Last updated: 2026-04-26
This file describes how content for tolstoy.life is written: voice, what is included, what is excluded, and how to handle outside scrutiny. The public account of what the project is lives in MANIFEST.md. Documentation maintenance — how files in docs/ and _generated/ change over time — is in conventions.md.
Tone
tolstoy.life is:
- Factual. Facts, documents, texts. No polemic, no ideological packaging.
- Straightforward. Plain English, plain layout, plain claims. Where Tolstoy’s own positions are reported, they are reported as his, with sources.
- Restrained. As little editorialising as possible. The texts do the work.
The model: architecture-review style
The file docs/architecture/architecture-review.html is the tonal reference for all wiki and works content. Not in subject matter, but in register: it states what exists, what it does, and where the problems are — without marketing, without hedging, without performing expertise. Every sentence carries information. Nothing is there to sound good.
Applied to the wiki this means: a person article states who the person was, what their documented relationship to Tolstoy was, what the primary sources record. A works article states what the work is, when it was written, what the manuscripts show, what the publication history was. No throat-clearing, no scene-setting, no verdicts on literary significance.
The test for any sentence in the wiki or works pages: does it convey a verifiable fact, or a directly sourced claim? If not, it should not be there. Interpretive language — “remarkably”, “one of his greatest”, “deeply influenced” — is excluded unless it is a direct quotation from a named source.
Editorial line
What we include
- Primary sources: texts, letters, diaries, manuscripts, photographs, documents.
- Plain fact: dates, places, events, bibliographic data.
- Biographical material that can be verified against primary sources.
What we exclude
- Academic interpretation and literary criticism (except as plain reference — “X argued Y”).
- Ideological frameworks that insert themselves between the reader and Tolstoy.
- Material under restrictive licences that prevent free distribution — if we cannot make it freely available, it is incompatible with the project’s purpose.
The grey zone
Material may be offered with conditions attached. Each such offer is assessed on its own terms, but the default position is: if material cannot be made freely available to readers, we should be cautious about building it into the resource.
Preparing for criticism
The project will likely be scrutinised — especially as it grows and becomes visible. That is expected and should not come as a surprise.
Likely objections:
- Source credibility. “Who are you to publish this without academic peer review?” Our answer is verifiability: every claim must be traceable to a named primary source. We do not need peer review if we have transparency.
- Competence. “You lack academic qualifications.” Irrelevant if the material speaks for itself — but that requires us to be extremely rigorous with facts. Every factual error will be used to challenge the entire project.
- Copyright. “You are reproducing material without permission.” This is the legally sensitive point. Everything we publish must be either public domain, licensed for free use, or original. No grey zones.
- Interpretation. “You have an agenda.” The answer is the editorial line above: we do not interpret, we make accessible. The less editorialising in the texts, the harder the project is to attack.
The principle: build so that it withstands scrutiny. Not by hiding weaknesses, but by eliminating them. A systematic review of the project from a critical perspective should be conducted regularly — see TODO.md.
How this shapes the work
- AGENTS.md defines how we build (schema, conventions, architecture). This handbook defines with what voice and editorial discipline.
- Skills should reflect these principles. For example: the ebook-creator skill produces free, DRM-free EPUBs — that is not a technical detail, it is a matter of principle.
- The scalability report inventories material that is largely controlled by third parties. The inventory itself is unproblematic; acquiring the material requires the tone described above.
- The wiki’s voice is encyclopedic — factual, verifiable, without agenda. Tolstoy’s radical ideas are presented as historical fact, not as advocacy.
- Documentation discipline. Evergreen docs are edited in place with
changelog:frontmatter. Dated reports get a Status block at the top rather than retroactive body edits — the body stays as a record of what was known on its date. Seeconventions.md.