Trust & transparency
Editorial policy
This page explains how Fori guides are researched, sourced, reviewed and corrected. We publish it because you have no reason to trust a website you have never heard of, and this is the only way we know to earn it.
Our standards in one paragraph
Every factual claim in a Fori guide traces to a primary source — a government agency, a regulator, or the statute itself. We do not build guides from other blogs. Every guide carries a visible last-updated date and a list of the sources it was built from. When we are wrong we correct it in the open. And we take no money from any company we might write about.
Which sources we accept
Primary sources, always preferred. Federal and state agencies, regulators and official publications — for example the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, and individual state motor vehicle and tenancy agencies.
Reputable secondary sources, with attribution. Non-partisan research bodies, academic work, and established news organisations, used for context rather than for rules.
Sources we refuse. Other people's blogs, content farms, undated forum posts, marketing pages of companies selling the product being discussed, and anything we cannot trace to an original.
How a guide gets written
Question first
We start from a question real newcomers ask, not from a keyword. If the honest answer is “this varies by state and you must check locally”, that is what the guide says.
Primary research
We read the agency's own page, form and instructions before writing a word, and we record the URL for the sources list at the end of every guide.
Drafting
Written in plain English for someone who is intelligent, capable and new to this system. No jargon without a definition, no false precision, no padding.
Fact-check
Every number, deadline, threshold and form name is checked against the source a second time before publication.
Review and update
Every guide is fully reviewed at least twice a year, and immediately whenever a rule we cite changes. The date at the top of each guide is the date of the last substantive check, not a cosmetic refresh.
How we use AI
We use AI tools for drafting assistance, structure and language editing. We do not use them as a source of fact. No number, deadline, form name or legal statement is published on the basis of an AI output; each one is verified against the primary source by a person before it goes live, and the editorial team is accountable for everything on the page.
Independence and money
Fori is funded solely by advertising, served by third-party ad networks and clearly labelled. We accept no sponsored content, hold no affiliate or referral relationships, and sell no user data or leads. Advertisers see nothing before publication and have no influence over our guides. Where a guide discusses a product category, we explain how to evaluate options rather than naming a winner we would profit from.
Corrections
If a guide contains an error, tell us at hello@fori.us. We aim to acknowledge within two business days and to correct verified errors within 48 hours of confirming them.
Substantive corrections — anything that changes the meaning or the action a reader would take — are noted at the foot of the guide with the date and what changed. Typographical fixes are made silently. We do not delete a guide to make a mistake disappear.
What we will not publish
- Individual legal, immigration, tax or financial advice. We explain how systems work; we do not tell you what to do in your case.
- Anything that encourages misrepresentation to a government agency, an employer or a landlord.
- Guides on topics we cannot source properly. If the primary source does not exist or is genuinely ambiguous, we say so rather than inventing certainty.
Accessibility and privacy
We build for readability: high contrast in both light and dark themes, keyboard navigation, real text rather than pictures of text, and pages that work on a slow connection and an old phone. We collect as little as possible about you — see our privacy policy for exactly what and why.