Editorial method
How we verify information
DIMISIPEDIA does not publish a verified badge for a person. It records claims, attaches evidence to each claim, classifies that evidence by authority and independence, and derives the published status from what the sources actually support.
Evidence states
Every claim carries exactly one of these five states.
- Verified
- Confirmed by a highly authoritative or primary source.
- Source-backed
- Supported by a credible source, but not independently confirmed.
- Needs verification
- The claim exists, but recorded evidence is not yet sufficient.
- Disputed
- Credible sources conflict; DIMISIPEDIA discloses both.
- Unverified
- No reliable source is currently recorded.
Source hierarchy
Each source is classified by tier. Tier determines how much weight the source can carry for a claim; it is applied consistently across the archive.
| Tier | Character | Authority | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier A | Primary / authoritative | 5/5 | Government records, statutory filings, official registries and institutional records. Highest confidence. |
| Tier B | First-party | 4/5 | Published by the entity itself — official website, official profiles, own documentation. Reliable for self-description, but not independent verification. |
| Tier C | Independent | 4/5 | Credible sources not controlled by the entity — established press, recognised publications, event organisers. |
| Tier D | Community / user-generated | 2/5 | Forums, aggregated directories and community posts. Useful as leads; not sufficient alone for biographical claims. |
Verification principles
Principle 1
Primary sources first
Government records, statutory filings and official institutional records receive the highest priority. A claim is only marked verified when a primary or comparably authoritative record supports that specific claim.
Principle 2
First-party information is labeled
Information published by a person or organisation about itself is recorded as first-party. First-party material is reliable for self-description, but it is not independent verification and is never presented as such.
Principle 3
Independent corroboration increases confidence
Claims of consequence are preferably supported by more than one credible source, at least one of which is not controlled by the entity being described.
Principle 4
Conflicting evidence is disclosed
Where credible sources disagree, the claim is marked disputed and both readings remain visible. DIMISIPEDIA does not silently choose a preferred source.
Principle 5
Unsupported claims carry no badge in public view
A claim with no recorded source is held internally as unverified, but public entity pages never display a negative label. Instead, the claim simply carries no verification badge — and where a section has no evidence at all, that section is omitted rather than asserted. The absence-of-evidence states remain visible here and on the credibility scale.
Principle 6
Sources are dated
Every source records when it was added and, where applicable, when it was last reviewed. Verification is a dated act, not a permanent property.
Principle 7
Claims are verified, not people
No person, organisation or project is marked verified as a whole. Verification attaches to individual claims — a role, a date, an association — each with its own evidence.
Principle 8
A URL is not evidence
A source counts only where it actually supports the specific claim it is attached to. A citation that does not address the claim is not recorded against it.
How a status is derived
A claim's badge is computed from its recorded evidence. A Tier A record that has itself been checked, or a Tier A record corroborated by an independent Tier C source, produces verified. Independent or first-party evidence without primary confirmation produces source-backed. Evidence that does not carry the claim produces needs verification, no evidence produces unverified, and conflicting evidence produces disputed.
Editorial judgement can lower a published status below what the evidence would allow, but it can never raise it. Internal authority scores are not emitted as structured data; the page's structured data describes only what is visible on the page.
What appears on a public page
The evidence model above runs on every claim, but public entity pages show only the positive end of the scale. A claim supported by a source displays source-backed or verified; a claim that is disputed says so. Claims held internally as needs verification or unverified display no badge at all, and sections with no recorded evidence — including references — are omitted from the page rather than shown empty.
Every visible badge is interactive. Selecting it opens the evidence panel for that claim, listing each recorded source with its tier, its independence, the date it was added and the reason the status was derived. The complete five-state scale and the tier table stay available here and on the credibility page, so nothing is removed from the record — only negative labelling is kept out of the article surface.