{"id":50,"slug":"rule-cite-with-named-source-and-url","title":"RULE: Every non-trivial claim carries a named source with author/institution + date + URL. Confidence flag honest.","kind":"rule","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["claude-code","candid-team"],"topics":["knowledge-base","e-e-a-t","agency-methodology"],"reference_body":"**Rule:** Every quantitative claim, every quoted statement, and every attributed framing in Candid content carries a citation with: **named author or institution**, **publication date**, and **verifiable URL**. Each claim also carries an explicit confidence flag — **Verified** (primary source quoted), **Industry-consensus** (multiple independent corroborating sources), **Single-source** (one source only — note).\n\n**Why:** This is operationalizing Wikipedia's verifiability policy for the agency context. See [[wikipedia-verifiability-policy]].\n\nThe same discipline that makes Wikipedia the **#1 cited domain in Google AI Mode** (see [[wikipedia-top-cited-domain-ai-mode-2026]]) makes Candid content extractable, defensible, and citable. It also catches errors before publication — the act of finding the URL for a citation is the act of catching the citation that doesn't exist (see [[rule-never-claim-tool-name-without-citation]]).\n\n**How to apply:**\n- Every claim node in this KB carries a Source line and a Confidence line.\n- Public-facing articles use inline markdown links with the citation immediately next to the claim.\n- \"Studies show…\" without a citation is **banned in Candid copy**. Either find the study or drop the claim.\n- Re-using a vendor stat? Disclose the methodology and the original publication date — see [[mediafly-2022-interactive-engagement-caveat]] for the canonical \"stat that needs disclosure\" example.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"wikipedia-verifiability-policy","title":"Wikipedia verifiability policy: all challenged material must carry an inline citation to a reliable published source","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"mediafly-2022-interactive-engagement-caveat","title":"Mediafly Feb 2022: 13 min vs 8.5 min engagement on interactive vs static — but the measurement was B2B sales decks, not marketing websites","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"rule-never-claim-tool-name-without-citation","title":"RULE: Never publish a tool or library name without a citation that can be verified by a reader.","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"research-brief-kb-backed-website-methodology","title":"Research brief: The knowledge-base-backed website (piece 3 of 15)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"rule-require-database-export-day-one","title":"RULE: Require a working database export on Day 1 of any engagement. Test it. Re-test quarterly.","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"migration-9-of-10-fail-numen-single-source","title":"\"9 of 10 web migrations fail\" — single-sourced (Numen Technology); use 523-day SEJ stat instead","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"venture-harbour-multi-step-300pct-lift","title":"Venture Harbour: multi-step forms up to 300% better than single-page — correctly attributed (NOT CXL/ConversionXL)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"march-2026-lcp-tightening-rumour-refuted","title":"REFUTED: \"March 2026 LCP tightened to 2.0s / INP elevated\" — no such Google announcement exists","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"rule-build-on-official-open-data-not-scraping","title":"RULE: Build Candid client data products on official open-data feeds — never on scraped sources","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"zuegel-epistemic-status-publishing-half-baked-ideas","title":"Devon Zuegel: epistemic-status labels are \"a hack in order to publish half-baked ideas I'd otherwise not feel comfortable sharing\"","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"ftc-reasonable-basis-doctrine-1984","title":"FTC reasonable-basis doctrine: advertisers must possess \"the amount and type of substantiation the ad actually communicates\"","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"simhi-llm-hallucinate-with-high-certainty-feb-2025","title":"Simhi et al. (Technion/Oxford/Hebrew U, Feb 2025): \"models can hallucinate with high certainty even when they have the correct knowledge\"","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"rule-every-objective-claim-sourced-with-confidence-label","title":"RULE: Every objective claim in Candid content carries a named source + date + verbatim quote ≤25 words + confidence label","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-05-22T18:57:39.675Z","updated_at":"2026-05-22T18:57:39.675Z"}