Fact-checking policy
01The verification procedure
Every entry is verified in the same order. First, source check: each reference is opened and compared against the sentence it supports - not against the entry's general impression, against the sentence. Second, tier check: every statement is confirmed to sit in the evidence tier its label claims. A community anecdote phrased in the vocabulary of literature is downgraded in phrasing, not upgraded in fact.
Third, arithmetic check: any percentage or count in an archived sample is recomputed from the sample log. Fourth, refusal check: the entry is read once more specifically looking for statements that drifted into advice, instruction, or verdict, which are removed regardless of how useful they might look.
02What verification cannot do
It cannot verify anonymous claims, and the registry does not pretend otherwise. Filing a claim is not confirming it; counting claims is not weighing them; and an archived sample is a photograph of discussion, not a measurement of reality. Entries state these limits in place rather than footnoting them.
It also cannot see behind platform behavior: removed posts, deleted accounts and closed threads leave gaps the record cannot reconstruct. Where gaps exist, entries say so.
03Standards consulted
The registry's review process takes its cue from publicly documented fact-checking and journalism standards - transparent sourcing, correction trails, separation of news from opinion - adapted to an archive that renders verdicts on nothing. The standards it borrows are listed as reference searches below; the adaptation is the registry's own, and its failures are its own as well.