Editorial guidelines

What we believe

• Useful first. Every page should answer the question that brought you here, plainly, near the top, and help you act on it.
• Accurate and sourced. Facts come from sources we can point to, and we link them so you can check them yourself.
• Independent. No company can pay to be covered, ranked, left out or described more kindly.
• Honest about ourselves. We make Merlin. When it's relevant to a page, we say so, and we only describe what Merlin can actually do today.
• Current. Software, prices and companies change. We date what we publish and update it when it goes stale.

How we choose what to write

We write about the work Merlin helps with: email, calendars and meetings, the people you work with, and the AI tools people use for all of it. We look at what people actually search for and ask, and at where the best existing answer is out of date, thin or wrong, and we write the most accurate, complete version we can.

We don't publish the same answer twice. Before writing, we check whether a page of ours already covers the question, and if it does, we improve that page instead.

How we research and write

• Primary sources first: official help pages, documentation and pricing pages, a company's own site and announcements, public filings, and reputable reporting. Encyclopedias and search snippets are leads to a source, not the source.
• Every fact is checked against a source we read for that page, and linked beside the claim. If a claim can't be supported, it's softened to what the source does say, or cut. We never add a number, quote or experience to fill a gap.
• Plain language, answer first. Each section answers its own heading, so it still makes sense when someone reads only that part. We name products, companies and people in full the first time, and the same way after that.
• No invented people. Examples come from our own use of the tools we write about. We don't make up customers, quotes or case studies.
• Dates on everything: each page shows when it was published or last updated, and time-sensitive pages say which year they describe.

Our use of artificial intelligence

We build an AI product, and we believe AI used responsibly helps us give you clearer, more accurate and more current answers. We won't compromise on quality to get there, and that applies to AI too.

We use AI to assist with parts of our work, always with human oversight. It helps us:

• Research a topic and gather the sources we then read and check
• Check claims against their sources and flag anything unsupported
• Copy edit and proofread
• Experiment with headlines and page descriptions
• Analyze search data to see which questions people need answered
• Spot pages that have gone out of date

Editorial independence

Merlin is our product, and we publish pages that mention it. Here's how we keep that honest:

• We don't take payment, affiliate commissions or free products in exchange for coverage, rankings or wording.
• On comparison pages, we say up front that we make one of the tools compared. Every claim about another product comes from that product's own pages, we say what it does better, and we say who should choose it instead.
• Merlin is only mentioned where it genuinely helps with the task on the page, and only for features it has.

Pages about people and companies

• We publish public, professional information only: roles, companies, education, public work and milestones. Never home addresses, family, health, or personal contact details.
• Every fact on a profile or company dossier is numbered to its source, and the page shows when the facts were checked.
• Photos come from the person's own public profile or from openly licensed sources, and are credited on the page.
• If a page is about you and something is wrong, or you'd like it removed, email us using the link on the page, or at team@merlin.computer. Removal requests are handled by a person.

Keeping pages current

We revisit pages when the products, prices or facts they describe change, and when search and reader feedback show a page has fallen behind. Updated pages show their new date. If a page no longer serves anyone, we merge it into a better one and redirect the old address.

Corrections

If you spot a mistake, email team@merlin.computer with the page and what's wrong. We check every report against the source, fix what's wrong, and update the page's date.

Who writes for Merlin

Our pages are written and reviewed by the Merlin team, the people who build Merlin. We publish under the team's name rather than individual bylines, and every page is held to these same guidelines.

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