The spine that compounds

The Registry

Every rabbit hole reads this before it searches, and feeds it after. Over time it becomes a vetted map of who tells the truth and who is selling — 36 sources so far. The heart of each entry is why it's trusted: if we can't name why a source has no incentive to mislead, it doesn't belong here yet.

Botany & Ecology

Tier 2 · institutional · open · enGBIF — Global Biodiversity Information Facility
aggregated, georeferenced occurrence records from museums/herbariaWhy trusted: intergovernmental research infrastructure; aggregates specimen data, sells nothing
Tier 2 · institutional · open · enPlants of the World Online (POWO) — Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
accepted names, distribution, descriptions for vascular plantsWhy trusted: national botanical institution; taxonomic authority, not a vendor
Tier 3 · obsessed-non-institutional · open · en, multiiNaturalist
field-verified, geolocated observations by naturalistsWhy trusted: practitioner community; research-grade observations are peer-confirmed

Gaming

Tier 1 · primary · open · en, zh, ja, multiHoYoverse — official news & Developer Insights
official announcements, soundtrack/MV releases, developer accounts of music & designWhy trusted: first-party developer documentation; primary for intent. Commercial party — corroborate facts.
Tier 2 · institutional · open · en, multiHoYoLab (official community / developer posts)
official OST track listings, symphony-performance notes, developer community postsWhy trusted: developer-run platform; useful for OST/album/ensemble facts the Fandom wiki also carries
Tier 3 · obsessed-non-institutional · api-only # HTML 403s + Cloudflare JS-gates even browser-UA; reach via api.php (works) · enGenshin Impact Wiki (Fandom)
CANONICAL for lore, characters, regions, soundtrack credits, boss/encounter detailsWhy trusted: obsessed community wiki, source-cited; the reference for game canon. HTML blocks bots — use the MediaWiki API.
Tier 3 · obsessed-non-institutional · unstable # same 403-to-bots caveat as above · multiFandom wikis (general — per game)
per-game canonical lore/credits wikisWhy trusted: the community-canon layer for most games; cite via reachable mirror/snippet, flag access
Tier 3 · obsessed-non-institutional · open · enVGMO — Video Game Music Online
specialist game-music journalism with primary composer interviews (Yu-Peng Chen, etc.)Why trusted: long-running specialist outlet; conducts primary composer interviews — closest to intent
Tier 1 · primary · open · multiOfficial soundtrack albums / credits (streaming + liner)
authoritative track titles, album/region attribution, ensemble & composer creditsWhy trusted: the primary record for who composed/performed what; settles album-attribution disputes
Tier 4 · secondary · open · enTV Tropes — game music & lore pages
reception, track standing, pattern-tracking across a game's music/storyWhy trusted: qualified secondary aggregator; example-cited. Verify claims against primary/canonical.

Linguistics

Tier 2 (Tier 1 for the peer-reviewed articles it hosts) · institutional · open · ruCyberLeninka
open-access Russian-language scholarship; linguistics, philology (read in original)Why trusted: open scientific library of Russian academic journals; non-commercial, operator-verifiable
Tier 1 · institutional · open · fr, enHAL — open archive (France)
multidisciplinary open archive incl. French linguistics fieldwork & grammarsWhy trusted: national open-science archive; author-deposited scholarship, no commerce
Tier 1 · institutional · open · ja, enJ-STAGE
Japanese scholarly platform; linguistics, ecology, many fields (origin-language)Why trusted: run by the Japan Science and Technology Agency; primary scholarship, partial-verifiable language

Medicine & Phytochemistry

Tier 2 (Tier 1 for the individual peer-reviewed trials it indexes) · institutional · open (abstracts; full text varies) · enPubMed
biomedical literature index; human-clinical evidenceWhy trusted: US National Library of Medicine; indexes trials, distinguishes evidence levels
Tier 1 · institutional · abstract-only (reviews; full text often subscription) · enCochrane Library
systematic reviews — the top of the clinical-evidence hierarchyWhy trusted: independent network producing systematic reviews; no product to sell
Tier 2 (Tier 1 for the primary trials it hosts in full) · institutional · open · enPMC (PubMed Central)
free full-text archive of biomedical literature; open primary papersWhy trusted: NIH/NLM open-access archive; hosts full peer-reviewed text, non-commercial

Music

Tier 1 · primary · abstract-only · enJournal of the American Musicological Society (JAMS)
peer-reviewed historical musicology — the discipline's record of recordWhy trusted: scholarly society journal; peer review; no commercial stake in any artist
Tier 1 · primary · open # MTO is open-access; Spectrum partial · enMusic Theory Spectrum / Music Theory Online (Society for Music Theory)
analytical music theory — harmony, meter, form, voice-leadingWhy trusted: scholarly society; MTO is open-access peer review; analysis for peers, not sales
Tier 1 · primary · paywalled # follow citations; abstracts open · enPopular Music (Cambridge) · Journal of Popular Music Studies · Ethnomusicology
scholarship on popular music, scenes, and ethnomusicological fieldworkWhy trusted: academic peer review on exactly the material pop dives need; cites primary work
Tier 1 · primary · open · multiThe artist's own words (interviews · liner notes · verified statements)
intent, meaning, process — the only authority on what a maker meantWhy trusted: the maker is primary on their own intent; cite the actual statement, not a paraphrase
Tier 2 · institutional # analytical tool — measurable data · open · enHooktheory — Theorytab database
key, chord progression, meter, and complexity scores for thousands of songs (tier A)Why trusted: methodology-driven crowd analysis; provides measurable sonic data, not opinion. Cross-check transcriptions.
Tier 2 · institutional · open · enOpen Music Theory (Milne Publishing / SUNY Geneseo)
university open textbook — meter, time signatures, chord theory fundamentalsWhy trusted: university-published peer-reviewed open textbook; ideal citation for explaining theory
Tier 2 · institutional · open · enAllMusic / Discogs (discography & credits)
discography, personnel, production credits — for provenance, not claims about soundWhy trusted: structured credit databases; use for who-played-what, never for similarity/sound claims
Tier 2 · institutional · open · enLibrary of Congress — recorded sound / National Jukebox
historical recordings archive — primary audio for historical worksWhy trusted: national archive; preservation mandate, no commercial stake
Tier 3 · obsessed-non-institutional · open · enThe Vocal Files · The Range Place
technical vocal range / register analysis by obsessed practitionersWhy trusted: methodology-driven community vocal analysis; the antidote to "haunting voice" hand-waving
Tier 3 · obsessed-non-institutional · open · en, multir/musictheory (substantive threads only) · MuseScore community transcriptions
practitioner-level structural discussion; community transcriptions (cross-check)Why trusted: obsessed-practitioner discussion; use substantive, sourced threads — skip the chatter
Tier 3 · obsessed-non-institutional · open · enTV Tropes — music pages
tracking lyrical / structural / vocal patterns across a discography, song-levelWhy trusted: qualified secondary aggregator; granular, example-cited pattern-tracking. Verify claims.
Tier 3 · obsessed-non-institutional · open · enUniversity newspaper concert journalism (e.g. Emory Wheel)
direct-observation live-performance documentation (the live-energy question)Why trusted: eyewitness reviews with no commercial stake; primary for what a live version did
Tier 4 · secondary · open · multiWikipedia — music & album pages
formation facts, personnel, credits — as a pointer; follow references, never cite the articleWhy trusted: well-referenced for music; value is the citation trail, not the prose
Tier 4 · secondary · open · enAlbum of the Year / RateYourMusic — listener reception
aggregate listener reception — documents that a comparison is widely felt, not that it's trueWhy trusted: useful only as evidence of reception/impression; never authoritative for sound or intent

Mycology

Tier 2 · institutional · open · en (Latin nomenclature)Index Fungorum
authoritative fungal nomenclatureWhy trusted: maintained by mycological institutions for naming, not sales
Tier 2 · institutional · open · en (Latin nomenclature)MycoBank
fungal names registry + nomenclatural data; companion to Index FungorumWhy trusted: run by the Westerdijk Institute for naming/typification, not commerce
Tier 2 · institutional · open · enIUCN Red List
global conservation assessments incl. fungi (e.g. Hericium erinaceus, 2019)Why trusted: intergovernmental conservation authority; assesses status, sells nothing
Tier 2 · institutional · open · enBurke Herbarium — University of Washington
specimen + image collection; North American fungi, species comparisonWhy trusted: university natural-history herbarium; specimen-based, non-commercial
Tier 3 · obsessed-non-institutional · open · enMidwest American Mycological Information (MAMI)
regional mycological society; host trees, ecological role, season (N. America)Why trusted: practitioner mycology community; field knowledge, no product
Tier 2 · institutional · open · zhYunnan Biodiversity Digital Encyclopedia (云南生物多样性数字百科)
Yunnan state biodiversity atlas; wild distribution, conservation (read in original)Why trusted: provincial state natural-science publication; biodiversity record, not sales