This policy sets out what KeepersNook publishes, what it refuses to publish, where the facts come from, and what happens when a guide turns out to be wrong.
It is written to be checkable. Every rule below is one you can hold a published guide against.
What counts as a source
Not all references carry the same weight, so the guides do not treat them as if they do.
| Tier | Examples | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | Peer-reviewed journals, veterinary references, university extension material, government guidance | Any claim about safety, toxicity, disease, or a numeric threshold |
| Supporting | Established keeper organisations, breed and species registries, published husbandry manuals | Practical husbandry, breed characteristics, setup norms |
| Never cited | Forums, social posts, AI summaries, unattributed blogs, retailer copy | Nothing |
Where a claim depends on current guidance rather than settled biology, the year is shown so a reader can judge whether it is still current.
Sourcing rules
Minimums per guide
- Feeding safety, setup, compatibility
- At least two credible sources
- Species and breed guides
- At least three, where care requirements are central
- Any toxicity or safety threshold
- Traced to a primary-tier source, no exceptions
- Attribution style
- Named source with a visible year, never "experts say" or "studies show"
What we refuse to publish
We also do not publish guidance that reads as safe because it is vague. If the honest answer is that keepers disagree, the guide says that and explains what the disagreement turns on.
Care levels are a claim, not decoration
Each guide carries a care level describing what the animal demands of the keeper: how forgiving it is of a missed feed, how narrow its temperature or water tolerances are, and how quickly a mistake becomes irreversible.
A guide shows no care level rather than guessing at one. An absent badge means we have not rated that animal, not that it is easy.
Review and updates
Guides are not written once and left. What triggers a revisit is stated here so a reader can judge whether an old date is a problem or a signal that nothing changed.
| Trigger | Response |
|---|---|
| A source updates its guidance | The guide is re-checked against the new version and corrected if the threshold moved |
| A reader reports an error | Checked against the original source, then corrected or removed |
| Equipment or product guidance ages | Re-checked when the recommendation is no longer available or has been superseded |
| Nothing changed | The guide keeps its date. An old date on settled biology is accurate, not neglect. |
Images
Photographs and illustrations carry care claims as much as prose does, so they follow the same rule.
Independence
Commercial rules
- Paid placement
- Never accepted
- Manufacturer review of drafts
- Never granted
- Affiliate links
- Disclosed, and never a factor in what is recommended or how it ranks
- Sponsored guides
- Not published
The affiliate disclosure covers the commercial arrangement in full.
Corrections
What happens when a guide is wrong
- Report itSend the URL and the specific claim through the contact page
- It gets re-checkedThe claim is taken back to its source rather than argued from memory
- The guide changesThe claim is corrected or removed, and materially changed guides carry a new updated date
- Systematic errors get tracedIf one guide got a threshold wrong, every guide repeating that threshold is checked
Corrections are handled by the named author on the about page, not by a support queue.
Who is accountable
Every guide is written and edited by Jonathan Do. A single-author site has an obvious limit, which is that nothing gets a second pair of eyes before publication. This policy exists to compensate for that with sourcing discipline and a correction path that a reader can actually reach.