diff --git a/docs/port/DECISIONS.md b/docs/port/DECISIONS.md
index 63c1286a..413f6a71 100644
--- a/docs/port/DECISIONS.md
+++ b/docs/port/DECISIONS.md
@@ -8853,3 +8853,34 @@ census counts a **superset spanning both paths**, and the difference between the
 two numbers is not disagreement but scope. A plateau that happens to sit on a
 transient's peak is invisible to a fallback census and still produces a rest frame
 the game never shows.
+
+### A proposed sharpening of the census, tested and rejected
+
+The Decoder's surviving number rests on a structural fact: the dwell fallback runs
+only when no two adjacent poses are equal, so **every pose it returns is un-held
+by construction**, and no threshold is needed. That is clean, and the obvious move
+was to borrow it — replace my "gone before 60 % of the screen" cutoff with *how
+long the rest pose is held*, which would drop the arbitrary threshold.
+
+🔴 **It fails my own control.**
+
+| element | held | of screen | flagged? |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| `ptmsg` — the main menu's footer | 2 units | 80 (2.5 %) | **yes** ❌ |
+| `ptbtn00` — the `PRESS Ⓐ` plate | 2 units | 244 (0.8 %) | **yes** ❌ |
+| `ptlogo_back2eff1` — a real sparkle | 2 units | 269 (0.7 %) | yes ✅ |
+
+All three sit on a **2-unit plateau**. Hold duration cannot separate them, and the
+two it gets wrong are the exact pair whose absurdity caught my first census.
+
+✅ **Why the criterion does not transfer.** On the fallback path nothing is held,
+so "un-held" *is* the defect. On the plateau path the plateau is real — what
+distinguishes a footer from a sparkle is **where it sits relative to the screen's
+end**: `ptmsg`'s 2-unit plateau is the last pose before the exit ramp, so the port
+holds it past the end and the game shows it throughout; the sparkle's identical
+2-unit plateau is followed by a return to zero *while the screen is still up*.
+
+📌 So the screen-span criterion stays, threshold and all. **A cleaner definition
+that fails a control is worse than an ugly one that passes** — and I would have
+adopted this on its elegance if the control pair had not already been sitting
+there from the earlier mistake.