The account, pass 4 (C5a-04)

Target length: about 1,800 words, two pages. Pass 3 (C5a-03) restored K01. Pass 4 states the rule that decides whether an element stays. This is the model of model-C4.md told as prose, with its declarations as amended at C5a-01 and C5a-02. Pass 1 is kept as account-p1.md, and pass 3 as account-p3.md.

An id in brackets names an element or arrow; N01 to N09 are the propositions in propositions.jsonl. "137 of 190" counts the rooms where an order holds, out of those carrying both elements; each order beats a null of 500 shuffles within each room unless called thin or theorised. Hours run from the canvas's opening; placement ended at hour 73. The 705 subreddits are called rooms.

From the population down

A start and calls (N01). A member proposes a mark, maps it, or places it alone first [R01]. Calls for hands follow the start in 64 of 89 rooms [A02]. Each account could place one pixel per interval, and no one could order another to place, so a picture needed many members placing [P01]. After a call, members report what they built in 137 of 190 rooms [A01]. "Help us draw Metroid over at /r/place!" [metroid/c0001, h4.27] was answered two minutes later with the location [metroid/c0002, h4.29].

April Fools beside the work. The canvas opened on April Fools' Day. In 368 rooms, members played April Fools in their own sub, and in 88 rooms they asked whether a post was meant [K01]. Across rooms, the play did not delay the canvas work (F-009).

The bare answer. Members answer a call in one line that commits them and gives no reason: "LETS CREATE THE DESTINY LOGO IN THE CENTER OF r/Place" [DestinyTheGame/c0002, h3.03], then "I'm in" [DestinyTheGame/c0008, h3.91] [P15, A12]. This is the run's concept, borrowed from conversation analysis as the preferred acceptance (recalled: Schegloff and Sacks 1973; Pomerantz 1984). A call makes an answer due; joining needs no reason, and refusing comes with one (F-014). Its earlier claim, that the replies show a room its numbers, failed its test (F-015, weak).

The host sub's line (N05). In 132 of 155 rooms, the calls come before the first line the host sub draws around canvas talk: a megathread, a removal, a canvas sub, an objection [A20, P20].

What to make (N07, theorised and thin). Members settle what the mark will show [P02]. They argue its design in 281 rooms and build their homeland's flag in 96 (F-017). Inside a thread, a posted template settles a design under argument [A11, theorised]: "Will update template image and upload here." [udub/c0009, h55.09]. A template does not make placers follow it. A decided element of order, such as a leader, a vote or an oath, appears in 46 of 705 rooms [C01, F-006]. It gathers in the small factions born on the canvas that govern a territory. That is a decision for one work within hours. It is not a shared basis of authority in O'Mahony and Ferraro's sense (2007), which a community builds before it can govern itself.

The mark tells what is missing. Members report the state of the half-built mark to the thread [P03]. In 31 of 52 records read at C5a-01, members report what is placed or missing, or say they acted on what the canvas showed. In the other 21, they propose or ask. The theme is named Stigmergy, after Grassé (1959) and Heylighen (2016): the trace of work on a shared medium prompts the next act. It differs from imitation, because members name what the work lacks, not who else is placing. It differs from the transparent task architecture of open source, because no founder lays the work out; any member may post a template.

Keeping the work (N01, N06). Once a mark stands, members turn to keeping it in 182 of 291 rooms [A03]: "It's done!" [monsterhunter/c0082, h35.63], then "time for upkeep now" [monsterhunter/c0083, h35.64] [P05]. When upkeep needed more placements than members could make, they turned to scripts and spare accounts in 160 of 203 rooms [A06, P14].

Other rooms (N02, N09). Keeping the work brings members into talk with their neighbours: in 235 of 401 rooms, the first upkeep comes before the first border talk [A04, P08]. Where border talk came first, it mostly offered terms before any damage (34 of 38 read). Members ask other rooms for help in 171 of 240 rooms [A13, P16]: "Maybe we should ask the Danganropa subreddit for support." [aceattorney/c0050, h38.37]. Under attack, rooms join coalitions [A19, thin, P17]. A settled border gives members a line by which they spare the neighbour's work [A05, thin, P07], and a channel for help [A14, thin]. Members make these agreements without the power to make every placer keep them. The field's analyst found the same in r/place. Sparing with no agreement named is the theme Live and let live. It differs from an explicit truce, which belongs to Negotiated order.

The contest (N03). A call to place can turn members against a rival's work: in 93 of 129 rooms, the first call to place comes before the first call to attack [A15, P09]. Members of the same room answer the attack call. In 82 of 104 rooms, the first attack call comes before the first sparing, refusal or apology [A16]: "Wipe out the Dolphins. They're building." [nyjets/c0086, h47.85], then "Nah, keep /r/place neutral." [nyjets/c0087, h47.87]. In 95 of 172 rooms, it comes before the first border talk [A17]. Where the attack goes on, members carry it on in talk [A18, P18]. In 7 of the story rooms read at passes 1 to 4, a tie from before the canvas names the rival in the same turn as the attack (10 turns): "You mean WPI? I'm down for a lil interpolytechnic griefing." [rpi/c0022, h55.05] [C02, untested for order].

Loss and a move (N08, thin). Members who judge that the room has too few hands stop fighting for the spot and move, in 11 of 21 rooms [A10, K02, P10]. After a move, the room calls less often than before it, but still more often than rooms that did not move (F-002). No loop is grounded: no counted arrow runs from the move back to building.

Hour 73 and after (N04). Placement stopped at hour 73 for every room. Before it, members celebrate the work after the first build report in 182 of 282 rooms [A07, P11]. They record what they celebrated in 225 of 289 [A08, P12], and carry the record on into banners, later canvases and lasting groups in 113 of 145 [A09, P13] (F-004). Credit names who made the work. It comes after the work, and nothing in the record shows it moving a member to place, so the completion ritual is not reward provision in Puranam and colleagues' sense. After hour 73, members curate the record: they clean, copy, record and argue over which version of the canvas and of the event is kept. "I cleaned up the final UIUC /r/place section." [uiuc/c0154, h75.63] [P12; P22, tentative]. This curation is apart from carrying the work on [P13], and it is not a part of making the work.

From three rooms up

day9, the room that best supports the account. A member started the logo [day9/c0002, h14.66] [R01]. At h33.88 the room offered a neighbour terms before any damage: "We only require 35x35 pixels." [day9/c0005] [P08]. The agreement broke at h48.03 [day9/c0016]. Members judged the spot lost and moved [K02, P10]: "I wanted to keep fighting for the spot we've had, but it looks like this is a losing battle." [day9/c0023, h49.66]. "The new location is finished!" [day9/c0031, h53.09].

ubc, an ordinary room. Members called for hands [ubc/c0013, h17.35] [P01], refused to attack a neighbour: "No, they didn't mess with us and we won't mess with them." [ubc/c0065, h55.82] [A16], kept a border by agreement [ubc/c0076, h59.20] and ran spare accounts under strain [ubc/c0090, h65.71] [A06].

ultrahardcore, the odd room. April Fools play filled the room until hour 40 [K01]. Across rooms, that play did not delay the canvas work (F-009). At h57.58 a member asked for a design [ultrahardcore/c0202] [R01]. Within half an hour the thread had a proposal, a template and an order: "Make it completely red first." [ultrahardcore/c0209, h58.05] [A11]. A member proposed taking over other works' hearts, and another spared one [ultrahardcore/c0203, c0206] [A15, A16]. At the close: "We almost did it! (/r/place)" [ultrahardcore/c0212, h73.07]. The room ran the same steps in one thread, late, with no neighbour and no upkeep.

The three rooms share the order from a start through calls to building. They differ in what came after: a loss and a move, an agreement kept, or nothing at all. The counts above give how many rooms took each step.

Where the model breaks, and the rooms it cannot reach

The model breaks where a body's faith or a host's rule, and not the work, picks rivals and guests: "We need to attack back. Blue the Purple Corner!" [thebluecorner/c0230, h16.23]; "We DO NOT accept any drawings on our flag in r/place" [catalunya/c0056, h69.26]. It also breaks in late rooms that enter the canvas through another room, and in rooms whose replies the coders did not code.

The cuts, and the rule that decides whether an element stays. Three elements carried no arrow: attribution (P06), the April Fools frame (K01) and the envoy (R02). The second pass of this account cut all three. The third pass read the cuts against the 35 story rooms. No telling rested on P06 or R02, and they stay cut. Ten of the 16 rooms told with no residue tell the frame beside the work, so K01 was restored. When the model was built, it stated that a process or condition enters only with a grounded arrow. It did not keep that rule: K01, P06 and R02 stood with no arrow until this account. In this account, a criterion written before the first pass decides whether an element stays. It ranks story rooms told with no residue above a smaller count of elements. The arrow rule decides only what the account may say an element brings about. K01 carries no arrow, so the account says what members did in the frame and claims no effect of it. Its one claim beyond presence is F-009, a test that could have found a delay. The claims C01 and C02 also stand on findings and carry no arrow.

The pass 5 story told 19 of its 35 rooms with a residue, and the account cannot reach these communities:

• greenlattice, orderofthebluecorner, purplecorner and thebluecorner: a faith in a colour names the rivals and rules on guests;
• catalunya, placeDE, smashbros and sweden: the room rules on guests on its mark;
• scp, parahumans, TheAdventuresofTintin, shishamo, hunterxhunter and luciomains: what the mark brought back to the room;
• starcitizen: a rivalry held before the canvas shapes talk about an alliance;
• texans: a mark built as a taunt at a league rival;
• totallynotrobots: the sub's joke picked the room's one work;
• epublica: an old quarrel names a rival for some members;
• bih: members learn from others how large flags are made.