The standards behind our guides, blog articles, archive notes, corrections, and commercial collaborations.
Sourcing and review
Factual claims should be checked against reliable references. Historical material is identified as archival; summaries adapted from reference works are rewritten and linked to their source.
Editorial independence
Editorial conclusions are not sold. Advertising, affiliate relationships, supplied products, sponsored articles, and paid links must be disclosed where a reader can see them.
Corrections
Substantive corrections should be added promptly and transparently. Minor spelling and layout fixes may be made without a note; changes that alter meaning should include a dated correction.
AI-assisted work
Automation may support research, transcription, image ideation, or editing, but published factual claims remain subject to human editorial review and source checking.
Evidence comes before confidence
This music editorial policy governs instrument guides, stories, reviews, Learn pages, Sound Lab explanations, and the Martin Ott archive. A polished sentence does not make a claim true. Names, dates, places, quotations, specifications, and current status need a source that actually supports them.
Source roles are kept narrow. A contract may show what was agreed, not what was finally built. A dedication program can document an event, but it may repeat promotional language. An institutional page can describe its own venue or collection. A technical reference can explain a mechanism without proving that the mechanism appears in a particular instrument.
Missing information stays missing. The journal does not infer an organ action, case, consultant, stop list, dedication date, owner, access status, or present condition from a builder's usual practice. When sources disagree, the page keeps the claims attached to their sources and explains whether they may describe different events or counting methods.
Reporting, reviews, and listening
Stories about people concentrate on documented public work. Private life and motive are not guessed to make a profile feel complete. Interviews and personal recollections are attributed, and memory is identified as memory when it cannot settle a date or technical fact by itself.
A review identifies what was heard or used. A concert report names the venue, date, programme, performers, and listening position when it affects the account. Product coverage records the relevant configuration, signal path, supplied access, and test conditions. Words such as bright, warm, heavy, or intimate need an audible example or a clear comparison.
Technical numbers keep their units and assumptions. Frequency needs hertz and a reference pitch when tuning is discussed. Delay time needs BPM and note value. Pipe length calculations are ideal acoustic estimates, not workshop dimensions. A browser tool is not described as calibrated unless it has been calibrated and documented as such.
Images, audio, and automation
Documentary photographs require a traceable identity, credit, and rights basis. Generated scenes and reconstructions are labelled in the caption and are not evidence for a case, console, room, person, or event. If a verified documentary image becomes available, the label and credit must change with the asset.
Audio credits should identify the recording, performer, source, and venue when known. A public-domain composition does not make every recording free to reuse. Editing or processing that changes how a clip should be heard is noted where it matters.
Software may help with transcription, comparison, drafting, or testing. Names, dates, quotations, counts, and technical claims still need a human check against the source or live interface. Optical character recognition is a search aid, not final proof. No page claims a review step that did not occur.
Corrections and commercial separation
Meaning-changing errors receive a dated correction that states what changed and why. A spelling or layout fix may be silent when meaning is unaffected. New interpretation is labelled as an update rather than presented as a factual correction.
Paid or supplied work uses a visible disclosure. A partner may correct its own address, specification, or quotation, but it cannot approve the journal's conclusion, remove a documented limitation, or alter unrelated archive history. Affiliate and paid links use rel="sponsored" or nofollow when appropriate. Payment never buys ranking credit.
More detail on citations and media provenance appears in Sources & Credits. Commercial terms are explained in the sponsored content policy. These policies are useful only when the published page follows them.