emsenn

Upgrade survey texts from slop to policy advisory reports

2 min read

Summary

Survey and research texts should not live in slop/. They should be written as proper policy advisory reports following best practices for that genre, and filed in the appropriate discipline directory as published texts.

Motivation

emsenn’s correction: “when you write these survey texts, they shouldn’t be slop, they should be written as real policy advisory reports, according to the best standards of that.”

Currently several survey/research documents live in slop/:

  • slop/foss-planning-practices-survey.md
  • slop/lean-agda-survey.md (referenced by TODO.md)
  • slop/ai-math-agents-survey-2026.md (referenced by TODO.md)

And at least one exists as a text but may not meet advisory report standards:

  • technology/texts/policy-as-code-for-knowledge-repositories.md
  • technology/texts/encoding-disciplinary-methods.md

These should be rewritten as proper policy advisory reports — with executive summary, methodology, findings, recommendations, and references — and filed in the correct discipline directory.

Steps

  1. Research the genre conventions for policy advisory reports: what sections they contain, how recommendations are structured, what citation standards apply.
  2. Create a write-advisory-report skill (SKILL.md) encoding those conventions.
  3. Rewrite slop/foss-planning-practices-survey.md as a proper advisory report and move to technology/texts/foss-planning-practices.md.
  4. Rewrite slop/lean-agda-survey.md as a proper advisory report and move to mathematics/texts/ or technology/texts/.
  5. Rewrite slop/ai-math-agents-survey-2026.md similarly.
  6. Review existing texts that originated as surveys (policy-as-code-for-knowledge-repositories.md, encoding-disciplinary-methods.md) and upgrade to advisory report standards if needed.
  7. Write policy 009: “Research outputs are advisory reports, not notes” (or amend policy 006 to specify the genre).

Done when

  • Advisory report genre conventions documented (skill or text)
  • All slop/ surveys rewritten as advisory reports in proper discipline locations
  • Existing survey-origin texts reviewed and upgraded
  • Policy established for future research output format

Dependencies

None.

Log

2026-03-07 — Created. emsenn corrected that survey texts should be proper policy advisory reports, not slop-quality notes.

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