Metopedia source standards are based on inspectability, proximity, preservation, reproducibility, and clear attribution.

A source is not strong because it is popular. A source is not weak because it challenges a dominant claim. Source strength depends on what the source is being used to prove.

Core rule

Use the strongest available source for the claim being made. A primary record is preferred for what happened. A technical dataset is preferred for measurement. A legal filing is preferred for a legal claim. A peer-reviewed paper is useful for academic context. Journalism is useful for reporting and public chronology. Testimony is useful for what a person says or claims to have experienced.

No source type is automatically sufficient for every claim.

Source hierarchy

Rank	Source type	Typical use
1	Primary documents, official records, legal filings, original datasets, raw images, raw video, metadata	Establishing what a record, artifact, filing, dataset, or official source contains.
2	Reproducible technical analysis, mathematical demonstrations, forensic results, linguistic transliterations	Showing method-based results that can be inspected or repeated.
3	Archived webpages and preserved public materials	Preserving page states, statements, takedown notices, public claims, and records vulnerable to change.
4	Peer-reviewed papers, academic books, technical monographs	Academic context, established literature, technical comparison, and secondary validation.
5	Institutional statements, textbooks, press releases, public reports	Official position, institutional framing, public explanation, and consensus narrative.
6	Journalism and secondary summaries	Public chronology, interviews, reported statements, and contextual reporting.
7	Testimony, interviews, memoirs, public recollections	Attributed claims, personal accounts, insider perspectives, and leads for further verification.
8	Unsourced commentary, social posts, forums, opinion content	Weak support; may be used only as examples of public discourse or attributed opinion.

This hierarchy is a guide, not a mechanical rule. A lower-ranked source may be the best source for a narrow claim. For example, a social media post is the strongest source for what the account posted, but weak evidence for whether the claim in the post is true.

Primary sources

Primary sources include original documents, government records, court filings, contracts, correspondence, datasets, raw images, raw video, audio recordings, metadata, institutional records, archived pages, source code, logs, DOI records, tombstones, platform notices, and public statements by the subject.

Primary sources are preferred for direct claims about what a record says, what a platform displayed, what a person stated, or what data contains. Primary sources still require interpretation. They may be incomplete, selective, misleading, altered, misread, or missing context.

Secondary sources

Secondary sources include academic papers, books, journalism, reports, encyclopedias, reviews, biographies, commentary, and expert summaries. Secondary sources are useful for context, comparison, chronology, interpretation, and identifying additional sources. A secondary source should not replace a primary source when a primary source is available and central to the claim.

Peer review

Peer-reviewed sources can be valuable, but peer review is not treated as final proof. Metopedia may use peer-reviewed papers for technical background, mainstream comparison, literature review, established terminology, methodological comparison, and counterarguments. Peer review is not a substitute for evidence, logic, reproducibility, or source inspection.

Institutional sources

Institutional sources include government agencies, universities, companies, repositories, courts, public bodies, and official organizations. Institutional sources are strong evidence for what the institution says, records, publishes, publicly reports, or releases. They are weaker when used to prove that the institution's own conduct, interpretation, or conclusion is correct.

When an institution is the subject of the article, its statements should be treated as evidence of institutional position, not automatically as independent verification.

Journalism

Journalism may be used for public chronology, reported statements, interviews, event summaries, public reaction, lead generation, identifying documents, and documenting media framing. Journalism should be attributed when it reports claims that are not independently verified. Prefer journalism that links documents, names sources, gives dates, provides direct quotes, and distinguishes reporting from opinion.

Testimony

Testimony may include interviews, memoirs, witness statements, whistleblower claims, public comments, declarations, and first-person accounts. Testimony is evidence that a person made a statement. It is not automatic proof that the statement is true.

Testimony should be evaluated by proximity to the event, specificity, consistency, documentary support, potential bias, risk taken by the witness, corroboration, and contradiction by other evidence.

Social media and forums

Social media posts, forum comments, anonymous posts, and unsourced online commentary are weak sources for factual claims. They may be used to document public discourse, a specific statement by a verified or relevant account, media spread, harassment or platform behavior, examples of framing, or leads for further research.

They should not be used as the sole source for serious factual allegations.

Archive standards

Important sources should be archived whenever legally and technically possible. Preferred archiving targets include the Internet Archive, archive.today or equivalent public archive services, official PDF downloads, local preservation copies where lawful, DOI landing pages, government records, public filings, platform notices, and correspondence relevant to takedowns or removals.

A source should be archived when it supports a central claim, may disappear, is disputed, is hosted by an institution being examined, records a removal or official statement, is part of an investigation, or is likely to change.

Citation requirements

Citations should allow readers to verify the claim. A good citation includes title, author or organization where known, publication or host, date where known, URL or DOI, archive URL where available, access date where useful, and page number, section, timestamp, or quote location when needed.

For legal filings, include court, case name, docket number, filing number, and date where available. For datasets, include version, repository, DOI, date, and access information. For images or videos, include source, file identifier, frame, timestamp, archive link, and provenance notes where possible.

Attribution

Attribute claims accurately. Use attribution when the claim is disputed, the claim is an allegation, the source reports another person's statement, the source is an institution describing its own conduct, the evidence is incomplete, the article discusses a person's interpretation, or the claim has not been independently verified.

Examples include: according to the filing, the platform notice stated, the author argued, the dataset records, the article reported, and the available archive shows.

Unsupported claims

Unsupported claims should not be stated as fact. Editors may remove the claim, add a citation-needed notice, move the claim to talk, reframe it as an attributed claim, mark it as unresolved, add a stronger source, or archive it as an example of public discourse if relevant. Serious allegations about living persons require strong sourcing and careful framing.

Source conflicts

When sources conflict, articles should identify the conflict rather than hide it. A source conflict section may include what each source says, what each source is based on, which source is closer to the event, whether primary records exist, whether the disagreement concerns fact, interpretation, method, or wording, and what remains unresolved.

Fabricated or altered sources

Source fabrication is a severe violation. Prohibited conduct includes inventing citations, changing quotes, omitting material context, citing a source for something it does not say, misrepresenting a source's conclusion, using broken links to conceal weak sourcing, creating false archives, or altering screenshots without disclosure. Editors who fabricate sources may lose editing access.

Dead links

Dead links should not automatically remove a citation. Preferred repair steps include checking public archives, DOI resolution, exact title searches, quoted text searches, official mirrors, dead-link notes, and replacement only when a better source is found.

Source standards