Editorial standards

These are the rules this publication actually works to. They are published because a reader has no way to check what we did unless we say what we were trying to do.

1. Bylines are the publication

Every article here is published under the name Kids Play Magazine and is the work of its editorial process. No article is signed by an individual.

This is a direct response to what was found in this title's own archive, which published under invented names including two carrying a doctoral title. Attributing work to a person who does not exist is a fabrication regardless of whether the underlying content is accurate. Attributing it to the publication is accurate, and the publisher is named on every page.

2. No invented study, statistic, researcher or quotation

Nothing on this site cites a study that does not exist, a figure that cannot be traced, a researcher who was not involved, or words nobody said. Where a claim cannot be traced to a source that exists, the claim is removed rather than softened or hedged.

Attribution to a named individual carries an additional test: the specific claim must be checkable against something that person actually published. A real expert's name attached to a paraphrase they never wrote is still a fabrication, and it is one of the most common failures in consumer writing about children. Where the archive contained attributions of this kind that could not be verified, they were removed rather than reproduced.

3. Sources are institution level

Claims are anchored to bodies that publish and stand behind their material: the NHS, NICE, the Department for Education and the EYFS statutory framework, Ofsted, the UK Chief Medical Officers, the World Health Organization, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, the Health and Safety Executive, RoSPA, the British Psychological Society, the Cochrane Library, the Education Endowment Foundation and journals indexed in PubMed.

Where a named academic work is the correct citation, it is cited in full with author, year, title and publication, whether or not a stable link exists. A source list on this site is not decoration and every entry on it is meant to be checkable.

4. The evidence note

Every article opens with a three cell note: what is well established, what is contested, and what is not known. It appears above the argument rather than below it.

The reason is specific to this subject. Writing about children reliably inflates modest findings into strong ones, because the inflated version is more useful to whoever is selling something. Stating the strength of the evidence first makes that harder to do and easier for a reader to catch. Every note on the site is collected on the evidence desk.

5. No venue, no rating, no price, no product

This publication publishes no venue name, address, telephone number, opening time, price, booking link or rating, and it reviews no product. It publishes no ranked list of anything.

Where a reader's question is genuinely a venue question, this site says so and names the discipline that answers it rather than answering it badly. National play venue standards and contracts belong to kidsplaycentre.co.uk. Indoor play in Glasgow and the west of Scotland belongs to softplayglasgow.co.uk.

6. No images of children

This site publishes no photographs of children. The subject does not require them, and the decision removes the consent and dignity problems that stock imagery of children carries. The visual identity is typographic.

7. Nothing here is clinical or educational advice

This publication does not assess, screen for or diagnose anything, and it is not a substitute for a health visitor, GP, paediatrician, speech and language therapist, occupational therapist, educational psychologist or a child's setting. Articles state their limits explicitly in a section that appears on every page rather than in a footnote.

Where a topic touches on a condition, the article points to the relevant NICE guideline or NHS route and stops. It does not describe symptoms in a way that invites self-assessment.

8. Commercial arrangements

One sponsored line per issue of the fortnightly letter, marked as sponsored, at a published rate. That is the entire commercial model. There is no advertising, no affiliate link, no sponsored article, no paid directory and no arrangement under which anybody can pay to be mentioned, assessed or omitted. Sponsorship buys the line and nothing else, and the list of what it cannot buy is published on the newsletter page.

Articles carry a disclosure block stating that they contain no commercial links, because a disclosure that only appears when there is something to disclose tells a reader less than one that always appears.

9. Language

British English. Plain sentences. No em dashes anywhere in the published output. Numbers with units and named sources rather than vague intensifiers. Where a body of research is weak, the article says it is weak rather than reaching for a phrase that implies more than the studies support.

10. Corrections

If something here is wrong, it gets changed and the change is recorded. Factual errors are corrected promptly and the article's review date is updated. Where a correction is material, it is noted on the corrections page rather than made silently.

Guidance in this field is revised, and an article that was accurate at its review date can stop being accurate. Where an article summarises a statutory framework or a clinical guideline, the published document itself takes precedence over the summary, and the article says so.

11. Review dates are truthful

The review line at the foot of each article states when it was actually written and reviewed. It is not moved to make the page look fresh. If it has not been revisited, the date does not change.

12. How to raise something

Corrections, source challenges and questions about how a claim was reached go through the contact page. A source challenge is the most useful thing a reader can send, and it is treated as the highest priority category of message.