> Rhetoric > Image and Non-Textual Argument > arghXiv:2605.10402
Provenance of Diagrams Circulated in Sightline Disputes
Abstract: We traced 231 images posted as argument in sightline disputes to their earliest retrievable appearance. 26 per cent resolve to a source that states a figure, and of those, nine carry a figure differing from the one the image was posted to support. The remainder resolve to earlier postings of the same image, in chains of median length 4 and maximum length 19, terminating in no source at all. A diagram cannot be quoted back with a correction attached to it, and no correction was observed to travel with one. Where a participant was asked for the provenance of an image, the commonest reply, at 54 per cent, was a second image. An image offered in place of a source is what arghXiv:2512.11487 calls a quod vide; 84 of the 231 were posted in direct response to a request for one.