Research standards for a global record.

1. Place and time

Identify the geographic scope and historical period. Distinguish a single institution, city or country from a region or transnational network. Avoid plotting a symbolic research region as though it were a known exact historic site.

2. Source status

Prefer contemporaneous records, original code, manuals, minutes, primary interviews and institutional archives when available. Museum essays, policy reports and secondary scholarship are clearly identified as such. Record links, publication dates and any known archival identifier.

3. Languages and translation

Retain original-language titles, scripts, names and terminology where possible. Attribute translations. Flag interpretive ambiguity, transcription uncertainty and variants in transliteration. Invite corrections from language-community specialists.

4. Attribution and labor

Distinguish a person’s named role, a collective’s credited work, an institution’s funding, and technology purchased or adapted locally. Do not infer sole authorship from fame, a patent, a company press release, or the presence of a museum exhibit.

5. Historical contestation

Competing claims must describe their supporting evidence and any disagreement about definitions—for example, whether “first” means proposed, demonstrated, shipped, publicly accessible or widely adopted. Do not use false balance when the available evidence strongly favors one account.

6. Public revisions

Material factual changes receive a dated revision note that identifies what changed and why. Routine punctuation fixes need not produce a public edition. Revisions should not silently erase consequential previous assertions.

7. Contributor safety and privacy

Do not publish personal contact information, confidential testimony or identifying material without appropriate permission. Future moderated submissions will require rate limiting, review, spam protection and data retention safeguards.

8. AI-assisted research

AI tools may support discovery or drafting, but are not sources of historical evidence. Editors must verify claims against accessible original material or attributed secondary research. Never invent citations, interviews or archival holdings.