ADR-053: A LIT whose lawful free copy was located but could not be fetched by this client is Unfetched, not Unavailable

Context

ADR-041 split Deferred and gave Unavailable to every LIT whose lawful full text was sought and not reached. It saw that this covered two cases, and kept them under one word:

A copy that exists but could not be fetched is a different blocker from a copy that does not exist. In both, though, the owner is what unblocks it.

Among its alternatives it rejected “two new words, one for ‘none exists’ and one for ‘exists, not fetched’”, because “eight entries do not justify a sixth status”.

Two things have changed since.

• The count. The status notes of all Unavailable LITs were triaged on 2026-10-25. 140 of the 325 record an access obstacle: a bot check, a 403, a 429, Cloudflare or Incapsula. Each was read and put in one of three buckets.

  • 43: a lawful free copy was located, and this client was blocked from it. The copies are on PhilArchive, SSRN, HAL, bioRxiv, Deep Blue, an author’s or course page, a Wayback capture of one, or a publisher’s own free copy (bronze or gold).
  • 80: only a publisher’s paywalled copy was found.
  • 17: a free copy may exist, but none was located. Some obstacles were of another kind, such as a dead site or a request-a-copy form.

  The 43 include seven of ADR-041’s eight. LIT-137 is not among them, since only one chapter of that volume has a free copy.

• The two cases are not cleared alike. ADR-041 said the owner unblocks both. They do, but at very different cost. The owner showed this on 2026-10-25 by supplying DeGroot 1974 (LIT-1527) and Wald 1945 (LIT-1523), and asked for “a status for content that would be easy for me to access where you encountered obstacles”. A located free copy takes a browser and a minute. A paywalled one takes a library, a subscription or a purchase. Under one word, the quick ones are found only by reading every note, which is what ADR-041 was written to stop for Deferred.

Decision

• A new LIT status, Unfetched, labelled “Copy found, not fetched”. It means a lawful free copy of the work was located at a specific address, and this client could not retrieve it. The status note must give that address: a URL, a repository handle, or a DOI that resolves to the free copy. It must also give what blocked the fetch, and when. As with Unavailable, the status is no judgement on merit, and a supplied copy returns the work to reading.
• Unavailable narrows to the other cases: no lawful copy was found, or only a paywalled one was. Its blurb drops “or one was found that this client could not fetch”.
• Where the line falls.
  • A free copy of a different version stays Unavailable. A translation, a single chapter of a volume, or an abstract does not count. The free copy has to be the work itself. A preprint or accepted manuscript of the work counts.
  • A note with no exact address stays Unavailable until a reader finds the address. Otherwise the owner’s queue would hold searches, not clicks.
  • A copy that is down for everyone is not Unfetched. A server that times out or a broken site is no access obstacle peculiar to this client. A Wayback capture of the same copy does count.
  • A copy the owner could not lawfully use stays Unavailable. That includes an upload whose uploader is unknown and a PDF whose licence is in doubt.
• The queue is generated. The owner’s list is the status page docs/literature/status/Unfetched.md, which luria index builds for every status. Nothing extra needs to be maintained.

Migration

The migration would be applied on acceptance, not before. These 37 entries of the 43 would move to Unfetched:

• LIT-106, LIT-171, LIT-180, LIT-181, LIT-186, LIT-387, LIT-477, LIT-494
• LIT-536, LIT-545, LIT-592, LIT-636, LIT-699, LIT-701, LIT-762, LIT-1030
• LIT-1031, LIT-1053, LIT-1081, LIT-1086, LIT-1108, LIT-1158, LIT-1189, LIT-1286
• LIT-1318, LIT-1322, LIT-1361, LIT-1389, LIT-1409, LIT-1427, LIT-1453, LIT-1456
• LIT-1462, LIT-1472, LIT-1481, LIT-1485, LIT-1495

Six of the 43 would not move:

• Wald (LIT-1523): the owner supplied the copy, and the work was read and is Active.
• LIT-396, LIT-742 and LIT-1469: each note names a site but no exact address.
• LIT-1329: only a French translation is free.
• LIT-1101: the author’s server timed out.

Each moved entry would get a version bump and a history item. The item would point to this decision and confirm that the note gives the copy’s address. Where a note’s address has to be read out of its prose, it would be repeated in a closing sentence: “Free copy:

.” Present-tense phrases such as “stays Unavailable” would change in place, under the same rule ADR-041 used. The 80 paywalled entries and the 17 unlocated ones would not change.

The triage was done from the status notes and the last history items. It could misread a note, so each entry would be checked again by eye when it moves.

Alternatives

• Keep one word and rely on the note. ADR-041’s choice. At 43 entries out of 325, the owner would have to read about a hundred and forty notes to find the quick ones. That is the cost ADR-041 itself pointed to when it split Deferred.
• A list kept in a curation entry or a report. It would go stale the first time a work was read or a new one was filed. A status updates the generated page with the entry itself.
• A tag or flag. Rejected for the reason ADR-041 gives: copy availability is not a topic, and a flag would sit beside a status it qualifies.
• Put the paywalled ones in the queue too. The owner can unblock those as well, through a library. But that is a different errand at a different cost, and the owner asked for the easy ones. If a library queue is wanted, it can be its own decision.
• Other names. Blocked does not say what blocks the work, and a paywall is a block too. Located reads as a property of the copy, not of the work’s standing. Unfetched says exactly what is missing.

Consequences

• The LIT vocabulary gains a seventh word. The lit-statuses entry in luria.yaml gains Unfetched, and the blurb of Unavailable narrows. Like Unavailable, the new word is not in force, so inactive-ok annotations that cite a moved work still apply. It falls out of the pending-decisions report in the same way.
• The difference from the anthology grows. An Unfetched LIT moved to the anthology would fail its vocabulary, as an Unavailable one already does (ADR-041’s consequence).
• A rule for readers. A reader who locates a lawful free copy and cannot fetch it sets the LIT to Unfetched, with the address in the note. The LIT template and the reading briefs say so.
• The owner’s queue is a page. Clearing an entry means supplying the copy, which returns the work to reading. The reading then sets its status, as with Unavailable.
• Supersession. On acceptance, ADR-041 stays in force for Deferred against Unavailable. This decision amends its third bullet (“Both cases of Unavailable take the one word”) and its rejected alternative. ADR-041 would get a dated note saying so, not a superseded_by, because its main choice stands.