How we review links and claims

Five questions, five separate answers

We do not use a single “verified” badge to combine unrelated checks. A source review asks where an address is published. A text comparison asks whether two hostnames match. An identity claim asks who controls a service. A continuity claim asks what connects an old project to a new one. An availability check asks whether a service responded at a particular time.

Evidence for one of those questions does not automatically answer the others. Our site currently makes no live availability claim for the selected wiki reference.

Source priorities

Software downloads and platform guidance should cite the software publisher. Historical statements should use dated contemporary records where available. A later summary can help find a record, but repeated summaries are not a substitute for an underlying source.

For the Hidden Wiki’s early history, this review located a June 2007 Tor mailing-list reference. It did not establish the supplied 2006 founding claim or a documented succession to the zqktl hostname. That limitation appears beside the historical discussion.

Directory publication

A publisher-listed entry records its purpose, full address, publisher-owned HTTPS source, review date, and a note describing the check. Independent or historical references are grouped separately and have no active onion button. An entry without a confirmed address says so explicitly. The editor should examine the destination’s stated purpose and decline records for illicit goods, stolen data, abusive material, or harmful services.

No listing is a paid endorsement. If its evidence becomes outdated or contradictory, remove its active address and mark it as a reference, or return it to draft while reviewed. A previously correct address is not a promise about future behavior.

Dates and changes

“Sources reviewed” means the cited sources were reviewed on that date. It is not automatically reset to today and does not imply that a video played, a service responded, or an operator was contacted. Substantive changes should update the relevant explanation and source review date.

Corrections

Send a concise correction through Contact & corrections. Identify the claim, the proposed correction, and the public evidence. We should acknowledge uncertainty explicitly and preserve useful historical context when correcting a statement.

This methodology describes the publication’s evidence standard; it does not guarantee the conduct of external operators.

Historical claims and visual material

We label reporting, opinion, first-party announcements, and official procedural records. A historical charging statement remains an account of charges at its date. A source about one service is not evidence of action against a different service. Unknown founding dates and operator relationships stay unresolved until a relevant record supports them.

The illustrations are original editorial artwork, not archival photographs or reconstructions of actual documents. Video cards use original illustrated covers, labeled as illustrations; they are not frames from the videos. The time machine is an illustrated historical presentation, not a reconstruction of an actual old website. Its address cells show the exact historical v2 and modern v3 hostnames, one character per cell. Switching between them compares the published strings; it does not convert one onion address into another.