Editorial policy

Every value carries its record

Each researched value is stored with the identifier of the record it was read from, the date it was retrieved, and a label saying whether it was read directly from that record or derived from it. A derived value is labelled as derived on the page, with the derivation shown.

Identifiers are real and resolvable: a PubMed identifier, a DOI, a PubChem compound identifier, a UniProt accession, or a named query against a public register. The build refuses to publish a page where a value points at a record the page does not list.

How to read a page here

• A superscript number after a value is a link to the record that reports it, listed at the foot of the page.
• Unknown means no record in this dataset states the value. It is never a stand-in for a figure that exists elsewhere.
• Every amount reported in the literature is shown with the study model it came from, in the past tense, as something a named study reported. It is not an instruction.

Unknown is a value

A field that has not been sourced reads Unknown. It is never left blank, never filled with a plausible figure, and never filled with the value of a similar compound. A field that cannot apply reads Not applicable.

This is why some pages carry more Unknowns than others. The alternative would be to publish a number nobody measured, which is the one thing a reference index must not do.

What the build refuses to publish

• A page missing any required field, rather than a page with a gap in it.
• A value marked as known with no record behind it, or a record identifier that matches nothing listed on the page.
• Any wording that frames a research chemical as something to take, in any surface including the page title, the description, the headings, image text and the structured data.
• A page that nothing links to, or a page more than three clicks from the home page.
• A class with fewer than three indexed members, or a record index with fewer than five resolvable records. Below those thresholds the content stays on the compound page and no separate page is published.

Each of those is a check in the build, not a guideline. A failure stops the build and nothing is written.

Sponsored links

This site carries sponsored links. A sponsored placement is paid for and does not constitute a recommendation, a ranking or an endorsement of any supplier.

Where a link is paid for it is labelled Sponsored in the page and marked as a paid link in the markup. Paid links sit below the content, never inside a sentence that carries a statement of fact, and never inside the list of records. No paid link may rank, rate or price a supplier, and none may reference an amount.

Corrections

Every page carries the date it was last checked and the editorial desk that checked it. Where a record is withdrawn or a value is read differently on re-check, the value and its date change together.