Editorial policy

Sourcing

A calculator constant enters this site through one door: a data module where it is recorded with its value, unit and sourced, derived or assumed basis. Calculator code that requests an unknown registry identifier throws during the build.

That check protects registry lookups. It is not a parser for numerals in prose, dates, form limits or visitor-supplied examples, so this policy does not describe those ordinary page values as sourced figures.

Labelling

Sourced, derived and assumed mean exactly what they say and nothing wears a label it has not earned. A sourced figure must carry the sentence or table cells it was read from, bound to a saved copy of the source. A derived figure must show its arithmetic. An assumed figure must carry a disclosure sentence written for a reader rather than for a lawyer; five of the fourteen are editable on the pages that use them, and the nine hours-per-unit rates are fixed inputs, disclosed on the methodology page.

What we refuse to publish

• A cost figure whose source we cannot name and whose retrieval we cannot repeat.
• A code requirement we have not read in its published text.
• A regional or national average assembled from secondary sites republishing one another.
• A precision the underlying figure does not support — a wage published to the cent does not make a project total accurate to the dollar.
• A comparison between two price indexes with different base periods, which is arithmetically meaningless however tempting the chart would look.

Freshness and retirement

Each sourced figure carries a six-month horizon from the date of its saved copy. Past that horizon it is re-checked or removed. The citation beside each figure shows its own saved-copy date, and each page’s footer shows the date that page’s text last changed.

Where a source has changed its published value since our retrieval, the value here is corrected and the change is recorded rather than quietly overwritten.

Corrections

A wrong number on a live page is a serious failure for this site, because someone may be making a five-figure decision with it. Corrections are made as soon as they are confirmed, not batched.

1. A reported error is checked against the primary source, not against our own notes.
2. If the source disagrees with us, the affected figure is corrected once the discrepancy is confirmed and the retrieval date moves.
3. If the source itself has changed, the new value is used and the change is recorded next to it.
4. If we cannot resolve it, the figure is removed and the affected tool asks the visitor for the value instead. A missing input is safer than a wrong constant.

Independence

No advertiser, contractor, manufacturer or referral network has any influence over anything on this site, for the straightforward reason that none of them has any relationship with it. This site carries no advertising, no affiliate links and no sponsored content.

If commercial arrangements are ever introduced, they will be disclosed on the page where they operate, in the same deployment that introduces them, and no such arrangement will ever influence a figure, a ranking or a recommendation.

Who writes this

Andrew Flores, working alone, with AI assistance used for drafting and checking and never as a source. When a reader reports an error in a kitchen figure, the decision to correct or remove it is his. A registered figure must trace to a saved copy of its source, documented arithmetic, or a visibly labelled assumption; code requirements are not quoted on this site.

How claims are checked

Sourced figures are bound to saved copies of the source responses, kept with their sha256 hashes, so a disputed number can be traced to the exact response and checked again.