diff --git a/crates/community/src/community.rs b/crates/community/src/community.rs
index 1cff92fe..032d35a8 100644
--- a/crates/community/src/community.rs
+++ b/crates/community/src/community.rs
@@ -762,6 +762,17 @@ impl Community {
             let mut held = Vec::with_capacity(base.stepped.len() + self.state.held_roots.len());
 
             for key in base.stepped {
+                let known = self
+                    .state
+                    .held_roots
+                    .iter()
+                    .chain(held.iter())
+                    .any(|root| root.epoch == key.epoch && root.key == key.key);
+
+                if known {
+                    continue;
+                }
+
                 held.push(HeldRoot {
                     epoch: key.epoch,
                     key: key.key,
@@ -770,7 +781,17 @@ impl Community {
                 });
             }
 
-            held.extend(self.state.held_roots.iter().copied());
+            for root in &self.state.held_roots {
+                if held
+                    .iter()
+                    .any(|kept| kept.epoch == root.epoch && kept.key == root.key)
+                {
+                    continue;
+                }
+
+                held.push(*root);
+            }
+
             self.state.held_roots = held;
 
             if let Some(control_pk) = base.control_pk {
diff --git a/crates/community/src/sync.rs b/crates/community/src/sync.rs
index 8a3b1ab1..ec2d2da3 100644
--- a/crates/community/src/sync.rs
+++ b/crates/community/src/sync.rs
@@ -628,6 +628,11 @@ pub async fn fold(client: &Client, state: &CommunityState) -> Result<Option<Snap
 
                 if let Ok(edition) = cord02::open_edition(wrap, &plane.group, &plane.address, true)
                 {
+                    observe(
+                        &mut observed,
+                        edition.author,
+                        wrap.created_at.as_secs().saturating_mul(1000),
+                    );
                     editions.push(edition);
                 }
             }
@@ -1199,6 +1204,75 @@ mod tests {
         });
     }
 
+    /// The reference counts anyone seen publishing anywhere, and a control edit
+    /// is the one publication that leaves no other trace: an npub that has
+    /// never joined a channel and never touched the Guestbook exists in no
+    /// other plane, so a fold that reads only those reads them as a stranger.
+    #[test]
+    fn a_control_editions_author_is_observed_as_a_member() {
+        smol::block_on(async {
+            let client = client();
+            let keys = Keys::generate();
+            let signer = UniversalSigner::new(keys.clone());
+            let editor = Keys::generate();
+
+            let created = create(&client, &signer, &metadata("coop"))
+                .await
+                .expect("creates");
+
+            let community_head = created
+                .heads
+                .iter()
+                .find(|head| head.entity == *created.id.as_bytes())
+                .expect("a community head");
+            let writer = cord02::ControlWriter {
+                author: editor.public_key(),
+                read: control_group_key(&created.community_root, &created.id, cord02::ROOT_EPOCH)
+                    .expect("a reading key"),
+                signer: control_signer_group_key(
+                    &created.control_root.expect("a control root"),
+                    &created.id,
+                    cord02::ROOT_EPOCH,
+                )
+                .expect("a signing key"),
+            };
+
+            // The editor holds no grant, so the edit is inert: it supersedes
+            // nothing. It is still a publication by that npub.
+            let (wrap, _) = writer
+                .set_community_metadata(
+                    &editor,
+                    &created.id,
+                    &metadata("coop two"),
+                    Some(community_head),
+                    None,
+                    Timestamp::now().as_secs() + 1,
+                )
+                .await
+                .expect("publishes");
+            client.database().save_event(&wrap).await.expect("saves");
+
+            let snapshot = fold(&client, &created)
+                .await
+                .expect("folds")
+                .expect("a control plane");
+
+            assert!(
+                snapshot.members.contains(&editor.public_key()),
+                "an edition's author is a member the fold has seen publishing"
+            );
+            assert_eq!(
+                snapshot
+                    .control
+                    .community
+                    .as_ref()
+                    .map(|metadata| metadata.name.as_str()),
+                Some("coop"),
+                "an unauthorized edit still changes nothing"
+            );
+        });
+    }
+
     /// The other half of `create`: the membership must reach the account's
     /// Community List, and a later create must union into it rather than replace
     /// it (CORD-02 §8 read-modify-write).
diff --git a/docs/community-history-sync-plan.md b/docs/community-history-sync-plan.md
index 17db1ca3..da9a124e 100644
--- a/docs/community-history-sync-plan.md
+++ b/docs/community-history-sync-plan.md
@@ -1104,16 +1104,56 @@ Measured on that database after the fix: the same 3 wraps, no new fetch, roster
   own devices re-derive the authority from the rotation chunks §13b reads. Closing
   it is a state-schema change (epoch → minter) plus the write, and is left as its
   own step.
-- **247 against Armada's 263 is `observed`.** We merge authors seen publishing in
-  the Guestbook and the channel planes; the reference merges anyone seen publishing
-  anywhere, control-plane editions included. A control wrap proves only that its
-  author held the plane's read key, so that stays out for now. The failure mode is a
-  member the other client lists and we do not — never the reverse.
+- **`observed` — closed, and what it was worth.** We merged authors seen publishing
+  in the Guestbook and the channel planes; the reference merges anyone seen
+  publishing anywhere, and a control edition is the one publication that leaves no
+  trace in either: a member who has only ever edited metadata exists in no other
+  plane. The fold now observes an opened edition's author, dated by the wrap's own
+  non-backdated stamp, because an opened edition carries no time of its own
+  (CORD-01). What that proves is what the other planes prove — its publisher held
+  the epoch's key, which only a member can derive.
+
+  Measured on the store that reported the short roster: **254 either way.** Every
+  readable edition's author there had already been seen in another plane, so the
+  parity is real and the number does not move with it. That fold accounts for every
+  npub it can see: of the 79 that published anywhere readable, 3 are not in the
+  roster and all 3 are gone — two left and one was kicked, each at or after its own
+  last observation, which is the reference's forward-only rule. The community's two
+  banned npubs are absent for a different reason this pass did not touch: the fold
+  hands `complete_memberlist` no ban times, so a ban excludes unconditionally where
+  the reference passes `bannedAt` and re-admits an npub whose activity is newer.
+- **What is left of 254 against the reference's 263 is evidence this client cannot
+  reach, not evidence it drops.** The guestbook planes of epochs it no longer holds,
+  a Control Plane whose signer address the document never named, and the reference's
+  own Members tab — which builds a row for every npub its watchdog has flagged as
+  well as for every member (`memberDirectory.ts`), so a number read off that tab is
+  a row count rather than a roster size. Which of the three it is needs the other
+  client's npub list; both snapshots this client does hold (240 and 209 members,
+  both from `d133ecb0…`) are honored, and one single wrap on the whole store is
+  left unreadable.
 - **An authority is still only as good as the rotations on disk.** A device that
   installed after every relevant chunk was dropped, whose List carries no refounder,
   reads an inferred roster until the next Refounding — §12c's honest miss, now with
   two more ways out of it.
 
+#### 13f. The same root, held twice
+
+A walk that starts from a *retained* root steps off it: `Adopted.stepped` carries
+one entry for the key it started from, and `merge_adoptions` prepended that to
+`held_roots` without asking whether the document already held it. So every
+adoption that began at a retained root added a second copy of an epoch's key — the
+store that reported the short roster held epoch 8 twice, once retired by the
+8 → 9 rotation and once with no cutoff at all.
+
+A duplicate is not a deeper hold on history. `planes` dedupes by address, so the
+same plane is subscribed twice and read once, and `rekey::adopt` walks every
+retained root, so the doubled entry doubles that walk's work — its filters, its
+blob openings — on every adoption. The rebuild now skips a step whose epoch *and*
+key it already holds, and drops the copies a document already carried the next time
+that document adopts (until then a stored duplicate is harmless: `planes` dedupes
+its address, so it is subscribed once and read once). The channel `priors` loop
+beside it had always guarded its own.
+
 ## Order of work
 
 ### Phase 2a — move the code (no behaviour change) — **landed**
@@ -1353,6 +1393,12 @@ outstanding are the ones that need a GPUI harness or two live accounts.
   `cord02::list::tests::the_wire_round_trips_a_refounder_and_the_retained_roots`:
   both extensions survive the round trip, the accessors read them, and a retained
   root without a key is skipped rather than adopted.
+- A control edition's author — **landed in revision 6**
+  (`sync::tests::a_control_editions_author_is_observed_as_a_member`): an npub
+  holding no grant, whose edit supersedes nothing and changes no metadata, is in the
+  roster all the same, because an opened edition is a publication and the reference
+  counts anyone seen publishing. The same test pins the other half — an edition
+  nobody authorized moves no head.
 - The page a rotated community's history sits on — the same retention is what
   `a_walk_pages_back_across_a_rekey` pages across, and revision 5 is what makes a
   *List*-learned refounding leave those keys held, not only a blob-learned one.