Editorial Policy

Pre-publication draft. Replace bracketed placeholders before publishing. See content/site-pages/README.md for the placeholder list.

This policy describes how content on https://aistackdb.com/ is researched, sourced, fact-checked, structured, corrected, and updated. It applies to every tool page, comparison page, and category page on the site. The internal rules referenced here are maintained in this project's qa/adsense-seo-quality-gate.md file and are public so a reader can audit the editorial process against the published output.

The policy exists to protect readers from thin content, paraphrased marketing copy, factual drift, trademark misuse, and YMYL liability. It is intentionally stricter than the minimum bar required by major ad networks and search engines.

Editorial scope

The site covers AI and SaaS productivity tools across the categories listed in data/categories.json: AI assistants, AI writing tools, AI research tools, AI productivity tools, AI coding tools, AI design tools, AI video tools, and AI voice tools. The seed tool set is listed in data/tools.json and is not extended without an editorial reason recorded in the project's documentation.

The site does not cover regulated YMYL (your money or your life) domains as primary subjects. Tools that touch medical, legal, financial, or safety advice are described referentially only and never framed as offering professional advice.

Editorial independence

AI Stack DB is operated by 루모메이트(LumoMate) in South Korea and is editorially independent of every vendor it covers. There is no vendor with veto power over what is written. Vendors may file corrections via the route described on the Contact page, and source-backed corrections are applied promptly, but they do not pre-approve drafts.

Sourcing standard

Every factual claim about a tool — what it does, what plans it offers, what platforms it runs on, who the audience is — must trace to a recorded source.

• A page's source list must contain at least one official source (the vendor's own domain) and at least two sources total.
• Every cited source must have a corresponding entry in this project's data/sources.json with a known access_status value.
• Any source whose access_status is needs_verification, blocked, not_found, or unknown is not quoted as fact. Where such a source is the only available reference, the page directs the reader to verify on the vendor's official site rather than restating a claim.
• Third-party reference sources may be cited, but a third-party source on its own is not enough to support a pricing claim or a feature claim about a specific product.

Pricing claims

Pricing is the area most prone to factual drift, so the rule is strict:

• A specific dollar amount, currency, or plan-level quota may appear on a page only when the official pricing page has been read in full and recorded as a source on the date noted in the page's Update log.
• Where the official pricing page is not readable at draft time (for example, blocked or behind a region wall), the page does not invent a number. It describes the plan structure if structural facts are available and tells the reader to verify on the official site.
• has_free_plan is recorded as true, false, or unknown. It is never inferred from a free trial or a freemium-adjacent marketing description.

Freshness

Pricing-sensitive pages are re-verified within 90 days of the date in their Update log. Other tool pages are re-verified within 180 days. Comparison pages are re-verified whenever either of their referenced tool pages is re-verified. Re-verification updates last_verified_at on the underlying record and adds an entry to the page's Update log.

If a page falls outside its freshness window and has not been re-verified, the page is treated as drafted rather than qa_passed until verification is repeated. This rule is enforced via the content/content-status.json index.

Structure standard

Every tool page covers, at minimum: what the tool does, primary use cases, intended audience, pricing model and free-plan status, supported platforms, alternatives, caveats, and the source list with verification dates. The body is at least 700 words or carries equivalent structured density.

Each page also includes an author-written selection rubric — a "choose this if", "avoid if", or use-case decision rule — so that the page is not a paraphrase of vendor marketing copy. Direct restatement of vendor copy is not permitted.

Comparison pages additionally include a quick-recommendation section that names a distinct situation for each tool, at least three decision rules in place of a winner declaration, and a comparison table that visibly separates source-backed fact rows from author-judgment rows.

Trust, safety, and trademark

• Trademarks are used referentially. The site claims no partnership, endorsement, affiliation, or reseller relationship with any vendor unless a current, explicit agreement exists and is disclosed on the page where it applies.
• Logos, screenshots, mascots, and brand assets are not used without an explicit license. A page may name a product in text without using its logo.
• Pages do not include revenue, performance, or ranking guarantees about the tools they describe, and they do not include medical, legal, or financial advice framed as fact.
• Pages do not include defamatory claims about vendors. Critical observations are tied to specific, source-backed behavior, not personality.

Disclosure defaults

The default disclosure state for the site is:

• Affiliate links: none. When the default is none, no affiliate links are present anywhere on the site. If the operator later joins a vendor's affiliate program, the affiliation is disclosed on each page where an affiliate link appears and in the Privacy Policy.
• Sponsored content: none by default. The site does not accept paid placement, sponsored reviews, or paid changes to rankings. Any future deviation will be labelled clearly and excluded from the editorial ranking process.
• AI assistance: disclosed on the AI Disclosure and Source Policy page and, where material, on the individual page.

Corrections

The site treats corrections as a first-class editorial mechanism, not an exception path. The route is on the Contact page. A correction backed by an official vendor source is applied as soon as the operator has verified the source, with a dated entry in the page's Update log. When a correction materially changes a recommendation, the page is downgraded in content/content-status.json from qa_passed back to drafted until it has passed the gate again.

Author and AI roles

Pages are author-driven. AI tools may be used for grammar, restructuring, and source-checking suggestions; the editorial responsibility for every published claim sits with the operator. The full rule is in the AI Disclosure and Source Policy.

How this policy is governed

This editorial policy and qa/adsense-seo-quality-gate.md are versioned together in the project's repository. Material changes are recorded in the Update log below and in the project's commit history.

Related pages

• AI Disclosure and Source Policy
• Privacy Policy
• Contact
• About
• Internal reference: qa/adsense-seo-quality-gate.md

Update log

• 2026-05-22 — Initial pre-publication draft created. Aligned with qa/adsense-seo-quality-gate.md v1.0 sections A, B, and D.