Editorial standards
Corrections policy
How JusticeCenterID handles its own errors: what counts as an error, how quickly each class is fixed, how corrections are shown, and how to report one.
The principle
We will get things wrong. A platform about institutional accountability that handles its own errors badly has failed at the thing it claims to explain.
So: errors are fixed promptly, shown visibly where they changed meaning, and not quietly edited out of existence.
How to report an error
A useful report includes:
- The page address.
- The specific sentence or claim.
- What is wrong with it.
- A source supporting the correction, where you have one.
Reports without a source are still assessed. They simply take longer, because we have to do the sourcing.
Reports are welcome from anyone, including the institutions we describe. An institution reporting an error about itself is treated exactly like any other reporter: the report is assessed against sources, not accepted or rejected on the basis of who sent it.
What counts as an error
| Class | Examples | How it is handled |
|---|---|---|
| Factual error | Wrong date, wrong institutional name, wrong legal provision, a claim the cited source does not support, or a structure described as current that has changed. | Corrected and logged, with a correction notice on the page. |
| Sourcing error | A citation that does not exist, points to the wrong document, or has been misattributed. | Corrected and logged. Always treated as critical, regardless of how minor the underlying claim is. |
| Scope error | A claim stated more broadly than its sources support, or one country’s rule presented as general. | Rescoped and logged. |
| Framing error | Loss of neutrality, analysis presented as fact, or an institution described only by its powers or only by its failures. | Rewritten and logged. |
| Omission | A material qualification, limitation, or oversight mechanism left out such that the page misleads. | Added and logged. |
| Staleness | Accurate when written, no longer accurate. | Updated, with a dated notice on the page. Logged if the change alters meaning. |
| Presentation defect | Typography, formatting, layout, or a broken internal link. | Fixed. Not logged. |
Severity and response time
- Critical
- The error could mislead you about your rights, about what the law requires, or about whether we are an official body — or it is a fabricated or misattributed citation. The page is marked or withdrawn the same day the error is confirmed, and corrected within three working days.
- Substantive
- Changes the meaning of a claim without meeting the critical threshold. Corrected within ten working days.
- Minor
- Does not change meaning. Corrected at the next scheduled review of the page.
A fabricated or misattributed citation is always critical, however minor the underlying claim, because it undermines every other citation on the site.
What happens to a report
We acknowledge it, reopen the cited sources and check what they actually support, and then reach one of four outcomes:
- Correction — we were wrong. Fixed, logged, and you are told.
- Clarification — we were not wrong but were unclear or under-scoped. Rewritten and logged.
- No change — the claim is supported, and we tell you which source supports it.
- Under investigation — we cannot yet establish who is right, and the claim is marked as uncertain on the page while the question is open.
We do not decline a report because it is inconvenient, because it comes from an interested party, or because the error is embarrassing.
Correction notices
Where a correction changes meaning, the page carries a dated notice stating what it previously said, what it now says, and why it changed. The notice stays; it is not removed after a period.
We do not:
- Silently edit a substantive error out of existence.
- Delete a page to make an error disappear. If a page must be withdrawn, the address states that it was withdrawn and why.
- Backdate an updated or reviewed date.
The corrections log
A dated log of substantive corrections is maintained, recording the date, the page, what was wrong, what it now says, and the source of the correction. It will be published once there is something in it. An empty corrections page on a site with no publication history would be a trust signal we have not earned.
Most errors will be found by us during scheduled re-review rather than reported. Those are logged identically — there is no distinction between an error we found and an error we were told about.
When the same error recurs
If a class of error occurs more than twice, the response is not another correction. It is a change to the process or to our automated checks so the class cannot recur. Several checks exist for exactly this reason: mandatory verification dates on every source URL, a ceiling on what a country page may claim relative to its research status, and a required jurisdictional-variation section on every guide.