highlight · part i · 4

Publish the codebook.
Not the weights.

If reviewers can't read it, it's not a method.


fine-tuned model

model-v2.ckpt4.7 GB
training dataprivate
hyperparamslost
decision ruleopaque

English codebook

## intervention_type Question: What was the main intervention? Description: The therapy, medication … Example answer: "CBT, 12 weekly 60-min sessions, group format." Default if missing: "Not specified"
can't appear in methods
fits in methods
deprecates on next upgrade
survives model updates
opaque to peer review
readable by reviewers
operational definition gone
decision rule preserved

A team fine-tunes a classifier to extract whether RCTs report allocation concealment. Two years later the model endpoint deprecates, the training set can't be shared for licensing, and a reviewer asks why "central randomization" counted in some trials but not others.

Performance numbers survive. The operational definition is gone.

cf.Krippendorff (2004) · Mitchell et al. (2019) Model Cards · PRISMA 2020 · Peng (2011) · Lundberg & Stewart (2021)

The codebook defines the decision rule.
Models are the execution layer.

@karlrohe