How our community guides are written and checked

Writing about how a British Pakistani family handles introductions, or what a Friday night means to someone who keeps Shabbat, is easy to get wrong from the outside. A guide that gets it wrong isn't just inaccurate; it tells readers from that community that the site doesn't know them. These are the rules we hold ourselves to.

Every fact has a source you can check

Every outside fact in a guide links to its primary source. When a guide states a law, a helpline number, a festival date or a census figure, the source is the government department, regulator, official helpline, charity or organisation that published it, and it's listed at the foot of the page. If we can't verify something, we leave it out rather than guess.

Facts about Just Singles itself, such as prices, billing and what is checked, come from the members area's own published policies. We don't type prices into articles; they're filled in from one place so they can't go out of date in one corner of the site.

Two countries, checked separately

Our readers are in the UK and the US, and the rules differ. Where a guide gives a law, a reporting line or an age, it says which country, or which part of the UK, it applies to. Scotland and Northern Ireland sometimes have their own services: fraud in Scotland is reported to Police Scotland, not to Report Fraud, which covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In the US, some rules differ by state, and we say so.

Community review: where it stands

We are appointing reviewers from each community we write about. None is in place yet. Our Asian, Latin and Hispanic sections, and the general guides, are published before any community review, so none of them names a reviewer. Where a section covers a wide group, such as South Asian families of different faiths, we're looking for reviewers who reflect that range.

When reviewers are in place, their job will be to check that a page describes their community the way people in it would describe it: the customs, the words used, the range of opinion, and the things an outsider tends to assume. They won't be asked to endorse Just Singles as a product. When a guide is reviewed, the reviewer's name will be added to it. Until then, no page on this site claims a review that hasn't happened.

How we write about communities

We describe practices, not people. A guide might say that biodatas are shared in many South Asian families, or that many observant Sikhs avoid halal meat; it won't say what "Asian parents" or "Latin men" are like. We use the words people use for themselves, explain terms the first time they appear, and say plainly when something varies by family, faith, region or generation, which is most of the time.

What we won't publish

• Stereotypes presented as advice.
• Invented statistics, quotes, members or "success stories". Any example profile, message or conversation is labelled as an example.
• Claims about the platform that its own policies don't support, such as saying members are verified, or quoting member numbers.
• Advertising or paid placements dressed up as guidance.

Updates and corrections

Every page shows the date it was last updated. We re-check helplines, reporting services and dates when we update a page, because organisations change their names and numbers.

If you spot a mistake, or think a page describes your community unfairly, tell us through the members help centre with the page address. The contact page explains what to include. When we correct a page, its updated date changes.

Who we are

The site is run by High Intent Media Inc; more on that is on the about page. The guides themselves are listed on our guides page, and practical advice about meeting people safely is on our safety page.