Editorial policy
What we check, what we label, and what we will not publish.
Last updated September 2026
Factual material
Factual articles are intended to be sourced. Where an article makes a specific claim — a date, a measurement, a scientific finding, a law — that claim should be traceable to a named source listed at the foot of the piece.
We do not invent statistics, historical events, scientific findings, legal rules, research results or quotations. Where something is widely repeated but poorly evidenced, we say so plainly rather than repeating it. Where the evidence is genuinely uncertain, the article uses conservative wording: "as far as is known", "the documented version is", "this is disputed".
Quotations
We do not fabricate quotations from real people. Dialogue appears only in clearly labelled fiction, where the speakers are invented characters.
Fictional stories
Stories in the Human Drama section are original fiction. They are labelled on the article page, in the card that links to them and in the metadata. See the fiction policy for the detail.
Puzzles
Puzzles are entertainment. They are generated from structured data, and the answer is verified automatically before publication: grids are checked for exactly one odd cell, mazes are solved by an independent search, number sequences are recomputed from their stated rule, and logic puzzles are brute-forced to confirm a single valid solution. A puzzle that fails any of those checks is not published.
We do not describe puzzles as IQ tests, dementia tests, ADHD tests, brain-age tests or psychological assessments, because they are none of those things. We also do not publish claims such as "only 1% of people can solve this" unless we have data that actually supports it — which, so far, we do not.
Images
Puzzle artwork, social cards and most article artwork are generated programmatically from the article's own data. All text inside our artwork is rendered as real type, not drawn by an image model, so spelling and numbers are always correct.
Where an illustration or a digital reconstruction is used to depict a historical scene, it is captioned as an illustration or reconstruction. We never present a generated picture as a genuine archival photograph.
Photographs come from Wikimedia Commons, under licences that permit commercial use and modification: public domain, CC0, CC BY and CC BY-SA. We do not use NonCommercial or NoDerivatives material, because this site carries advertising and because images are cropped and resized. Every photograph is credited beside the image with its creator and licence, and all of them are listed on the image credits page. We do not take images from image searches, and we do not use copyrighted photographs of people without rights.
Headlines
If a headline or a social post promises an answer, a reveal or a full story, that answer, reveal or story is on the page it links to. We do not split ten facts across ten pages, and we do not promise a payoff that is not there.
Corrections
We correct errors. If you spot one, tell us at worldofcuriouscontact@gmail.com or through the corrections page. Substantive corrections are noted on the article, and the update date is changed.
Advertising
Advertising is kept separate from editorial. Advertisers do not choose or approve articles. Ad placements are positioned so that they are not easy to click by accident. See advertising.