Editorial Policy

Purpose and scope

This policy explains how ReadMeHub should publish, maintain, correct, and disclose editorial content. It applies to reviews, comparisons, alternatives, guides, product and brand records, use-case pages, category hubs, pricing references, deals, coupons, and updates. It also applies to trust pages when they describe the site’s methods or commercial relationships.

The policy is designed for an evidence-led decision platform. ReadMeHub is not presented as a universal authority, a testing laboratory, a legal adviser, a financial adviser, or a substitute for the provider’s current terms. The supplied materials do not identify a legal entity, named editorial staff, active affiliate network, or complete testing operation. This policy does not invent those facts. It sets standards for what must be shown when the relevant facts become available.

The central editorial standard

A ReadMeHub page should help a reader make a more informed decision than a product list would. That requires a clear primary question, useful context, a visible basis for factual claims, a reasoned explanation of trade-offs, an explicit limitation, and a next step that is not more aggressive than the evidence permits.

The site should prefer a narrower accurate statement to a broad unsupported claim. It should state when information is unavailable, needs rechecking, expired, disputed, or based on editorial judgment. It should not fill a missing field with a plausible number, a generic credential, an assumed partner relationship, or a claim that sounds customary but has not been verified.

What a page should contain

The page format depends on the decision, but the following fields are generally useful:

The architecture calls for ACF to hold structured decision data while the article body remains ordinary editorial content. That separation helps the site maintain a stable entity record while allowing a review, comparison, or offer to change independently.1

Sourcing standards

Prefer primary sources for primary facts

Official product, pricing, support, documentation, security, policy, and offer pages are generally the first source for what a provider says about its own product. A provider source can establish the provider’s published plan, feature, term, or limitation. It does not by itself establish that the claim is universally true, independently measured, or suitable for every user.

Secondary sources may be useful for context, history, public reporting, or a documented independent perspective. They should be identified by source type and used within their limits. A source that repeats an unsourced claim does not become evidence merely because it appears in multiple places.

Preserve source context

A source record should retain the source title, URL, date checked, region, currency, relevant excerpt or notes, confidence, and revalidation date where appropriate. A price without currency or billing cadence is incomplete. An offer without region, eligibility, expiry, and terms is incomplete. A feature without plan context may mislead. The source record is part of the editorial work, not an optional back-office detail.1

Separate fact, observation, and judgment

A provider statement should be written as a provider statement. A direct observation should identify the test or research context. An editorial conclusion should explain its criteria. The words “says,” “lists,” “documents,” “we observed,” and “we conclude” should not be used interchangeably.

The supplied content map demonstrates this separation. Its records include verified facts, a source URL and title where available, a checked date, and separate fit, anti-fit, caveat, and sections. The status “Editorial judgment” is not a source substitute; it signals that the conclusion is an interpretation.2

Research and review standards

A research-led article may summarize and interpret available evidence without claiming personal product use. A hands-on review may describe actual use only when a documented test occurred. A review that lacks hands-on evidence should not use “we tested,” “our lab,” “after weeks of use,” or similar language. If the product was demonstrated by a provider, that is not the same as independent use.

A hands-on record should identify the reviewer, product or plan, relevant version or configuration, tasks performed, test period where material, and limitations. A performance statement should identify the measurement method. A security statement should distinguish provider documentation from independent assessment. A usability statement should identify whether it comes from a test, documentation, observed workflow, or editorial inference.

A review does not require a numerical score. The foundation explicitly says that a proprietary score requires a published rubric, criterion definitions, weighting method, reviewer responsibility, and evidence basis. Until those conditions are satisfied, ReadMeHub should use a plain-language verdict and clearly labelled criteria.1

Editorial independence and commercial relationships

ReadMeHub is designed to include affiliate and offer functionality. The supplied materials do not provide the name of an affiliate network, active partner, commission percentage, or list of commercial relationships. No such fact should be added without verification.

If ReadMeHub may receive compensation from a link or relationship, that possibility should be disclosed near the relevant recommendation and explained fully on the Affiliate Disclosure page. Commercial compensation should not be described as proof of quality, and the site should not claim complete independence if a commercial relationship exists. At the same time, an affiliate relationship does not automatically invalidate editorial analysis. The relevant question is whether the conclusion is based on stated criteria and evidence, whether contrary information is included, and whether the relationship is visible.

Commercial status must not determine whether an option is described as a fit. A page may link to an official destination without compensation, may contain a commercial link where compensation is possible, or may mention an option without a monetized link. Those states should not be conflated.

Prohibited fabrication

ReadMeHub must not fabricate products, reviews, ratings, prices, discounts, coupon codes, statistics, performance results, testing, customer testimonials, verification claims, author credentials, expert credentials, affiliate relationships, or corporate facts. It must not describe an offer as active when it cannot be verified, and it must not imply that a page contains firsthand experience when it does not.

The prohibition includes subtle forms of invention. A page must not turn a planned category into an active publication claim, infer a headquarters from a brand name, describe an anonymous editorial role as a named expert, or convert a template field into a fact merely because the field exists. It must not use a fake “last updated” date to make an unreviewed page appear fresh.

When a fact is unavailable, the page should say so. When a source is old, the page should say that it needs rechecking. When a conclusion is an editorial judgment, the page should say what the judgment is based on. Honest incompleteness is preferable to decorative certainty.

Corrections

Readers should have a practical way to report errors. The primary route is the Contact form. A report is most useful when it includes the page URL, the specific statement or field, the proposed correction, the source supporting the correction, and any relevant region or date.

The editorial process should triage a report according to its potential impact. A wrong price, expired coupon, incorrect availability statement, broken commercial link, unsafe product claim, or material comparison error should be treated as higher priority than a stylistic preference. The person receiving a report should record the claim, inspect the evidence, decide whether to correct, qualify, remove, or mark it for recheck, and record the date and reason.

Where the correction materially changes a recommendation, the revised page should make the change discoverable through an update note or revision history when the implementation supports it. Where the issue is unresolved, the page should use an evidence state such as Needs recheck or Disputed rather than silently presenting one side as settled.

A correction process is not a promise that every report will be accepted. It is a commitment to review good-faith reports against evidence and to avoid hiding material changes.

Updates and freshness

A page should display a meaningful reviewed or updated date tied to actual claim revalidation. The most volatile claims deserve the shortest review interval: pricing, plan features, limits, availability, regional conditions, deals, coupons, and provider terms. An evergreen definition may need a different cadence from a coupon page.

An update should distinguish new evidence from a copy edit. A new plan, changed limit, discontinued product, regional restriction, changed privacy term, or expired offer can alter the decision. The update note should tell the reader what changed and whether the conclusion changed. If a page has not been checked, it should not be made to look checked by changing the displayed date.

Deals and coupons require an operational owner, source, region, currency, terms, dates, status, and revalidation cadence. If those fields cannot be maintained, the page should be marked unavailable, archived, or kept out of active discovery according to the final search policy.1

Conflicts and contested information

When reputable sources conflict, ReadMeHub should describe the conflict, investigate the date and scope of each source, and avoid false precision. A provider’s current pricing page may supersede an older help article, but a regional page may not supersede a different market’s terms. If the conflict cannot be resolved, use Disputed or Needs recheck.

The site should not remove an inconvenient limitation merely because it complicates a commercial recommendation. A good comparison includes the reason a reader might choose each option and the condition under which the recommendation changes.

Authors and reviewers

The author system must use only real, available identities. The supplied content map contains content records but no named author or reviewer directory. Until real names, roles, biographies, credentials, and profiles are supplied and approved, ReadMeHub should identify the work at the editorial-role level rather than invent a biography. The Authors page explains this boundary.

A reviewer field should not be populated merely because a workflow requires one. If a genuine reviewer checks a page, the page should identify the role performed. If no second review occurred, it should not imply that one did. Editorial accountability is stronger when it is accurate than when every page displays an impressive but unsupported byline.

Affiliate links and labels

A commercial link should be labelled in plain language near the action. Possible labels include “affiliate link” or a similarly direct phrase approved for the site’s final legal and UX review. The site should not hide commercial status in a footer alone. Link appearance should not make an affiliate action resemble an independent rating or a verified offer unless the underlying conditions are satisfied.

The Affiliate Disclosure page should explain how compensation may work, what it does not mean, how readers can identify commercial links, and why the presence or absence of compensation does not decide the editorial conclusion.

Health, finance, safety, and other sensitive areas

The content map includes planned categories such as Health & Wellness and Finance, but the supplied materials do not provide the specialist credentials, regional compliance review, or legal text needed to make broad claims in sensitive categories. A page in such a category should use heightened review, clear scope limits, and appropriate professional or legal review before publication. Product information is not medical, financial, legal, or safety advice merely because it appears on a comparison site.

Until the required evidence and review controls exist, the responsible status may be “coming soon,” “unavailable,” or “needs recheck.” The architecture explicitly warns against filling gaps with unsupported claims.3

Governance of this policy

This policy should be reviewed when the site adds a new content type, affiliate arrangement, score methodology, author system, testing program, or sensitive category. Any change should preserve the core rules: traceable evidence, visible limitations, accurate authorship, clear commercial disclosure, no fabrication, and a practical correction route.

For a concise explanation of the editorial method, read How We Evaluate. For a description of the platform’s purpose, read About. For a correction or source challenge, use Contact.

Suggested contextual internal links

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• Link “evidence record” to How We Evaluate.
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• Link “correction” to Contact.
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• Link “commercial compensation” to Affiliate Disclosure.
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• Link “real author identities” to Authors.
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• Link “pricing and offers” to Pricing, Deals, and Coupons.
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References