How entries are written

1. Mechanisms, not verdicts

An entry describes how a technique works and how to recognize it. It does not say whether the claim the technique carries is true, whether the campaign that used it was right, or whether the people who ran it were honest. Where a page names a technique in a real artifact, it names the technique at that spot, and nothing more.

2. Examples are historical or commercial

Historical examples are drawn from campaigns old enough to have a settled literature, and cited to it. Commercial examples come from advertising and public relations. The technique pages, the archive, and the educator materials do not use contemporary political examples, and the site does not cover live elections or candidates in any country.

2a. Contested recent cases

The case studies section carries a separate group of recent episodes in which an official or institutional account outran its evidence and was later contradicted by an inquiry, a declassified record, or a policy reversal. These are written from the primary documents, name the techniques they document, and include the findings that cut the other way; where the underlying question is still disputed, the page says so and does not resolve it. They are marked as contested on the page, listed under their own heading, and never used in lesson plans or the educator pack.

3. Every example is cited

Each example carries a citation to a source a reader can check: a book, a paper, a catalog record, or an archive item. Chapter and page numbers are given only where the editors have verified them. Sources that could not be verified are not used.

4. The archive reproduces, it does not endorse

Posters and advertisements in the archive are shown because they illustrate a technique, not because the site agrees or disagrees with them. Some are hateful. They are reproduced in full, with the pins that name what they are doing, because a cropped or softened version would teach less. Each item records its institution, identifier, and license.

5. Rights

The archive uses items that are in the public domain or released under an open license, as recorded by the holding institution. Items whose status is unclear are not published. A rights holder who believes an item is recorded wrongly can write to the editors and the item will be corrected or removed.

6. Corrections

Errors are corrected on the page, and substantive corrections are noted at the foot of the entry with the date. Pages are not silently rewritten.

7. Independence

There is no advertising and no sponsored content. The site is paid for by its own educator materials. No entry is written or changed at the request of a company, campaign, or government.