Editorial and corrections policy

By Andrew Bates, Founder · Published 2026-09-09 · Updated 2026-09-09

Every page is written and fact-checked by a named human who takes responsibility for its accuracy. Factual claims trace to a primary source with a capture date. Errors are corrected within 48 hours of verification, with a visible note on the page when the correction is material.

How this content is produced

We use AI tools to assist with research, drafting and analysis. Every published piece is directed, fact-checked, edited and approved by the named human author, who is responsible for its accuracy. No page publishes without that step.

Sourcing standards

Every factual claim on this site lives in a structured claim register before it appears in prose. Each register entry carries the source, the exact passage the claim was extracted from, the date it was captured, and a review-by date.

The register is enforced by the build, not by good intentions. A page that cites a claim which is missing, unverified, disputed, or past its review date fails to compile. It cannot be published while broken. We built it that way because inspection scales with volume and never catches silent decay — a fact that quietly went stale two years ago looks identical to a fact that is still true.

Statistics link to the original study, never to an aggregator that quoted it. Where we cannot source something, we say so rather than writing around the gap.

What a certification claim means here

When we write that a system is certified to a standard, we state the standard and what that standard covers — and we state what it does not cover. “NSF/ANSI 53 certified for lead reduction” is a fact. “Protects your family from toxins” is an unsubstantiated health claim, and you will not find that kind of sentence on this site.

Corrections

If you find an error, email hello@waterspeclab.com. We correct verified factual errors within 48 hours.

Material corrections carry a visible note on the page: “Correction (date): an earlier version stated X; the correct figure is Y.” Typos and formatting fixes are corrected silently. We keep an internal log of every correction — what was wrong, who reported it, and what changed.

Dates

Pages show a published date and, once edited, an updated date. The updated date changes only when the substance changes: new or corrected facts, revised recommendations, refreshed data. It does not change for typo fixes, template updates or redeploys. A freshness stamp that does not correspond to real change is a manipulation, and it destroys the credibility of every honest date on the site.