (2) the wiki competes with Wikipedia and SEP on SEO/AEO/GEO; (3) solve the super.so + llms.txt + robots.txt problem.

Done.

• 101-level foundational requirement added to Quality Standards as a new section. Define-before-use, link prerequisites, first paragraph standalone, no over-assumption.
• AEO / GEO / LLM-ingestion requirements added to Quality Standards. Lead with definition, first paragraph as self-contained micro-article, plain canonical section headings, in-line primary-source citation with named work + year, proper-noun anchoring, lists for groups, no decorative characters.
• llms.txt source page created under wiki hub at 🤖 llms.txt (source). Formatted per Jeremy Howard's llms.txt convention. Covers Traditions, key Figures, Pillar Concepts, canonical Publications, with one-line descriptions for AI ingestion.
• Thread F opened in Working Memory documenting the super.so dashboard steps Paul needs to take to serve /llms.txt, configure robots-equivalent meta tags, and set up AI-crawler directives. Includes maintenance cadence.

Decisions.

• The Pre-Socratic Tradition (top item in Thread E priority queue) was deferred to the next session so it can be written under the new 101 + AEO standards rather than written under old standards and rewritten.
• The llms.txt source page is internal to Notion (No Index in super.so) but its rendered content should be served at the canonical /llms.txt URL via a super.so rewrite or slug exception. Implementation steps documented in Thread F.
• Default recommendation for AI-crawler meta tags is index,follow for all named bots (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, etc.) unless Paul opts out. This wiki's primary acquisition channel includes AI answer engines.

Open at end of session.

• Super.so dashboard configuration (URL rewrite for /llms.txt, code injection for robots-equivalent meta tags) requires Paul to act outside Notion. Steps documented in Thread F.
• Pre-Socratic Tradition + remainder of Thread E now queued under the new standards.

2026-05-31 (afternoon) — Natural Theology + Theodicy Pillar pages

Goal. Close the natural-theology cluster started 2026-05-30 by adding the parent (Natural Theology) and the missing Problem-of-Evil companion (Theodicy).

Done.

• Natural Theology Pillar concept drafted, target ~2,800 words. Frames the discipline, runs the five argument families (cosmological, ontological, design, moral, religious experience), surveys methodological positions (demonstrative / probabilistic / reformed-epistemological), the three canonical critiques (Hume, Kant, Barth), and contemporary engagement anchored in Plantinga, Swinburne, Craig, Feser, Collins, Oppy, Schellenberg, Sudduth.
• Theodicy Pillar concept drafted, target ~2,900 words. Distinguishes theodicy from defense, runs the four canonical theodicies (Augustinian privation + free will, Leibnizian best-of-all-possible-worlds, Plantinga's free-will defense, Hick's soul-making), and the contemporary disputes (skeptical theism, anti-theodicy, horrendous evils). Anchored in Stump, Adams, van Inwagen, Hick, Plantinga, Hasker, Draper, Oppy.
• Both written under the Quality Standards: descriptive section headings, named living scholars + critical editions + journals, no filler modifiers, reference voice throughout, italic closing summary.

Decisions.

• Chose Thread C (Pillar Concepts) over Thread B (Publications) for this session because the natural-theology cluster was half-built (Ontological / Cosmological / Problem of Evil already live) and closing existing clusters compounds cross-link density faster than opening new ones.
• Both pages tagged Philosophy + Deconversion in the Pillar multi-select; neither warrants Career.

Open at end of session.

• Three Pillar concepts remain queued in Thread C: Principle of Sufficient Reason, Argument from Design, Divine Hiddenness.
• Pages created in Draft status; need Paul to promote to In Review after read.

2026-05-31 — Changelog and working-memory scaffolding

Goal. Stand up the persistent planning surface (changelog + working memory) so future sessions don't restart from zero in the model's context window.

Done.

• Created this Wiki Changelog page under the wiki hub.
• Created Wiki Working Memory & Plan page under the wiki hub.
• Confirmed that the CLAUDE.md role is split across two existing pages: Directions for Claude (Wiki Operations Manual) for conventions and Quality Standards for Claude for the writing bar. No third operations doc needs to be created.
• Inventoried current wiki totals (carried forward from the prior session's report): 17 Traditions · 40 Figures · 47 Concepts · 47 Publications. To be verified against the live databases at the start of the next session.

Decisions.

• The changelog lives under the wiki hub (PaulMaxwell.dev parent page), not inside the Ops Manual, so it can grow without bloating the manual.
• The Working Memory page is the canonical scratchpad. Future sessions should read it before planning and update it before declaring work done. The model is not the source of truth; Notion is.

Open at end of session.

• The publication-vs-pillar-concept question from the prior session is still on the table: continue Publications (Principia Mathematica, Begriffsschrift, Reformation-era texts) or pivot to remaining Pillar Concepts. See Working Memory § Active threads for the current resolution.

2026-05-31 (earlier) — Substantial cleanup + secondary-depth publications

Goal. Apply the new Quality Standards across pages already shipped, then add canonical secondary-depth publications under the new bar.

Done.

• Six pattern-replacements applied across 10 pages to strip the filler modifier substantial(ly): Marxism, Utilitarianism, Critical Theory, Phenomenology, Islamic Philosophy, Crisis of European Sciences, Myth of Sisyphus, Pragmatism (James), Logical Investigations, Tractatus, Philosophical Investigations.
• Six new Publications added at secondary depth under the Quality Standards: Democracy and Education (Dewey, 1916), Foundations of Arithmetic (Frege, 1884), The Problems of Philosophy (Russell, 1912), How to Make Our Ideas Clear (Peirce, 1878), Itinerarium Mentis in Deum (Bonaventure, 1259), Decisive Treatise (Averroes, ~1180).
• New pages anchored in named contemporary scholars (Cheryl Misak, Michael Dummett, Christopher Cullen, Charles Butterworth, Crispin Wright, Robert Westbrook) and named critical editions (Quaracchi, Husserliana, Hourani, Beaney's Frege Reader).

Decisions.

• Reference-not-edification voice is now the enforced default. Reader-addressing tags (For Career:, For Deconversion:) are banned in body content.
• Section headings are descriptive, not on-the-nose. Introduction, Founding moment, Core doctrines — never Hook, Why it matters, The big idea.

Open at end of session.

• Continue Publications (Tractatus-era companions: Principia Mathematica, Begriffsschrift, Carnap; Reformation-era texts) or pivot to remaining Pillar Concepts. Carried forward to next session.

Operational note. Notion's UI was misrouting display content during this session — response bodies sometimes showed unrelated RevOps page content — but the page_id field in each update response matched the intended targets. Edits landed correctly. Flag if recurring.

2026-05-30 — Pillar argument pages and tabula rasa

Goal. Add the three classical theistic argument pages and one foundational empiricist concept.

Done.

• Ontological Argument Pillar concept drafted (Anselm → Descartes → Plantinga arc; modal versions named).
• Cosmological Argument Pillar concept drafted (Leibniz framed via principle of sufficient reason; kalam, Thomistic, and Leibnizian variants distinguished).
• Problem of Evil Pillar concept drafted (Augustinian theodicy → Aquinas's Aristotelian integration → Leibniz → contemporary engagement).
• Tabula Rasa Satellite concept drafted, anchored to the empiricist tradition through Locke.

Decisions.

• Pillar concepts are written with named contemporary disputants in Live debates — not abstract "contemporary scholarship."

Open at end of session.

• Several adjacent Pillar concepts remain: Principle of Sufficient Reason, Theodicy (as distinct from Problem of Evil), Argument from Design. Logged to Working Memory queue.

2026-05-29 — Quality Standards doc + Marxism rewrite

Goal. Codify the writing bar Paul implicitly raised in critique, then apply it to one large pillar page as proof.

Done.

• Created Quality Standards for Claude under the wiki hub. Captures: reference voice, banned filler list (substantial / significantly / clearly / etc.), descriptive section headings, word-count bands per tier, scholarship requirements (named living scholars, critical editions, journals), self-review checklist.
• Rewrote Marxism tradition page against the new bar.

Decisions.

• The standards page is read-before-write for every future session.
• Word-count bands are structural, not aspirational: Pillar concepts 2,000–3,500; Traditions 3,000–4,500; Figures 2,500–3,500; canonical Publications 2,500–3,500; secondary Publications 1,800–2,500.

Open at end of session.

• Apply the bar retroactively to existing pillar pages (begun the next day).

2026-05-25 — Operations Manual + Content Strategy

Goal. Codify the conventions the wiki had implicitly grown into so non-Paul agents could contribute without breaking the site.

Done.

• Directions for Claude (Wiki Operations Manual) drafted under the wiki hub. Captures: seven-database model, slug rules, field-type conventions (Year as Number, Date as Date, with Year Notes for fuzzy ancient dates), Status workflow, Pillar/Satellite tiers, voice and writing rules, page templates by DB, CTA insertion rules, internal-linking minimums, SEO and LLM optimization, super.so publishing gotchas, worked example for adding a Concept, escalation rules, and database IDs.
• Content Strategy — SEO + LLM + Monetization doc drafted. Pairs wiki pages with the PaulMaxwell.Dev Videos plan — every video gets a deeper paired wiki page.

Decisions.

• Reader-facing pages live in one of seven databases. No new top-level databases without approval.
• Slugs are permanent once published. No renames; only new pages with redirects if absolutely necessary.
• The Hook field (DB property) is the meta description. The in-page section is Introduction, never Hook.

Open at end of session.

• Quality bar not yet codified — drafted four days later as the Quality Standards doc.

Append new entries at the top under the most-recent date. Do not edit historical entries except to fix factual errors; if a decision is reversed, log the reversal as a new entry rather than rewriting the old one.