Editorial standards

Short version: we say where a fact came from, we do not invent numbers, and we mark anything that was paid for.

Sourcing

• Rules, thresholds and procedures are taken from the body that sets them — the regulator, the scheme operator, the tax authority, the health service — and linked.
• Research claims are attributed to the study or the body that published it, including when the evidence is thin or contested. We would rather write ‘the evidence is mixed’ than round it up.
• We do not publish figures we cannot source: no invented bonus amounts, no invented payout times, no made-up user reviews or star ratings. There are no reader ratings on this site because we do not collect any.

Advertising and paid links

• Paid placements appear in clearly labelled partner blocks, or as pages carried over from this domain’s archive, which are marked as such at the top.
• An advertiser cannot buy a mention inside an explainer, cannot review copy before publication, and cannot have a piece taken down.
• Where we name a commercial comparison site as an example, we say plainly that it is an example and how such sites are paid.

Harm content

• We describe services; we do not diagnose, treat, or promise outcomes.
• Every page about harm carries the current national helpline number and links to the services that actually provide help, free.
• We do not use photographs of identifiable people to illustrate addiction.

Images

Photographs come from Wikimedia Commons and similar free sources, and the author and licence are printed under each one. We do not use pictures taken from other publications, and we do not present generated images as photographs.

Corrections

Errors of fact are corrected in place, with a line saying what changed. Write to the desk through the contact page.