Not stated

In detail

Most databases have two states for a field: a value, or an empty cell that the interface renders as something. The rendering is where the damage happens — an empty match field shown as "no match required" is a claim no source made, and it can cost an applicant a filing.

Three states cost more to carry. A boolean that must distinguish yes, no and unsaid cannot have a default, because any default converts silence into an assertion the moment it is rendered. Several fields in the catalogue are deliberately nullable with no default for exactly this reason.

The same rule governs zero. A funding pool of zero would say a program has no money; an unpublished pool says the notice did not include one. These are different statements and are never rendered alike.

Against zero and against no

Zero is a measurement. No is a denial. Not stated is an absence of evidence, and it is the only honest rendering when a source is silent. Collapsing the three is the most common way a grant listing misleads without containing a single fabricated number, which is why this is a product rule rather than a display preference.

How GrantTrove stores it

• Fields where silence is meaningful are nullable and carry no default, so a rendering layer cannot turn an absence into a denial.
• The phrase is shown literally on the page rather than as an empty cell, so a reader can tell a missing value from an overlooked one.
• A field the extraction step could not resolve is left unresolved rather than filled with a plausible value.

Common questions