{"id":51,"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","status":"current","audiences":["claude-code","candid-team"],"topics":["e-e-a-t","agency-methodology"],"reference_body":"**Rule:** Never publish a claim of the form \"X tool is used by Y organization\" or \"library X powers Y feature\" without a citation a reader can verify. If the claim can't be sourced, either describe the *capability* without naming the tool, or omit the claim entirely.\n\n**Why:** The lesson from brief 2 — the \"Manifold\" visualization library was described internally as a Vega-Lite-based tool \"used by news organizations and government,\" but targeted research could not surface any public tool by that name with those properties. Uber's Manifold (ML debugging, deck.gl-based, not Vega-Lite), ManifoldScholar, ManifoldJS, Manifold.net (GIS), and Yellowbrick's manifold visualizer all checked out as different things.\n\nPublishing the claim without verification would have planted a sourcing error into Candid's public content — which a future reader, a competitor, or an AI engine attempting to verify the claim would catch. **This is exactly the kind of error verifiability discipline catches**.\n\n**How to apply:**\n- Before naming a tool/library in published copy, run two checks: (1) does a top-of-search-results page for the name match the described capability? (2) is there a primary-source citation (vendor docs, GitHub README, paper) that supports the claim?\n- If (1) and (2) both pass: cite both. If either fails: describe the capability (\"Vega-Lite-grammar visualizations rendered from government data feeds\") instead of naming the tool, or omit.\n- Apply this rule retroactively to any draft that uses an internal codename. Internal codenames are not citations.","rationale_body":"Surfaced from the \"Manifold\" issue in brief 2. The point isn't the specific tool — it's that verification discipline catches errors *before* they ship. This rule is the operational version of [[rule-cite-with-named-source-and-url]].","metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"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","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-marketing-sites-that-do-something","title":"Research brief: What makes a marketing site do something (piece on brochure vs platform)","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"}]},"created_at":"2026-05-22T18:57:39.680Z","updated_at":"2026-05-22T18:57:39.680Z"}