Editorial Policy
Purpose
This policy defines the principles that govern content selection, production, and publication on WaterBalanceTools. It applies to all calculators, datasets, reference pages, academy articles, glossary entries, and formulas published on this site.
Scope
This policy covers all content produced by or on behalf of WaterBalanceTools, including programmatically generated content (calculator outputs, entity pages, dataset documentation) and editorially produced content (academy articles, reference pages, methodology documentation).
Independence
Editorial decisions are made independently of commercial considerations. Product recommendations, if any, are based on documented characteristics rather than commercial relationships. No advertiser or sponsor may direct or influence the factual content of any page.
Evidence Standard
All factual claims must be traceable to at least one of the recognized source categories defined in the WaterBalanceTools Source Framework: Government Guidance, Industry Standards, Manufacturer Documentation, Scientific Literature, Educational Resources, or Internal Dataset (clearly marked as such). Claims without a traceable source are not published.
Transparency
Every calculator displays a Trust Panel identifying its formula version, dataset version, confidence level, and last review date. Every dataset and formula page displays version and provenance information. This transparency is non-negotiable and cannot be suppressed for any page.
Relationship to Calculators
Calculator logic is defined by the formula datasets and the canonical data layer. No calculator may embed scientific values that are not traceable to data/datasets/*.json. Calculator outputs are estimates — they are produced from the inputs provided and should be confirmed by independent water testing.
Relationship to Datasets
The canonical datasets in data/datasets/ are the single source of truth for all factual values. Updates to datasets propagate automatically to calculators, entities, and reference pages via the build pipeline. Manual overrides of canonical values are not permitted.
Review Frequency
The editorial policy is reviewed annually or when significant changes to the underlying science, regulations, or platform architecture require an update.