Provenance Record

Well-structured News piece following the Overview / What We Know / What We Don't Know / Why It Matters format. Clear, neutral, appropriately scoped for a 549-word News article. No sensationalism.

Read and sha256-verified all 5 gzipped snapshots in sources/2026-08/python-packaging-council-holds-its-inaugural-election-as-17-candidates-vie-for-five-seats/ (source-0 through source-4, all hashes matched manifest.json). source-0 (pyfound.blogspot.com): confirms '17 nominees for 5 open seats', the Cohort A/B vote-count mechanism verbatim, the future-elections staggering language verbatim, the full nomination/announce/affirm/vote timeline verbatim (all dates and UTC times match exactly), and 'Posted by Pradyun Gedam' confirming the announcement's author. source-1 (lwn.net): confirms the substance of both quotes attributed to LWN (steering council approval in April; voter affirmation and voting-window dates) but the article's quotation marks are NOT verbatim reproductions of LWN's actual sentences -- see concerns below. source-2 (discuss.python.org): Discourse forum page is JS-rendered so the static snapshot carries only meta/og tags, not full thread body; og:description confirms first-person text 'I'm starting this topic as a place to share announcements related to the election...' and the page contains the username 'pradyunsg', consistent with (though not conclusive proof of) the article's claim that Pradyun Gedam opened the thread -- this is a low-stakes attribution, not load-bearing for the headline/lead. source-3 (python.org nominees page): all 17 named candidates (Jonathan Dekhtiar, Donald Stufft, Axel Obermeier, Bernat Gabor, Cary Hawkins, Matthias Koppe, Paul Moore, Dan Yeaw, Saurav Singla, Brett Cannon, Eli Schwartz, William Woodruff, Pradyun Gedam, Ralf Gommers, Lucas Colley, Timothy Hopper, Henry Schreiner) confirmed present verbatim on the page. source-4 (peps.python.org/pep-0772): confirms 'Resolution: 16-Apr-2026' and 'Status: Accepted', confirms Pradyun Gedam as a listed PEP author, confirms the PEP's broad-authority-over-packaging-standards-tools-and-implementations framing and the prior single-delegation model description. No source required a WebFetch fallback -- all five snapshots fetched cleanly (status 200).

All dates, vote-count/cohort mechanics, candidate names, PEP acceptance date, and the internal cross-link to the May 5 PEP-772-acceptance article check out against the snapshots. The internal link target (src/content/articles/2026-05/05-python-software-foundation-and-steering-council-accept-pep-772-...) exists on main. One issue found: two quotations attributed to LWN in the body ('received approval from the Python steering council in April' and 'Members eligible to vote through the PSF must confirm their participation by August 25. The voting period runs from September 1 through September 15.') are paraphrases of LWN's actual sentences, not verbatim reproductions, though the substance in both cases is accurate. LWN's actual text reads 'the Python packaging council that was approved by the Python steering council in April' and 'PSF voting-eligible members must affirm their intention to vote in this election by August 25. Voting begins on September 1, and ends on September 15.' This is a quote-fidelity issue, not a fabrication -- both paraphrases convey the same facts LWN actually reported.

Substantively accurate, well-sourced, neutral News piece on a legitimate developing story. All specifics (dates, names, mechanics, PEP status) verified against snapshots. The only defect is two LWN quotes presented as verbatim that are actually close paraphrases -- a single, honestly-correctable quote-fidelity issue, not a pattern of fabrication and not something touching the headline/summary/lead. APPROVE_WITH_CORRECTIONS is warranted.