How we choose and check the people we list

We start from what the organisation publishes

Facts come from an organisation’s own material wherever a decision depends on them. When something matters to a recommendation and only a third party says it, that is a weaker basis and it is treated as one.

A person checks it, and a person is not the source

Before a fact is used it is read by a person who confirms it was captured accurately, that it is about the right organisation, and that it supports the thing we would use it for. That person is doing the checking. They are not the authority behind the fact. The published source is, and it stays attached to the fact for as long as we hold it.

Not knowing is a real answer, and we store it as one

Where we do not know something, we record that we do not know it, with the reason. We never fill the gap with a sensible-sounding default. It is the single rule most of the rest of this depends on.

Publishing and recommending are two different bars

A page can be complete enough to show while still not being certain enough to base a recommendation on. Keeping those apart means a well-documented organisation with one open question can still be listed, and that an open question can never be quietly treated as settled just because the page looks finished.

Facts go stale, and we treat them as perishable

Opening hours, fees, access arrangements and who holds what all change. Facts carry the date they were established, and age is taken into account when we decide whether to rely on one.

We do not publish what we cannot support

Descriptions are checked for claims the underlying evidence does not carry. A claim that cannot be traced to a source does not go on the page.