Dubaist · Academy
What happens when sources conflict
Conflicting eligible values remain visible to editors and blocked from a single public answer.Recognize a conflict before choosing a value
A source conflict exists when two eligible evidence records make incompatible claims about the same subject, metric, period, unit and scope, or when their relationship cannot yet be established. Difference alone is not always conflict. One document may be consolidated and another standalone, one may cover a quarter and another a cumulative period, or one may use thousands while another uses millions. Those are classification differences that should remain separate. A true conflict remains after identity, date, currency, unit, reporting perimeter and fact class have been aligned. Dubaist does not resolve it by selecting the newest-looking webpage or the figure repeated by more aggregators. First, each record is preserved with its document, locator, publication date and verification state. The public projection then withholds a single answer while editors can inspect both sides. This prevents an early value from being silently overwritten and stops an unresolved discrepancy from entering calculations, comparisons or summaries. Missing context is also not resolved by guessing. If the documents cannot yet be matched to the same claim, the status remains needs confirmation rather than forcing either agreement or contradiction.
Test identity, period, scope and version
Resolution starts with a field-by-field comparison. Confirm that both records belong to the same listed security and reporting entity, not a parent, subsidiary or similarly named brand. Compare period start and end dates, quarter-only versus year-to-date status, currency, scale, unit, consolidation scope and accounting basis. Read table headings and footnotes instead of relying on a search snippet. Then identify document class and version: audited annual statements, reviewed interim statements, preliminary results, a presentation, an exchange notice and a later correction do not serve identical purposes. Capture exact locators for both. A discrepancy may disappear when one value is recognized as a segment, subtotal, continuing-operation measure or management-defined metric. It may instead reveal an issuer correction, a formal restatement, a transcription error in a secondary source or a genuine unresolved conflict between two official records. Dubaist records the proven relationship rather than normalizing everything into one row. If only part of a table was restated, the successor applies only to that affected scope. Unrelated periods and metrics retain their original evidence state.
Distinguish correction, restatement and supersession
A correction fixes an identified error in a prior publication. A restatement formally revises comparative financial information under a stated accounting or reporting basis. Supersession means a later eligible record replaces an earlier one for a defined subject and scope. These relationships require evidence; chronological order alone is insufficient. The newer document must identify the corrected, revised or replacement context, or a reviewer must establish the link from authoritative material. Dubaist keeps the original record, the successor and the relation between them. The earlier value is not deleted because users may need to understand what was available at a previous date and why a downstream analysis changed. A public successor can become current only after its own evidence and Human publication gates pass. Until then, the old public answer is not silently replaced by a private draft. For an unresolved conflict, both candidate values are withheld from a single public field. For a verified restatement, the current view can point to the successor while preserving the former record as historical. Every decision carries a rationale, reviewer and review time in an append-only audit trail.
Keep conflicts out of derived outputs
An unresolved input cannot safely support a derived fact, chart, comparison, ranking or plain-language conclusion. Dubaist therefore treats conflict as a propagation boundary. If either side of a calculation is conflicted, the result stays unavailable even when the formula itself is correct. A blank is not substituted, and an editor cannot select a convenient side merely to complete a page. Cached or fallback content must follow the same rule; a database failure cannot resurrect a value that the public projection has blocked. Related company pages can still show identity, source links and the existence of an unresolved evidence state without exposing competing numerical values. This is useful to readers and issuers because it makes the next action visible. An issuer can provide a corrected official document or precise explanation of scope. A researcher can locate a missing note or confirm whether a comparative was revised. Once new evidence arrives, it is reviewed as a new record and linked to the conflict rather than editing history in place. The boundary protects every downstream product from inheriting false certainty.
Publish the resolution with its limits
A resolution should answer five questions: what conflicted, why the records differed, which evidence is current for the defined scope, what historical record remains, and when the decision was reviewed. The public explanation should be concise, source-linked and limited to what the evidence proves. If the reason remains unknown, say so and retain the blocked state. The DEWA example on this guide is identity-only: Dubaist identifies Dubai Electricity and Water Authority as DFM ticker DEWA to demonstrate where future evidence relations would attach. It does not assert that DEWA currently has a public source conflict and reproduces no financial value. A real conflict would require two exact records and their locators before any statement appears. Readers should also distinguish resolution from interpretation. Establishing that one document formally restates another does not explain the business cause or create an investment conclusion. It establishes the evidence lineage. Corrections pages, company profiles and methodology can then link to the same decision so users receive a consistent current state while the audit history remains intact.
Identity-only issuer example
DEWA as an identity anchor, not a conflict claim
Dubaist identifies Dubai Electricity and Water Authority as DFM ticker DEWA. This example only shows where two future evidence records would attach; it asserts no current public conflict and reproduces no financial value.
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority · DFM · DEWA