Editorial Policy

Editorial Policy

People use calculators to make decisions about money, health, building work and study. A wrong number is worse than no number, so we treat every tool and every sentence on Joteocalculator.com as something a person will rely on. This policy sets out how we make them, who is responsible, and what you can hold us to.

Our principles

Five commitments guide every editorial and engineering decision we make:

• Made by people. Every calculator is designed and built by humans, and every word of explanatory content is written by humans.
• Correct before quick. We would rather release a tool late than release it wrong. Nothing reaches production until it has passed every stage described below.
• Show the working. A result is only useful if you can see how it was reached. Our tools state their formula, their assumptions and their limits in plain language.
• Independent of advertising. Advertising and partnerships never decide what a calculator computes or what an article says.
• Own our mistakes. When something is wrong we fix it, say so where it matters, and make it easy to tell us.

How our tools are built

No Joteo calculator is generated, scraped, templated in bulk or copied from another site. Each one starts as a person's idea and is built from scratch by developers who then live with the result.

1. The idea comes from an author

Every tool begins with an author, a person with working knowledge of the subject, describing a real problem: what someone is trying to work out, what they usually get wrong, and what a trustworthy answer looks like. The author writes down the inputs, the outputs, the formula or method, the edge cases, and the assumptions a reader needs to know about. We do not commission tools because a keyword is popular. We build them because the author can explain why the tool should exist and how it should behave.

2. Authors and developers design it together

The author then sits down with experienced developers, in a working session rather than a hand-off document, to turn the idea into a specification. Together they decide which fields to ask for and in what order, which units and ranges are sensible, what should happen at the boundaries (zero, negative values, very large numbers, empty inputs), how results should be rounded and displayed, and which warnings a reader needs to see. Disagreements between what is easy to build and what is correct are settled in favour of correct.

3. Developers build it from scratch

Our developers write each calculator's logic by hand. We do not paste a formula from a search result or a generated snippet and ship it. The code implements the method the author specified and is written so that another developer can read it, follow it and verify it. Where a calculator depends on published rates, constants or reference tables, those values are entered deliberately, with their source and effective date recorded, not fetched blindly.

4. The author checks what was built

Before testing begins, the author works through the finished tool against the specification, including the awkward cases discussed in design. A tool that does not do what its author intended does not move forward.

Pilot, QA, UAT and production

A calculator that works on the developer's machine is not a finished calculator. Each tool is promoted through four stages, and it must pass one before it enters the next. Tools are kept unpublished throughout, so nothing appears on the live site until the final stage is complete.

1. Pilot. The first working version is used by a small, controlled group. Its purpose is to answer whether the tool is understandable and whether it does the job the author intended. Pilot users are asked to attempt realistic tasks without guidance. Confusing labels, missing fields, unclear units and unexpected results found here go straight back to the author and developers, and the tool is revised before it goes further.
2. Quality assurance (QA). A structured test pass checks the calculation itself and everything around it. Results are compared against independently worked examples, published reference values and, where relevant, other established methods, so an error in our own arithmetic cannot mark its own homework. QA also covers boundary and invalid inputs, rounding and precision, unit conversions, behaviour on different browsers and screen sizes, keyboard and screen-reader use, and page speed. Every defect is logged, fixed and retested; a fix is not accepted until the original failing case passes and nothing else has broken.
3. User acceptance testing (UAT). Before release, the author and reviewers confirm that the tool meets the original need, using it as a reader would. UAT asks a different question from QA: not "does it work as built?" but "is this what we set out to give people, and would we be comfortable if a reader relied on it?" Sign-off at this stage is a person's decision, recorded, and can be withheld.
4. Production. Only after UAT sign-off is a tool published. Publication is a deliberate step, not a side effect of saving. After release we keep watching: reader feedback, error reports and changes in the underlying rules feed back into the same process, and a tool can be taken down or reverted if a serious fault is found.

How our content is written

The text around a calculator, including introductions, step-by-step explanations, worked examples, definitions, tables, tips and FAQs, is written by people. It starts from the author's understanding of the subject and the questions readers actually ask, and it is written to help a reader use the tool correctly and understand the result.

• Human-written. Ideas, structure, explanations and examples are authored by humans. We do not publish machine-generated articles, and we do not spin, rewrite or mass-produce pages from templates.
• Worked examples are checked. Every example that appears in the text is calculated independently and matched against the tool's output before publication.
• Plain language. We define terms the first time we use them, avoid unexplained jargon, and say what a number means as well as how it was obtained.
• Honest scope. We say what a calculator assumes and what it leaves out, so readers can tell when it does not fit their situation.
• Edited by someone else. A second person reads content before it is published, checking accuracy, clarity and consistency with the tool.

How we use AI, and how we do not

We are open about this because readers are entitled to know.

What we do not use AI for

• Designing a calculator or deciding what it should compute.
• Writing the calculator's logic or formulas, or building a tool.
• Writing articles, explanations, worked examples or any other published content.
• Producing numbers, rates, constants or reference data that appear on the site.
• Replacing QA, UAT or human sign-off at any stage.

What we may use AI for

AI tools may act as an assistant to human authors and reviewers, in a supporting role only. Typical uses are:

• Reviewing a human-written draft for unclear passages, inconsistencies or missing steps.
• Checking grammar, spelling, punctuation and style.
• Suggesting corrections that a person then accepts, rejects or rewrites.
• Flagging possible problems for a human to investigate, such as an unusual input a test plan might have missed.

Sources, formulas and accuracy

We build on well-established methods and say where they come from. Depending on the subject, that means textbooks and standards, government and regulatory publications, official statistics, manufacturer specifications and peer-reviewed research. We prefer primary sources to summaries of them, and we do not treat another website's calculator as a source.

• Formulas are documented. The method behind each result is recorded in the tool's specification and, where useful to readers, explained on the page.
• Dated data is labelled. Tax rates, thresholds, prices, regulatory limits and similar values change. Where a tool depends on them, we note the basis and the date, and we review them when the rules change.
• Rounding is deliberate. We decide how results are rounded and displayed as part of the design, and we do not round intermediate values in ways that would shift the final answer.
• Different standards are named. Where more than one accepted method exists (for example, alternative conventions between countries), we say which one the tool uses.

Subject-matter expert review

Some subjects need more than a careful developer and a well-informed author. Where a calculator falls within a discipline in which we work with subject-matter experts, we invite them to review the method, assumptions and explanatory content. Our partnerships page describes some of the academics and professionals we collaborate with and the categories they advise on. Expert input strengthens our review; it does not replace our own testing, and an expert's involvement is only stated where it took place.

Authors, reviewers and bylines

Where a person has contributed to a calculator or page, we say so. Bylines on our calculators list the authors who supplied the idea and content and the reviewers who checked it, and each links to an author profile that describes their background. Credit reflects real contribution: we do not add a name to lend a page authority, and we do not invent or exaggerate qualifications.

Independence, advertising and partnerships

Joteocalculator.com is free to use and supported by advertising. The following rules keep that separate from our editorial decisions:

• Advertisers, sponsors and partners have no say over a calculator's method, inputs, results or wording.
• We do not alter a result to favour a product, provider, lender or brand, and we do not steer readers towards a particular financial product or supplier.
• Advertisements are placed in clearly separate slots and labelled as advertisements. We do not present an advertisement as editorial content.
• If we build a tool in collaboration with an organisation, we say so on the page, and the same testing and sign-off apply.

Anyone interested in collaborating can read about partnerships. Collaboration means working on tools together to our standards, not buying influence over them.

Privacy by design

Our calculators run in your browser. The values you enter are not sent to us or stored. We treat that as an editorial and engineering requirement, not only a legal one: tools are built and tested to confirm they work that way. Full details are in our privacy policy.

Updates and corrections

Rules, rates and standards change, and mistakes happen despite careful testing. We handle them as follows:

1. Report. Reports from readers, reviewers or our own team are logged and looked at by a person.
2. Assess. We reproduce the problem and judge how serious it is. A calculation error that could lead someone to a wrong decision is treated as urgent.
3. Fix and retest. The correction goes through QA and, for anything affecting results, UAT sign-off before it is published, just as a new tool would.
4. Disclose where it matters. When a correction changes results that readers may already have relied on, we note the change on the page.
5. Review periodically. We revisit tools and content on a regular basis, and sooner when the underlying rules change, so that pages do not quietly go out of date.

Minor edits such as typos, formatting or clearer wording are made without a public note.

What our tools cannot do

A calculator applies a method to the numbers you give it. It cannot know your full circumstances, and its results are estimates based on stated assumptions. Our tools and pages are informational and are not financial, medical, legal, engineering, tax or other professional advice. For decisions with serious consequences, consult a qualified professional. Please also read our terms of use.

Reporting a problem

If you think a result is wrong, an explanation is unclear, a source is out of date or a page falls short of this policy, we want to know. Write to our Editorial & Science Desk at [email protected], or use our contact page. It helps to tell us which calculator you were using, what you entered, what you expected and what you got. Every report is read by a person.

You can learn more about who we are on our About page.