Editorial methodology

Hierarchy of evidence

Sources are ranked, not treated as equal. Standards texts and the bodies that publish them come first (ISO, AMPP, ASTM, SSPC). Manufacturer technical data sheets come second, always linked and dated because they change without notice. Peer-reviewed studies and industry publications come third. Marketing material, vendor blog posts and undated PDFs are not used as evidence.

The sourcing rule

No figure is published without a public, linked and dated source. A standards article requires at least one primary source. A comparison requires at least two independent sources. The build refuses to publish an article that fails these checks — it is a technical constraint, not an intention.

How comparisons are built

Comparisons use published manufacturer data only, at comparable application conditions, with the method stated above the table. Facts drawn from a data sheet, figures derived by calculation, and editorial judgement are kept visibly separate. No negative claim is made without a source. Any manufacturer whose data is compared may ask for a correction, and substantive corrections are logged publicly.

What is never published

No client project, no case study, no result from a real installation, no anonymous testimonial. Where a scenario appears, it is a typical industrial situation, labelled as such on the page. This constraint is deliberate: it removes the temptation to use a commercial relationship as evidence.

Technical review

Every article is written from a documented brief, then reviewed and validated by a professional engineer with extensive field experience in industrial maintenance, protective coatings and corrosion control. That review checks each figure against its source, adds the engineering judgement a document cannot supply, and removes anything that cannot be backed up. Nothing is published without it. Where drafting tools are used to structure a first version, they never select a source and never decide what is recommended — those remain the reviewer’s responsibility, and the reviewer signs the result.

Ownership and conflicts of interest

This site is owned and operated by Induscoat Canada, which supplies industrial coatings. That is a real conflict of interest on any page comparing coating products, and it is stated here rather than buried. Three things follow from it: comparisons use only publicly available data, no product is recommended on the basis of who sells it, and the technical advice form produces an engineering answer — not a quotation. If an article would be more useful by recommending against a product Induscoat sells, it says so.

Review and correction

Every article carries a review date in its source file: six months for volatile subjects such as product comparisons and data sheets, twelve for stable standards. A review checks factual accuracy, outbound links and whether the page still answers the question. The publication date only changes when the content changes substantively. Substantive corrections are recorded in the public corrections log with the original error and the fix.