OUR EDITORIAL PROMISE
Every good question deserves evidence.
Our policy for distinguishing evidence, interpretation, unverified hypotheses and fiction, with sources and conditions readers can inspect.
Finding a promising topic and producing a reliable article are separate jobs. A topic is not published merely because it has been discovered. Sources, comparison conditions, wording and rights need to be checked first.
Make clear what kind of writing you are reading.
- Explainers and supported facts
- Explain what the evidence supports, including its subject, date and conditions. Estimates, projections and observations are kept distinct.
- Interpretation and analysis
- Show how the evidence informs an editorial judgment. Explain the reasoning and its limits without presenting unsupported conclusions as verified facts.
- Unverified claims and hypotheses
- State what has not been established. Untraceable rumours are not published to manufacture a headline or increase the article count.
- Fiction
- If a work of fiction is published, it is labelled “Fiction” in listings, search results and at the article entrance. Invented people, events and settings must not be confused with real news or research. The current foundational collection consists of sourced explainers.
Follow the sources—and read their conditions.
We prioritize research papers, official statistics and specifications, and specialist explanations that allow a claim to be checked. Strong claims require a return to the underlying material. Figures with different subjects or methods are not compared as if they were equivalent, and conflicting evidence is not forced into a single answer.
An article’s source-check date records when its claims were compared with the cited material. It is separate from translation and interface changes. A visual update does not make the underlying information newly verified.
Explain what a model or image represents.
Calculations and interactive exhibits state their assumptions and scope. A simplified model is not a measurement or a guarantee. AI-generated opening images and scenes are labelled and are not used as specimen photographs, historical records or observational evidence.
When using someone else’s words, photographs or artwork, we check the source and usage terms. Citation and discussion are distinguished from reproduction and redistribution. We do not claim to have watched, played or tested something when we have not.
How AI is used, and the limits of review.
Generative AI assists topic research, drafting, diagrams, code and English translation. An AI response is not itself evidence: source checks and content review remain necessary. Automated checks help inspect links, calculations and rendering; they do not guarantee the truth of an entire article.
The current edition has not received independent review by outside subject-matter experts. If expert review, interviews or experiments are carried out, their scope will be stated. We do not publish fictional experts or invented endorsements.
Make corrections and meaningful changes visible.
Reported errors are checked against the source material. Corrections that affect understanding retain a description and date, and we check their effect on the English edition, diagrams and related features. A serious unresolved concern may require a notice or temporary withdrawal.
Messages sent to us are not automatically published. Suggestions inform editorial decisions, but submitting one does not guarantee publication or an individual research response.