Editorial policy

The rules the build enforces

These are checked automatically on every page before anything is published. A failure stops the build.

• No number without a source in the same block of text. Percentages, rates per thousand, one-in-N figures, dollar amounts and large comma-grouped numbers all trigger the check. This rule caught its own description while this page was being written.
• A reading level ceiling. Grade 8.0 for guides, tools, state pages and policies. Grade 10.0 for condition and event pages.
• At least 15 cited claims on every condition and event page, from at least 8 different sources.
• No em dashes and no en dashes.
• One particular adjective never appears. It is the word a lot of legal marketing uses to signal candour, which is exactly why this site does not use it. Naming it here would set the check off.
• No legal marketing vocabulary. A list of banned phrases, covering the standard claims and calls to action used in legal advertising, along with the noun that turns a child into a category. Listing them here set the check off, so they are described rather than quoted.
• No attorney or law firm names. These are detected by shape rather than by a name list, because a name list could never be complete. The check covers the usual partnership and professional corporation suffixes, the phrases firms put in their names, the honorific after a lawyer’s name, and vanity phone numbers. Writing this bullet out in full set the check off, which is the correct behaviour.
• A last-reviewed date on every page.
• A scope note on every page, saying this is not medical advice and not legal advice.
• A medical review slot on every clinical page.
• No tool may make a network request. The check scans for every way a browser can send data and fails the build if it finds one.
• No unrendered markup left visible on any page.

The rules that need a person

Some things cannot be checked automatically.

Causes are split into two labelled parts on every condition page: "happens even with perfect care" and "associated with gaps in care", in that order. Perfect care goes first deliberately, so a frightened parent meets "this can happen to anyone" before they meet "here is where to look."

No page states that a condition is caused by a medical error. Pages describe what can follow a specific event, and name the standard of care that applies. No page tells a reader that they might have a claim.

Every "gaps in care" section ends by saying that a website cannot decide whether a standard was breached. That is true, and it is the difference between teaching a parent and recruiting one.

No fear tactics. No page opens with the worst case, and no page uses words like devastating or tragic to describe a reader's own situation.

Nothing is invented. No reviewer, no quote, no parent story, no statistic.

How a page is written

1. The question is decided first, in the words a parent would type.
2. Primary sources are read, rather than summaries of them: professional guidance, agency publications, systematic reviews and original papers.
3. The page is drafted to the template for its type. Every condition page follows the same order, so a parent who reads two knows where to look on the third.
4. Every claim about a standard is cited to the guidance that states it.
5. Every number is cited in the same block of text, with its year.
6. Anything that cannot be sourced is removed and recorded as a gap.
7. The build gates run. Any failure is fixed before publishing.

Review and updating

Every page shows the date it was last reviewed.

Clinical pages carry a medical review line. It reads "Medical review: pending" until a licensed clinician has reviewed that page and is named with their credentials and the date. Leaving it blank would let a reader assume a review had happened.

Sources carry the date the link was last checked.

Statutes and figures that change are flagged where they appear. This site does not restate figures that change annually, such as the SSI payment amount or ABLE contribution limits, and instead points to the agency that publishes the current one.

Corrections are published, not quietly edited. See the corrections page.