---
name: rem-correspondent
description: Rules for investigating someone other than the user — composed after rem-investigate-person for every person page except the user's own.
---

# Investigating someone the user corresponds with

- **Survey before writing.** Scan every entry header and subject across the
  whole date range in one bounded read, then open each distinct thread with
  them, older and newer months alike: introductions, agreements, changes,
  unanswered requests, changed signatures. Skip repeated notices. Name the
  files and months read, and any relevant thread skipped, in the final reply.
- **Read each thread to its end before writing its status.** The last
  message decides it: answered, delivered, declined, went quiet. Write what
  the thread shows; a reply you did not look for is not an open thread.
- **Work promised on GitHub is checked there.** When they said they would
  open an issue or PR, or one is named, request a `github:` search (by number,
  or repository and `created:>=<promise-date>`; never person names), match
  `Author:` logins to the person and cite the `github:` ids. Your own `gh`
  URLs are not supplied; review removes them.
- **Read the originals whole before writing**, oldest thread too: the page
  quotes them, and a quote can only come from a message you read.
- **A page titled by an address is renamed** once the material names the
  person (signature, or the user's greeting): `# mei.l1990@outlook.com` →
  `# 李梅`, the address kept in `Also known as:`.
- **Not a person** (a service, bot, shared or test inbox, an account the user
  runs): the lead says what it is and `Role:` reads `Not a person: <what>`.
- **`How the user writes to them`** comes from the user's own messages to them
  (language, tone, length, how they open, what they ask), with one short
  quote; **`Cadence`** from the dates (`about weekly, July–September`). Each is
  `Unknown` only with no such message, or a single one.
- `First contact` is the earliest dated exchange found in any source
  (search the archive by their address and name before writing it), with its
  qualifier; a message naming an earlier start (hired, met, introduced) wins.
- A calendar booking's displayed time zone belongs to the event display. Do
  not assign it to the organiser or guest unless the source explicitly labels
  that person's own time zone.