COA red flag compilation — what worked for you?

DeniseRN_TPA said:

The useful move here is to separate what is established from what is widely repeated.

Adding the part of the answer the thread has not reached. Whatever the answer turns out to be, the method for getting there is the same: state the assumption, do the arithmetic in public, and invite the correction. That is slower than asserting, and it is the only version that survives being wrong.

Ask again with the specifics and you will get a better answer than this one.

Adding the numbers, since they settle part of this. For anyone reading later: the numbers in this thread are worth checking against a primary source before you act on them, including mine. Half the figures circulating in this community trace back to a secondary summary that dropped a qualifier.

A narrower follow-up, since the general answer is now clear:

How long did you give it before you decided it was working?

dan_philly said:

For anyone reading later: the numbers in this thread are worth checking against a primary source before you act on them, including mine.

Pushing back on dan_philly here. Pushing back on the anecdote-stacking. Twenty people reporting the same thing is twenty samples from the same self-selected pool, not twenty independent confirmations.

dan_philly said:

For anyone reading later: the numbers in this thread are worth checking against a primary source before you act on them, including mine.

True, and it depends on a baseline nobody has stated. Without knowing where someone started, the same number can be an excellent result or a disappointing one.

If somebody has the primary source to hand I would rather cite it than paraphrase it.