Every article on Official X follows one claim: where it came from, who holds it, and what the surviving record shows. This page sets out the rules each article is held to. They apply to every article on the site, and to every revision of one.
Research comes before writing
An article starts from the record, not from memory. Before a word is written, each fact it will rest on is looked up in a source that can be opened: the original paper, the archive scan, the museum's own catalogue entry. Names, dates, numbers, quotations and every "this person found that" are checked against that source. A fact nobody could open a source for is softened to what can be shown, or cut.
Where the article describes an object, a map or a document, the description is read off the best available photograph or scan of the thing itself, not off someone else's summary of it.
How sources are rated
Each article ends with the full list of its sources, and each source carries one of three labels:
- Primary record: the thing itself or the first account of it. The map, the tablet, the photograph, the original paper, the letter, the government file.
- Study: a researcher's study of the record, such as a paper or a book that examined it.
- General reference: an encyclopedia or overview, used for background and never on its own for a disputed point.
An article rests on the primary record wherever one exists. Behind the visible list, each load-bearing claim in the article is tied to the source that supports it. A source that shows what someone argued is not counted as a source that the argument is true.
How a claim is weighed
- The claim comes first, at full strength, with the people who hold it named and the records that support it given the most space.
- The standard explanation is stated once, plainly, with its specifics, and the article shows what it accounts for and what it does not.
- A disputed reading is called disputed, with its owner's name, in the same sentence. A resemblance is not called a match.
- Experts are quoted for what they said, nothing more. A letter is a letter, not an endorsement.
- No article ends with a verdict. Each closes with the questions that remain open.
Images and credits
Wherever a real photograph, scan or drawing of the subject exists and may be reused, the article shows it, with its creator, its licence and the page it came from in the credit. A picture made for an article is used only where no real one exists; it never stands in for evidence the reader is asked to judge, it is labelled as an illustration on the image itself, and its caption says what it imagines.
Checking before publication
Before an article is published, it is read again from the start against its sources, claim by claim, and anything that goes further than a source supports is rewritten or removed. The same check is made when an existing article is revised.
Corrections
If an article gets a fact wrong, or leaves out a record that matters, please write to contact@officialx.com with the article, the sentence, and the source that shows the error. Every report is checked against the source.
When a fact is corrected, the article is fixed in place and shows an Updated date under its title, with a short note saying what changed when the change is more than wording. Corrections are not hidden: a corrected article says that it was corrected.
What Official X is not
Not a debunking site, and not a fan page. Coverage is documentary: an article reports a claim and its record, and inclusion is not endorsement. Products in the shop are prints of records the articles are built on; they never decide what an article concludes. More about the site is on the About page, and the ways to reach the editor are on the Contact page.