Reporting a discrepancy without making an allegation

Worth separating two things that post #11 runs together.

Reports of ordinary results are more valuable than reports of remarkable ones, precisely because only the remarkable ones get posted elsewhere.

I have said this before in a thread nobody could find, so it is worth repeating.

Bookmarking this. I will come back when I have something worth adding.

I have three months of notes on reporting a discrepancy and the honest summary is that the trend is real and the week-to-week numbers are noise. I nearly drew the opposite conclusion from the first fortnight.

The bit of reporting a discrepancy that nobody enjoys is that the answer changes depending on what you are trying to decide with it. Say what the decision is and the thread will converge.

On post #15 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.

Do not adjust a reported figure. Post what the laboratory said and put your interpretation in a separate sentence.

Post #19 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.

The cost of a submission is worth stating. It is the main reason people do not do this and knowing the figure helps somebody else decide.

I would want to see it done twice before believing it once.

That is clearer than the version I had in my head. Thank you.

The reason reporting a discrepancy keeps being re-asked is that the answer is conditional and people quote it without the condition. It is not that the answer is unknown.

Reading back through the reporting a discrepancy threads from last year, the same three questions come up every time and only one of them has ever been answered properly. That seems like a documentation gap rather than a knowledge gap.

I read post #22 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.

Dosing and purity: a vial that is 99% pure might contain 80% of its label claim if the other mass is water, counter-ion, and excipient. Purity and content are different. Both matter for different reasons.

I would treat the number as indicative rather than as a measurement.

Nobody has said the unglamorous part of reporting a discrepancy yet, so: most of the variation is explained by things that are boring to write about and easy to check.

That matches what I have seen, for whatever a single anecdote is worth.

Picking up post #24: that is the part I would want checked first.

Photograph the vial and the label before opening. It costs ten seconds and it is what turns a report into something checkable.

Reporting the observation and leaving the explanation open deliberately.

Coming back to post #27, because the follow-up matters more than the original answer.

Answering the reporting a discrepancy question as asked, then the question I think is meant. As asked: yes, with the qualification below. As meant: it depends on how the first measurement was taken.

Selective submission and selective reporting are the two easiest ways for a result to be shaped, and blinding addresses the first while a commitment to post addresses the second.

This is the version I would want a new member to read first.

Worth separating two things that post #27 runs together.

On reporting a discrepancy: the maintained page in the documentation commons covers the general case with citations and a review date, which is more reliable than any reply here including this one.