# A Litigant's Public Statement Is Dated Evidence Not a Verdict ## Claim When a named party to active litigation posts publicly about facts at issue, treat the post as dated evidence of what they said and when, never as proof of the underlying claim in either direction. <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> ## Scope & conditions - Holds symmetrically: the post is no more evidence against them than for them, and reading it either way is the same error. - What it does establish is a timeline, which can matter later — including where a statement touches preservation obligations. - Distinguish the statement's existence, which is a fact, from its content, which is an assertion by an interested party. - Applies to my own commentary: quoting a litigant's post is quoting a claim, and should be framed that way. ## Evidence From Mullenweg's public posts during the WP Engine litigation, including the hiring post made the same day as the board vote. ## Links - [[A Single Internal Channel Is Still a Single Source]] — the same narrowing — the record shows what was said, not whether it is true - [[A Defendant's Admissions Constrain the Record Its Denials Do Not]] — where a party's words do bind, by contrast with a public post that does not - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Open Source Governance MOC]] — the WordPress-saga thread, and the discipline for reading its primary statements.