How we verify
Source-checked Japan exists because most English-language guides skip the practical layer: which claims are actually confirmed, which are inherited from other articles without a check, and which nobody has confirmed at all. This page explains how we try to keep those three apart.
Source priority
- Tier 1 — Official / primary. Operator, venue, temple, town, or business sources; government and transit data; on-site or phone confirmation.
- Tier 2 — Established secondary. Established travel references and reputable local reporting, used to cross-check Tier 1 or fill gaps Tier 1 does not cover.
- Tier 3 — Community / informal. Forums, social posts, and informal reports. Used only as a lead to investigate, never cited as the basis for a claim on its own.
What "checked" means
A claim is marked checked only after it has been traced to a Tier 1 source (or independently confirmed by phone/in person) and given a checked date. Claims that are still based on AI-assisted research collection, secondary sources only, or informal reports are kept as "Verification pending" and are never re-labelled as checked automatically.
Checked dates and review
Every published claim carries a checked date. High-volatility information (prices, hours, transport schedules, event dates) is kept in a separate "Event box" with its own next-review date, so it can be refreshed without rewriting the rest of the article.
Corrections
When a published claim turns out to be wrong, we log it publicly on the corrections page, distinguishing material errors (would change a reader's decision) from minor ones (typos, formatting, small date shifts).
What we will not do
- Present an unconfirmed claim as confirmed fact.
- Publish an article whose confirmed claims have no checked date.
- Show pending map pins on the public map as if they were verified locations.
- Hide the "what we could not verify" section, even when it is short.