JesseMarkowitzandClaude Opus 5.5
3a4758172d
Fourteen corpora split and classified: aesop, bierce, chekhov, holmes, keefe, lawson, lorimer, maupassant, nobody, plaintales, poe, torchy, wallingford and winesburg, each with its splitter and the hand-written groups and pages; catalogue v2 and v3; and the shared splitters gutenberg_chunks.py, se_split.py and se_build.py. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_019rwKTmug58sEsJ72AuWsEi
151 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
151 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
# Wallingford reference set: *Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford* (1908)
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A hand-made comparison baseline for the story-to-pack pipeline, a sibling of the Jacobs set in
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`../jacobs/` and the Bierce set in `../bierce/`. Claude read every scene and wrote each summary,
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predicament, group and option. **No local inference was used.** Compare the local-model runs against it.
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Do not treat it as ground truth: it is one careful reading.
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| File | What it is |
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| --- | --- |
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| `corpus/get-rich-quick-wallingford.txt` | Project Gutenberg #37010, George Randolph Chester |
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| `split_gutenberg.py` | → `stories.json` (28 chapters, one "story" each) and `chunks.json` (334 scenes, same 320-word paragraph rule as `../chunk.py`) |
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| `dump.py` | `python3 dump.py A B` prints scenes A..B for reading (copied from Jacobs) |
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| `claude/batches/sNN.json` | per chapter: `{chunk, story, summary, predicament}`, the same schema as `../jacobs/claude/batches/` |
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| `claude/groups_src.py` | the schemes (`ARCS`), the groups, options and protagonist standing; `python3 groups_src.py` prints the scheme-level recurrence check |
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| `claude/build.py` | checks everything, then writes `claude/records.json` and `claude/groups.json` (unchanged from Jacobs) |
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| `claude/page.py` | → `claude/REFERENCE.html`, the readable page (Jacobs' page with the title and heading changed) |
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Rebuild: `python3 split_gutenberg.py && cd claude && python3 build.py && python3 page.py && python3 groups_src.py`.
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## What is in it
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- **334 predicaments**: one sentence each (median 21 words, min 16, max 24), written to the
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`redescribe.py` rules: no names, jobs, titles, places or story-only objects. A carpet tack is "a
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trivial product", a patent is "legal protection", a traction line is "the great enterprise". The
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predicament is written from whichever side of the scheme the scene centres on, the schemer's or the
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target's. The `topic_words` leak check flags 141 of 334. Almost all are role words (partner 67,
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employee 17, rival, newcomer, employer, host, guest, widow, clerk), kept on purpose because the
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design's cast is roles. The rest are generic: *house*, *dinner*, *room*, *lunch*, *party* (as in a
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travelling party), *station* (social station), *court* and *judge* (as verbs), *stage* (a stage set).
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- **22 groups**, each a situation that recurs in **three or more schemes** (see below). Each scene sits
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in at most one group: **191 are assigned and 143 fit nothing that recurs**. All 28 chapters and all
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six schemes feed at least one group.
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- **Options**: 4 or 5 per group (12 have 5, 10 have 4), 100 in all. 89 come from what someone in a
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scene did or refused to do (`scene:N`), 6 are archetypes and 5 fill gaps. **11 scene options cite a
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scene outside their own group**, and `groups.json` marks each one `in_group: false`. As in Bierce,
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most are a neighbouring scene where the character acts, or a scene held by a sibling group (the
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old man who cashes out, scene 278, is both the lone sceptic and an option in the speculative fever).
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- **Moves**: spine paths with a direction only (`+`, `-`, `risk`, `set`), no magnitudes. `money` is
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moved 59 times and `standing` 41, against Bierce's 9 and 65. This is the first reference set where
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money carries the weight. Relationship roles are generic (`partner`, `investors`, `promoter`,
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`creditor`, `neighbours`, `newcomer`, `old_friend`, `bosses`, `victims` and others), and flags record
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what the player did (`living_on_credit`, `bill_outstanding`, `bought_in`, `mortgaged`, `complicit`,
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`sold_out`, `bad_check`, `went_straight`).
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- **Skills** proposed for this corpus: `charm`, for the front that makes people trust, lend and give
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credit, and `cunning`, for paper tricks, reading a contract and seeing the catch. Jacobs' `nerve` fits
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less well: the swindler is a physical coward and wins on bearing, not courage.
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- **Stage** comes from protagonist standing, **judged per scheme** and recorded per chapter in `STANDING`
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(`build.py` expects chapter keys). The swindler arrives nearly penniless among small savers (tacks:
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low), runs two mid-sized schemes (insurance, recorder: middle), becomes the great man of a town and
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then of a farmers' movement (traction, wheat: high), and ends broke among cigar-shop keepers (cigars:
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low). The groups come out 8 low, 7 middle and 7 high.
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## Schemes and scheme-level recurrence
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The book is a novel in linked episodes, not a story collection, so the unit for recurrence is the
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**scheme**, not the chapter. A situation seen in three chapters of one scheme has not recurred.
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`ARCS` in `groups_src.py` maps each chapter to one of six schemes, read from the text. The chapter
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titles suggest about seven; the seventh would be the honeymoon trip of chapter 17, but that only
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strands the swindler in the town of the traction scheme, so it belongs there.
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| Scheme | Chapters | Scenes (after overrides) | What happens |
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| --- | --- | --- | --- |
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| `tacks` | 0-6 | 83 | A company floated on a worthless covered carpet tack, sold to a careful clerk and his lodge friends |
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| `insurance` | 7-10 | 40 | A fraternal insurance order turned into a stock sale to its own members, a widow included |
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| `recorder` | 11-16 | 62 | A real inventor's machine and his friends' savings, sold behind their backs to the monopoly |
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| `traction` | 17-20 | 61 | A town lured into a land boom by a traction line never meant to be built |
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| `wheat` | 21-24 | 44 | A farmers' association that holds wheat for $1.50 and is steered into buying the promoter out |
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| `cigars` | 25-27 | 44 | A consolidation of small cigar shops, the last scheme, which lands the swindler in jail |
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Four chapters open or close on the neighbouring scheme, so `ARC_OVERRIDE` moves 15 scenes: 78-82 (the
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tack takings, spent and lost at the start of chapter 7) to `tacks`; 120-122 (the insurance takings, at
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the start of chapter 11) to `insurance`; 244-245 (the traction line sold for real, at the start of
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chapter 21) to `traction`; 290-294 (the cigar shop where the next scheme starts, at the end of chapter
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24) to `cigars`.
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**Rule**, applied per group: at least 5 scenes, at least 3 schemes, no scheme over 50% of the group.
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**All 22 groups pass.** 4 groups span 3 schemes, 10 span 4, 5 span 5 and 3 span 6. Seven sit exactly at
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the 50% ceiling (G01, G02, G06, G07, G14, G19, G21): each is a situation one scheme dramatises at
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length and the others touch briefly. Membership was trimmed to reach the ceiling; nothing above it was
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kept. Measured by chapter instead, as `build.py` reports, every group spans at least three chapters,
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which overstates recurrence for a novel. That is why the scheme count is the one to use.
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## Against the catalogue
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The v2 catalogue has 82 entries (`../catalogue/v2/catalogue_v2_src.py`). Money and deals, the thinnest
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area for a career game, are this book's whole subject.
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**Eleven groups match an existing entry.** Seven match closely: G08 partners who mean to cheat each
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other (`your_scheme`, as Jacobs G06), G11 charmed out of your doubts (`sure_thing`), G12 the lone
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sceptic (`against_the_verdict`), G13 cornered by the people you cheated (`caught_out`), G16 courting the
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rich newcomer (`patron`), G18 learning what your partner really does (`what_they_hid`) and G20 an old
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accomplice in trouble (`plea_for_help`). **Four sharpen an entry** rather than duplicate it, and could
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become sub-entries or widen its `includes`:
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- G01 **keeping up a front of wealth on credit** sharpens `pretence`: the front is not vanity but the
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thing that raises the money.
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- G03 **a share in something that does not exist yet** sharpens `sure_thing`: the decision is the fear
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of being left out of a paper venture, not trusting a stranger. With G11 this book gives `sure_thing`
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two distinct sides.
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- G07 **working inside a crooked business** sharpens `compromise_for_money`: you are already on the
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payroll when you understand it, and the options run from silence to staying on to rebuild it.
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- G09 **out-swindled by someone you trusted** sharpens `outmatched`: the sharper one is the placid broker
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or the mark you despised.
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**Eleven are new situation types**:
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- **Raising money:** G04 raising money on a promise you cannot keep; G19 buying in with nothing (paying for
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a full share with a note or a postdated check); G10 let in on the inside (a mark made a partner).
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- **Holding money:** G02 the bill is due and you cannot pay; G06 sunk in, and asked for more; G14 wiped out;
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G22 selling out before the crash.
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- **Markets and rivals:** G05 a town caught in a speculative fever; G15 small against the giant.
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- **Going straight:** G17 a partner who wants to go straight; G21 the sham turns out to be real.
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All nine situations the brief asked about were found and recur across schemes: raising money on a
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promise (G04), a share in what does not exist (G03), the employee who sees it is crooked (G07), the
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partner who wants to go straight (G17), the mark who becomes a partner (G10), the scheme that becomes a
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real business (G21), out-swindled by a supposed mark (G09), a front of wealth on credit (G01, with G02)
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and a speculative fever (G05).
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## How this corpus differs
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It is **one book**, the case DESIGN.md calls hard ("one long novel is the hard case and is not the
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target"). It works better than that warning suggests because the book is built as six near-repeats of
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one plot: arrive broke, look rich, find marks, float a venture, sell out, leave. The same situations
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come round in every scheme, seen from new angles, so recurrence across schemes is real, not an artefact
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of chapter splitting. The cost is **cast concentration**. One schemer, his wife and his confederate are
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in almost every scene, so groups like G17 and G18 are one marriage seen six times. A pack built from it
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should vary the counterpart more than the book does.
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**Both sides of the swindle recur.** Many groups come in pairs: raising money on a promise (G04)
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against buying a share in nothing (G03); the charmed doubter (G11) against the lone sceptic (G12);
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cheating a partner (G08) against being out-swindled (G09). Predicaments are written from the side the
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scene centres on, so a tool should expect a scheme's marks and its promoter in different groups.
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**143 scenes stay unassigned.** Most are one-scheme set pieces with no second instance: the planted
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flaw the recruit "solves" (22-25), the widow's visit (91-94), the drugging of the lawyer (176-182), the
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honeymoon trip and the stranded private car (185-203), the fountain dedication (236-241) and the dice
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game (309-313). The rest are narration: the night drive, the parade speeches, the farm office tour.
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## Known defects
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- `stories.json` titles are `capitalize()`d by the splitter, so names come out lower-case ("In which
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j. rufus wallingford ..."). Left as split.
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- Because `STANDING` is keyed by chapter, the 15 overridden scenes take their chapter's stage, not their
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scheme's: the five cigar-shop scenes at the end of chapter 24 count as `high` (wheat) although the
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cigars scheme is `low`. This changes the stage of three groups. Counted by scheme, G09 would be `low`
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instead of `high`, and G11 and G15 would tie between `low` and `middle` instead of coming out
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`middle`. `build.py` was left unchanged, so `groups.json` carries the chapter-based stage.
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- Scene 116 is a single sentence (the swindler's bearing silencing the room), and scene 41 is two lines.
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Both were summarised anyway; 116 is in G13.
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