The person keeping score participates in the outcome’s memory without participating in the play.

Keeping score puts you inside the event’s memory without putting you inside the event. You did not play, and the record everyone later relies on came through your hands, which is a real form of participation that is easy to dismiss as clerical. Whoever writes the account shapes what the thing turns out to have been.

This is worth knowing wherever records are kept: minutes, notes, summaries, the version of a meeting that circulates afterwards. That job carries more influence than it appears to, and it usually goes to whoever is willing. If you take it, take it seriously. If someone else has it, read what they wrote.