How We Verify¶
This site's credibility rests on a simple promise: every factual claim is tagged with its confidence level and the source behind it. This page explains what the tags mean, how they were applied, and what happens when a claim fails.
The tag system¶
| Tag | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
[VERIFIED via primary sources] |
Directly documented in archival records, treaties, published charters, census data, or archaeology | "Sykes-Picot Agreement signed May 1916 [VERIFIED via declassified British Foreign Office records]" |
[DOCUMENTED via multiple independent sources] |
Attested by 2+ non-coordinated sources | Events documented in both state archives and independent testimony |
[SCHOLARLY CONSENSUS] |
The mainstream position of academic historiography, without a single decisive primary source | Dating of the ancient kingdoms |
[ESTIMATED from multiple sources] |
A range synthesized from overlapping sources — each contributor named, disagreements noted | Refugee and displacement figures |
[PARTIALLY DISPUTED / Majority position held] |
A majority scholarly position where serious disagreement exists — both positions stated | The scale and significance of 1948 evacuation orders |
[ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK] |
Reasoning tools, teaching methods, and illustrative patterns — marked so they are never mistaken for factual claims | Propaganda-recognition checklists |
The source hierarchy¶
- Primary sources — government archives, treaties and charters, census records, peer-reviewed archaeology
- Peer-reviewed scholarship — academic monographs and journals, UN agency reports
- Credible secondary sources — major news organizations, international NGOs, transparent-methodology think tanks
- Not used — unattributed social media claims, single-source assertions, opinion presented as fact
What happened when claims failed¶
Before publication, the entire document set went through a claim-by-claim audit (roughly 1,760 tags applied) followed by a correction pass. That audit found and fixed real problems — wrong dates, misattributed sources, figures that had gone stale, quotations that did not match their source texts, and citations that could not be verified at all. Every one was either corrected against the actual source, reworded to what the evidence supports, or removed.
Two rules governed that process:
- No claim survives on convenience. If a quotation could not be verified against the source text, it was deleted — even when it "helped" the argument. The verified record is strong enough; unverifiable ammunition only weakens it.
- The same razor cuts every direction. Claims favorable and unfavorable to every party were checked with identical rigor, and the contested ones are labeled contested.
Currency of figures¶
Figures for ongoing situations (casualty counts, displacement totals, political status) are stated with an explicit as-of date and attribution, and marked where they are disputed or not independently verifiable. If you are reading this long after mid-2026, treat all such figures as historical data points as of their stated dates.
Corrections¶
Errors found after publication are corrected, and corrections are logged. If you find a claim that fails its tag — a source that doesn't say what the tag claims, a figure that's wrong — that report is a contribution, not an attack. The correction process exists because the promise is verification, not infallibility.