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Machinery Field Journal

Editorial policy

How we source, attribute and correct our work

This policy governs everything published on Machinery Field Journal. It is written so that a reader, a dealer we profile or a search engine can see exactly how a claim reached the page.

Sourcing and dating

Every factual claim is tied to a source listed at the end of the article, with the date we accessed it. We read primary sources in full and retain copies. Where a fact comes from a company’s own website we say so, and we describe it as the company’s statement rather than as established fact. Where figures change over time, such as inventory counts, prices, ratings and review counts, we present them as a snapshot on a stated date.

Dealer profiles

A dealer profile describes a business from its published record. For each profile we state what we did (which pages we read, which registries we queried, which third-party profiles we consulted) and what we did not do (visit, call, transact, verify filings). We separate three kinds of statement clearly: what the dealer publishes about itself, what third parties publish, and what Machinery Field Journal observed or recommends. Inconsistencies in a dealer’s published record are reported with the evidence, without speculation about motive. We do not rate dealers and we do not publish aggregate scores of our own.

Dealers we profile are told how to respond on our contact page. A substantive response is added to the profile with its date.

Third-party ratings and reviews

Ratings and review counts published by other websites belong to those websites. We attribute them by name, link to the page, record the date, and describe the platform’s own stated methodology. We do not reproduce individual reviews as verified customer feedback, we do not combine ratings from different platforms, and we do not mark up third-party ratings as structured data on our pages. Readers should weigh a rating according to how, or whether, the platform verifies that a reviewer completed a purchase.

What we will not do

  • Invent testimonials, quotations, reviews, ratings or reporting.
  • Attribute credentials, bylines or organisational details that have not been confirmed.
  • Copy substantial passages from other publications. We write originally from the facts.
  • Present placeholder contact identities or addresses as genuine.
  • Publish structured data, such as aggregate ratings, that we cannot support with first-party evidence.

Technical reporting

Specifications, capacities and model designations are given as approximations drawn from manufacturers’ published material, and each article says so. We do not publish repair cost figures because they vary too widely to be useful; we tell readers how to obtain a quote instead. Nothing we publish is legal, tax or financial advice.

Photography and licensing

We use openly licensed photographs from Wikimedia Commons and public-domain U.S. government sources. Each image carries the photographer’s credit and the licence, with links to the original file and the licence text. Images show representative machines of the type discussed; they are not photographs of a specific dealer’s units unless a caption says so.

We link to dealers, review platforms and other commercial sites so that readers can check our sourcing. These links carry a “nofollow” attribute, are not endorsements, and are not paid for. Internal links point readers to related reporting of ours.

Research and drafting tools

We use software tools for research, data extraction, drafting and image processing, including AI-assisted writing tools. A human editor is responsible for every published fact, and every fact must be traceable to a listed source. Tools do not relieve us of the obligations in this policy.

Corrections

When we learn of an error, we correct the article, note the correction and its date at the foot of the piece, and update the article’s modified date. Material corrections to a dealer profile are also reflected in the profile’s fact panel. Requests for correction should come through the contact page and should identify the claim, the article and the evidence. We aim to acknowledge requests promptly and to resolve them as quickly as verification allows.

This policy in practice

Our profile of MF Equipment is the reference example of this policy: dated sources, separated statements, attributed third-party figures, reported inconsistencies, a domain registry record cited alongside the dealer’s own history claims, and an explicit list of what we did not verify.