How we research and write

Sources come first

No drafting starts until there is a source table: a list of URLs, publishers, the date each was read, and the specific claim each one supports. Every article publishes that table at the bottom. If a claim in the body does not trace to a row in the table, it does not ship.

We rank sources in three tiers, and prefer the highest available:

1. Government agencies and standards bodies: FEMA, CDC, EPA, NOAA, USGS, FCC, USDA and the National Center for Home Food Preservation.
2. Established nonprofits and professional bodies: the American Red Cross, ARRL, NFPA, the Wilderness Medical Society, cooperative extension services.
3. Practitioners and communities, used for practice and experience rather than for facts.

AI assistance, disclosed

Drafts are AI-assisted. That means a research and drafting pass produces the first version against the source table above. A named human author then edits it, and a named human reviewer approves it. Both names and the review date appear on every article.

This is disclosed because it is true, and because the alternative, quietly publishing machine drafts under a human name, is the thing wrecking trust in this whole category.

The original-material rule

No article publishes without something in it that could not be produced by reading other pages. A photograph, a measurement, a test result, a drill outcome, a data pull, or a clearly reasoned opinion. Each article states what its original element is, in a box above the sources. An article without one does not get merged, which is a mechanical rule rather than a good intention.

Structure rules

• The first block answers the question completely, in case you leave immediately.
• Headings are phrased as the questions people actually ask.
• Recommendations come in three cost tiers, free first.
• Most guides carry a section on what other guides get wrong, which is where opinion lives.
• Where evidence is thin or contested, we say so and say why.

Review schedule

Every article carries a checked date. Anything past twelve months comes back for review. Reference pages carrying data that moves, such as frequencies or programme rules, come back every six months. Corrections are appended with a date. We do not edit history quietly.

What we will not publish

• Medication dosing, diagnosis or treatment protocols.
• Legal advice.
• Predictions of specific collapse events or dates.
• Manufactured urgency, countdowns, or encouragement to hoard during an active emergency.
• Any statistic whose original source we cannot find.

Found a claim that does not hold up? Tell us. That is the test of whether any of this is real.