Editorial Standards & How We Recommend

Editorial approach at I Was Just, including sources, research, firsthand experience, corrections and commercial relationships.

These Editorial Standards describe how IWasJust approaches research, experience, recommendations, corrections, and commercial relationships.

Reader problem first

IWasJust favors bounded, privacy-aware experiments over inflated claims. It does not present itself as medical, mental-health, crisis, or therapeutic care. Product and behavior claims should be supported by the actual test or clearly identified as hypotheses.

Evidence and provenance

  • Firsthand use or experience is described as firsthand only when it actually occurred.
  • Research, manufacturer specifications, merchant information, public records, and third-party sources are identified or described as research where that distinction matters.
  • Historical experience is not automatically treated as current product or market evidence.
  • Uncertainty, material limitations, and known drawbacks should be stated rather than hidden.

Recommendations

A recommendation should follow from the reader’s problem, the available evidence, meaningful tradeoffs, and the scope of the page. A commercial relationship alone is not a sufficient reason to recommend a product, service, or course of action.

Commercial independence

IWasJust does not depend on affiliate recommendations as a core feature. If affiliate or referral links are introduced, they will be disclosed clearly and kept separate from the product’s behavioral or usefulness claims.

Commercial relationships may influence which monetization mechanisms are available, but they should not change factual conclusions or suppress materially relevant alternatives.

Corrections and updates

When a material factual error, broken recommendation, stale specification, or changed operating condition is identified, the affected content should be corrected or qualified. Updates should preserve useful historical context when history explains the original conclusion.

AI assistance

AI tools may assist with research organization, drafting, editing, coding, or analysis. AI output is not treated as an authority by itself. Material claims still require appropriate human review and evidence.

Contact

Readers can report suspected errors, missing context, or conflicts through the site’s Contact page.