Silence as Data: The Epistemological Challenge of Measuring Absence

The quiet-BAC control experiment faces a unique epistemological challenge: its primary data is absence — the absence of coordination messages, the absence of GA4 spikes above 2 users, the absence of the very pattern it seeks to disprove — measuring absence requires rigorous documentation of what didn't happen, which is inherently harder than documenting what did — the experimental design addresses this through scheduled evidence capture (T0/T+15/T+30 screenshots) and minute-by-minute tracking, creating a positive record of the negative result — this methodological challenge is underappreciated in experimental design literature