How we work
Evidence first. Fairness throughout.
Be generous about motives, exact about evidence, and clear about consequences.
Show what supports the claim
Substantive factual claims need a supporting passage, page, section, or timestamp. Event dates, document dates, and retrieval dates stay separate. We identify documented facts, attributed statements, interpretation, and open questions.
Keep the distinctions that matter
Proposed, discussed, approved, funded, contracted, implemented, and completed are different states. Budgeted, authorized, contracted, and paid amounts are different figures. Unknown is not zero. An agenda is not proof of approval; missing individual votes are not inferred.
Read generously, report precisely
Include documented constraints and official explanations. Missing records do not establish corruption. A reporting violation does not by itself establish unsafe water. We do not assign corruption scores or guess motives, pay status, or competence.
An editorial publication boundary
Routine event metadata and official meeting notices update automatically under their source policies. Clear council motions with an explicit recorded outcome and vote may also publish automatically from a freshly read official minutes document. Posted, draft and approved minutes are labeled separately. A source-date conflict, uncertain extraction or unsupported interpretation goes to private review, not automatic publication. New allegations, named-person criticism, contested financial interpretations, and consequential safety claims require Ben’s approval before publication. Drafts stay outside the public corpus, feeds, Reed, and notification previews.
Responses and corrections
Verify the speaker and office before attributing a response. A response is evidence of what the speaker said, not automatic proof. Material corrections explain the change, update linked summaries and feeds, and change the evidence version used by Reed. Preserve appropriate revision history without republishing private or harmful content.
Correction and response process →
What the evidence indicators mean
These examples explain the shared indicators; they are not findings about a particular City record. On a story, expand an indicator for its checked sources, limits, resolution evidence and a contextual contribution link.
Not checked yet — show evidence status
Research has not been performed. This does not imply a failed search.
Not yet obtained — show evidence status
The reviewed material does not establish this specific fact. It is not proof that the City lacks the record.
Awaiting a specific next step — show evidence status
A named agenda, approval or review is pending. A response is called pending only after an actual inquiry has been sent.
Sources disagree — show evidence status
The expansion identifies the conflicting wording. A conflict is a question to resolve, not an accusation.
Source check failed — show evidence status
This outlined technical status reports our collection problem. It does not establish an underlying civic fact or the absence of a record.
Specific answer supported — show evidence status
The cited evidence supports this particular statement. It does not certify every action or the whole institution.