Verdicts and verification marks

The Workshop Verdict

Every project page carries a hang tag with a Workshop Verdict: one line, chosen from a short fixed list, that says what the maker thinks of the piece. Probably Overbuilt. Would Build Again. Made With Questionable Judgment. Refused to Stay on Paper.

It is an opinion, not a grade, and it is deliberately not marketing. A verdict can be affectionate, sceptical or slightly embarrassed, and the same piece can earn a different verdict at the next prototype. The list is kept short so the verdicts stay recognisable — the same few phrases turning up across projects, tags and notes — and it grows slowly, when a piece genuinely needs a line that is not there.

The verdict is the last field on the Workshop Record and the largest thing on the hang tag.

Verification marks

A different kind of mark, and a plainer one. A verification mark says that a piece was looked over before it left — seams checked, hardware tested, measurements taken — and by whom. Three are planned:

• Maker Verified — the maker checked it. On a one-person workshop this is the only one that can currently be true.
• Inspected — a general checked-over mark for the record card.
• Approved — the piece met the standard for its version and was released, as opposed to kept as a study or reworked.

These are planned, not in use. No piece has yet carried one, and none of the stamps for them has been made. They are listed here so the language is settled before the stamps are, and so that the difference between "the maker likes this" (a verdict) and "the maker checked this" (a verification) is clear from the start. The Workshop marks page tracks the status.

Why keep them apart

A verdict that doubled as a quality mark would stop being honest. Keeping the opinion and the inspection separate lets the verdict stay a little unguarded — Probably Overbuilt is not something a quality stamp would say — while the verification mark stays literal.