How We Check Our Facts
Salami is fun. Getting a cure amount or a storage time wrong isn't. So every page on CellarCure goes through a fact check before it goes live, and the safety stuff gets the closest look. Here's exactly how that works.
Writing and checking are separate jobs
The writing and the checking are done separately. A page is marked approved only after the fact checker signs off, and nothing goes live without that sign-off.
Every new page gets a full check
When a page is brand new, the fact checker reviews all of it. Every claim gets compared against the source it cites.
Changes get checked by how much they matter
When we edit a page that's already live, the writer labels the change, and the fact checker can bump that label up but never down.
- Cosmetic. Typos, punctuation, formatting, or switching a link from http to https. These skip the fact check, but they'll still go through our automated checks once those are built.
- Regular content. History, flavor, equipment or wording. The fact checker reviews the lines that changed and the sources behind them.
- Safety. Cure amounts, nitrite and nitrate, salt, pH, water activity, temperatures, times, pathogens, storage, and anything in the cure calculator. This gets a full check, separate from the writer's. The fact checker opens every source and recomputes every number.
What a fact check looks like
The fact checker sends back every finding in one pass, and each one is labeled:
- Blocking. Something's wrong. It goes back to the writer with the exact line and the correct source, and the page doesn't go live until it's fixed.
- Small fix. A purely mechanical fix, never a change to what the page says. The fact checker makes it and approves the page in the same pass.
- Note. An idea for a future update. It goes on our to-do list.
A page gets at most two rounds of review. If it still doesn't pass, it goes up to the site owner to decide.
Our source records
We're setting up a running record of our sources. For each one, it will list the link, the exact quote that supports our claim, what that quote supports, and the date we checked it. A general claim will be able to reuse a source we've checked in the last 90 days. Safety numbers used by the cure calculator will always get their source opened again.
One list of safety numbers
We're putting all the safety numbers we use into one list. Once it's done, our articles and the cure calculator will have to match it, and changing it will need the site owner's OK.
Scripts for the boring checks
We're building scripts to do the boring checks. Before a page goes to the fact checker, one will check the links, the page formatting, and that every safety number matches our list. After a page goes live, another will compare the live page against the approved version and check the links again. If they don't match, the fact checker will step in.
What we don't claim
We aim to link every safety claim to the source it comes from, so you can check it yourself. Our fact checks aren't done by credentialed food-safety experts, so always follow current USDA FSIS guidance. For more on what CellarCure is and isn't, see our full disclaimer.