A fictional gathering of superheroes has failed to establish a world record after every participant assumed somebody else's exceptional ability included operating a spreadsheet.
The event attracted capes, masks and considerable confidence. It did not attract enough people willing to stand near a gate for four hours asking arrivals whether they had already been counted.
An organiser explained that saving the world is a clear proposition, whereas verifying attendance requires an agreed definition of the world and a reliable method for recording who is inside it.
A participant offered to count everyone at superhuman speed. This was rejected because nobody could audit the result. Another suggested assembling a small team, immediately triggering a dispute over who would lead the team and whether the team needed its own origin story.
The fictional record committee found several costumes impressive but ruled that looking capable of extraordinary acts was not evidence that an ordinary task had been completed.
A volunteer eventually produced a clicker. By then, half the crowd had left for lunch, three people had re-entered through the exit and somebody had declared the process a threat to personal freedom.
The group has agreed to return next year with improved powers. In the meantime, it is seeking a hero who can reply-all with the final numbers and resist the temptation to create another group chat.
