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Corrections

Corrections are read first, ahead of everything else. Send:

1. The URL of the page.
2. The sentence you believe is wrong, quoted, so there is no ambiguity about which claim is at issue.
3. What the correct version is.
4. A link to a source, if you have one. This is the single most useful thing in the message — it turns a claim we have to go and verify into one we can check in a minute.

You do not need to be polite about it and you do not need to be certain. A message saying "I think this number is stale, here is the vendor's current page" is exactly right.

What happens next depends on the size of the error. A typo, a broken link, or a stale figure is edited quietly. A substantive change — a number, a recommendation, a conclusion a reader could have acted on — is edited and the page's visible updated date moves with it, because a reader who saw the old version deserves to know the page changed under them. Where a correction reverses earlier advice, the page says so rather than quietly becoming a different page. Editorial policy sets out both tiers.

Editorial questions

Ask why an article reaches the conclusion it does, or which source sits behind a specific claim, and you will get an answer. Every article names its sources; we would rather point you at them than have you take our word for anything.

If you think a page is missing something important, say what and why. Some of the better pages on this site exist because a reader pointed out a gap in an earlier one.

Suggesting coverage

Suggestions are welcome, with one filter worth knowing in advance: we publish from reader need, not from keyword volume. The suggestions that land are the ones that describe a decision somebody is stuck on and what the existing pages fail to resolve. "You should cover X" is harder to act on than "I could not work out whether X or Y applies to my case, and none of the pages I found say."

Licensing and reuse

Requests to reuse a photograph go through Image licensing, which explains which images are ours to license and which must be cleared with the original rights holder. Reading it first saves a round trip, since most images here belong to somebody else.

Text reuse is covered in Terms of use. Short quotes with credit and a link need no permission; republishing an article does.

Advertising and partnerships

Display and affiliate arrangements are described in Advertising & affiliate disclosure, which is also the page to read if you want to know how monetization does and does not affect coverage.

Two things are declined by default, so nobody wastes an email:

• Guest posts that exist to place a link. Not published, at any price, however the offer is framed.
• Requests to add, remove, or reorder a product for commercial reasons. Neither a close call nor negotiable.

Press releases are read but rarely produce a page on their own; a product announcement is a source, not a story.

Privacy requests

Access, correction, and deletion requests are covered by Privacy, which also lists what is collected in the first place — a short list. Say what you are asking for and the address the account uses. Where the data is held by an advertising or analytics provider rather than by us, we will tell you that plainly and point you at the party that holds it.

Sending a correction that gets fixed fastest

Corrections are the most valuable thing that arrives here, and a small amount of structure makes the difference between a fix today and a fix after a round of back-and-forth.

The four things that make a correction immediately actionable:

1. The page. A URL beats a title, and a title beats a description. We publish enough that "the article about node providers" is genuinely ambiguous.
2. The sentence. Quote the claim as it appears. It removes any doubt about which of several nearby statements is the one you mean.
3. What is actually true. State the correct version plainly.
4. How you know. A link to a primary source — vendor documentation, a specification, a filing, a changelog — is what converts a claim into a change. Without it we have two assertions and no way to choose between them.

A correction that arrives in that shape is usually verified and published the same day. One that arrives as "this is wrong" takes a week, because the first thing we have to do is work out what you meant.

Suggesting a topic

Topic suggestions are welcome and several published pages started as one. The most useful version describes the problem rather than the article: what you were trying to do, what you searched for, and what the existing results failed to tell you.

That framing matters because it is the same test a topic has to pass internally. A subject becomes a page when there is a distinct reader need behind it and something original to say, which is set out in Editorial policy. "Write about X" does not answer that test. "I could not find out whether X does Y, and every result was a vendor page that dodged it" answers it completely.

We cannot promise to cover a suggestion or to give a timeline for one. Research takes as long as it takes, and a page that is not ready does not publish.

Partnerships, tools, and vendor outreach

Vendors get in touch, and the useful ones are welcome. Documentation, specifications, technical detail, and corrections about your own product are all read and used.

What does not work, so nobody wastes an afternoon on it: paid placements, sponsored posts written as editorial, link insertions into existing articles, guest posts, and offers of payment for a review. Those are declined in every case for the reasons in Advertising & affiliate disclosure, and a message proposing one does not usually get a reply.

If you are offering access to a product for coverage, be aware that access creates no obligation to cover, and that any coverage which does result will disclose the access and may still be unfavorable.

Security reports

If you have found a vulnerability in this site, report it before disclosing it publicly and include enough detail to reproduce it. These go to the front of the queue alongside corrections.

Reports made in good faith are welcome. Please do not access, modify, or delete data belonging to other people while investigating, and please do not run load tests or volume scans against the site — those affect other readers, and they are the one category of testing that is not covered by any of the goodwill above.

What we cannot help with

Saying this plainly saves more time than any other section on this page.

• Support for products we write about. We are not the vendor, we have no access to your account with them, and we cannot recover, reset, refund, or escalate anything. The vendor's own support is the only route that exists.
• Advice about your specific situation. Where a decision has real consequences and depends on facts about you, the article is one input, and the person you need is someone qualified and accountable for your circumstances. That limit is set out in Terms of use.
• Removing an accurate article. Coverage is corrected when it is wrong. It is not withdrawn because it is unflattering, and requests to that effect are declined.
• Link placements and guest posts. Covered above, and declined without exception.

Press and media

Journalists writing about something we have published, or looking for the sourcing behind a claim, should say so in the first line and will get a direct answer.

We do not accept embargoed briefings that come with review conditions attached — copy approval, pre-publication review, or any guarantee about treatment. Material sent on those terms is not read on those terms.

Reporting an advertisement

Programmatic advertising occasionally serves something misleading, obnoxious, or worse. Reports about a specific ad are genuinely useful, and the useful form of one is a screenshot: it usually contains enough for us to identify the creative and block it at the network.

Include the page you saw it on and roughly when. Advertising & affiliate disclosure explains what is and is not permitted in those slots.

What a message gets you

Every message is read by a person. Corrections get acted on and, where the change is substantive, the page's visible updated date moves. Editorial questions get an answer or a pointer to the source that answers them better than we could paraphrase it.

What no message gets is a change to a conclusion for a commercial reason, because that is the one thing this publication is built not to do. Everything else is negotiable and most of it is welcome.

Response times

This is a small publication, not a support desk. Corrections are handled quickly. Everything else is answered when it can be answered properly, and messages that need research take longer than messages that do not. If a message goes unanswered longer than feels reasonable, sending it again is fine and is not an imposition.

See also: About SXM Wire, Editorial policy, Advertising, Image licensing, Privacy, Cookie policy, Terms of use.