The point of record

A feed is optimized for the next item. A record is optimized for this one. Most of the web chose the feed, and it shows: work gets published the way speech happens — instantly, contextlessly, gone.

lqdb takes the other side. The unit of the system is not the post but the point: an addressable thing that either holds its shape or does not. There is no timeline to disappear down.

What makes something a record

• It has an address. Not "somewhere in the archive" — a URL that resolves.
• It has a date that does not move. Edits are allowed. Retroactive silence is not.
• It can break honestly. If a record dies, the surface says so. A dead link with a date is information; a missing row is nothing.

Why publish at all

Because a private system with no public face has no pressure on it. Publishing selected artifacts — deliberately, rarely — keeps the internal standard honest. The record either survives being seen, or it goes back through the boundary and becomes unfinished again.

Both outcomes are fine. The stream is what never enters the house.