HamWiki:Editorial policy

This page explains who runs HamWiki, how its articles are written and checked, and how mistakes are corrected.

Who decides what is published

HamWiki is run by one editor, a licensed radio amateur who prefers not to be named. The editor decides what HamWiki covers, sets the house rules on this page, and approves every change before it goes live. Nothing is published automatically.

How AI is used

HamWiki's articles are written with the help of Anthropic's Claude, an AI assistant. The work is done in steps:

The editor chooses a topic, often from readers' suggestions, gaps in the site or the editor's own material.
Claude researches the topic and drafts the article in plain language, recording a source for each specific fact (numbers, dates, frequencies, rules, names and call signs) in working notes that the checker uses. Articles do not carry footnotes, but most list official sites under External links.
A separate fact-checking pass, which did not write the draft, checks those facts against the sources and looks for errors, overstatements and anything out of date.
Errors found are fixed, and anything that can't be confirmed is taken out rather than guessed.
The editor reviews the result and approves it for publishing.

HamWiki does not use made-up authors or pen names, and it does not invent quotes, people or statistics. Photos marked "Photo taken for HamWiki" are real photos of real equipment. Diagrams marked "Drawn for HamWiki" are drawn to show how something works and are checked against the article they illustrate.

Sources

HamWiki relies on primary sources where they exist: the radio regulations themselves (the FCC's Part 97 in the United States, and the regulators of other countries), the IARU and national societies such as the ARRL, manufacturers' own documents and official organization websites. Secondary sources such as reference books, major newspapers and encyclopedias are used for history and biographies. External links are checked, and links to sites that have closed or been taken over are removed.

Independence

HamWiki carries no advertising and has no sponsors. Products and companies are described for information only; HamWiki is not paid to mention them and does not use affiliate links. It is not affiliated with any club, society, manufacturer or dealer, or with any other wiki, including any that use the same or a similar name, whether they exist now or appear later.

Corrections

Ham radio changes all the time, and mistakes can slip through. Every article ends with a Suggest a correction link that opens an email to info@hamwiki.org. Each report is checked against sources, and confirmed errors are fixed. Notable corrections are listed in the corrections log. Articles are also reviewed regularly for rules that have changed, companies that have closed and programs that are no longer maintained.

Reusing HamWiki

HamWiki's text, drawings and photos are free to reuse under a Creative Commons license. See HamWiki:Copyrights.