Editorial Policy

Last updated: October 31, 2026

Editorial Scope and Standards

Coink publishes explanatory content on personal finance and small-business finance. Standards: plain language, primary sources, explicit assumptions, no manufactured urgency, no claims that can’t be pointed at a source. Opinion is labeled as opinion. Estimates are labeled as estimates.

Content Research and Source Selection

Articles are researched using publicly available sources, including official government and institutional publications. Source selection prioritizes authoritative, primary references in this order: statutes, regulations, and regulator guidance; agency data and official statistics; primary institutional documents (fee schedules, loan agreements, rate sheets); peer-reviewed research; reputable secondary reporting. Secondary sources are used to find primaries, not to stand in for them.

Each factual claim that could reasonably be disputed gets a source attached at the drafting stage, in a working document. Claims without a source get cut or hedged. Numbers that move — rates, thresholds, contribution limits, fee caps — are date-stamped in the draft and given a scheduled re-check date.

Editorial Roles

Coink is a one-person publication. Both roles are held by the same person, Alicia Heimbaung:

Author-Publisher — selects topics, researches, drafts, sources claims, and builds any accompanying calculator or worksheet.

Editor — reviews the draft against the pre-publication checklist, verifies each source actually supports the claim it is attached to, checks arithmetic, tightens structure, and holds publish authority.

Disclosed limitation. Because author and editor are the same person, there is no independent second reader. The process compensates in three ways: (1) a mandatory cooling period of at least one sleep between finishing a draft and editing it; (2) a written checklist completed before publishing, so review is a task performed rather than a feeling recalled; (3) a source-per-claim rule, so verification is against documents rather than memory.

AI-Assisted Drafting and Human Review

Coink may use AI-assisted drafting tools for outlining, first drafts, restructuring, and copyediting. AI is used as a drafting aid, not an authority.

AI is not trusted for: final figures, statutory citations, quoted language, dates, or the existence of a source. Those are checked against the primary document by hand. Known AI failure modes — plausible-sounding citations, invented thresholds, confident arithmetic errors, stale figures presented as current — are the specific targets of the verification step.

All AI-assisted content is reviewed by the human editor before publication, and human editorial judgment governs final content. Where a piece is substantially AI-drafted, that is noted in the article footer. No AI tool is credited as an author.

Workflow

Topic selection. Chosen against reader questions and search demand; logged with intended audience and takeaway. Research. Primary sources gathered into a working file. Gaps noted, not papered over. Draft. Written with inline source links and date stamps on all moving figures. Cooling period. Minimum one sleep. Draft untouched. Editing pass. Checklist completed in writing. Every source opened and confirmed to support its claim. Arithmetic recomputed independently of the draft. Hedges added where the evidence is thin. Calculator check, where applicable: inputs, rounding, and edge cases (zero, negative, very large) tested. Publish with author/editor byline, publish date, “last reviewed” date, and next scheduled re-check. Post-publish read on a different device within 48 hours, to catch formatting and mobile-only breakage.

Pre-Publication Checklist

Every moving figure date-stamped and sourced to a primary Every link resolves and reaches the intended page No claim resting solely on a secondary source Arithmetic recomputed by hand or independently Assumptions stated where a calculator or table is used Opinion labeled Affiliate links disclosed at point of use Disclaimer block present Re-check date set Read once aloud for tone

Fact-Checking

Fact-checking happens at step 5, not after publication. “The source exists” is not sufficient; the source must say what the draft says it says. Where a primary source cannot be located, the claim is hedged to what can be supported or removed.

Corrections and the Correction Log

Errors identified after publication are corrected promptly, with appropriate context where applicable. Corrections are graded, and the grade determines the handling:

Tier 1 — Typographical or cosmetic. Spelling, formatting, broken link, dead PDF replaced. Fixed silently; noted in the log only if the link change altered meaning.

Tier 2 — Clarification. Accurate but ambiguous or easily misread. Text clarified with an inline note at the bottom of the piece.

Tier 3 — Factual correction. A figure, date, name, threshold, or claim was wrong. Corrected in text with a dated correction note stating what was wrong and what it now says. Original figure is not quietly overwritten where it affects a calculation shown in the piece.

Tier 4 — Material error or retraction. The piece’s central conclusion is wrong, or a calculator is producing wrong output. Correction note at the top of the piece, headline adjusted if the headline carries the error, social posts updated, newsletter correction if it went out by email, and the piece pulled from any “start here” or recommended lists until fixed. Full retraction where the premise fails; retracted pieces stay live with a banner rather than being deleted.

The log. Every Tier 2–4 correction is entered in a public correction log at [/corrections], one row per correction: date, article, what was wrong, what changed, tier, and who caught it (author or reader). Rows are permanent and are not deleted if a piece is later retracted. Each affected article carries a link to its own log entries.

Response windows. Reader-reported errors are acknowledged within 5 business days and resolved or escalated to Tier 3 within 10. Tier 4 items are handled the same day they’re confirmed.

Scheduled re-checks. Every article with moving figures carries a re-check date, default 6 months for rates and thresholds and 12 months for stable concepts. Re-check results are logged even when nothing changed, so the schedule is visible.

Reporting an Error

Email [ali.one.cuenta@gmail.com] with the URL, the passage, and the source you believe is correct. Specificity speeds it up. Readers who catch Tier 3 and 4 errors are credited in the log unless they ask not to be.

Independence

Affiliate relationships are decided after editorial, never before, and an affiliate product gets the same scrutiny as a non-affiliate one. Sponsored placements, if any, are labeled and kept out of the correction log’s scope. No advertiser or affiliate partner has pre-publication review.

Versioning

Articles carry a publish date and a “last reviewed” date. Substantive revisions bump the reviewed date. The correction log, not the article body, is the authoritative record of what changed and when.