We start with a draft, not a verdict
Nothing here arrives as the final word. Every entry begins as a hypothesis, a first draft to be argued with, and it is labeled that way from the moment it appears. That honesty is the whole method: an entry you can question is worth more than an authority you cannot.
Stage one: the AI compiles a first draft
A research pipeline asks a language model to compile what is broadly recorded about a custom or a name, then holds every field to a strict schema, a rite is invalid unless it carries at least one reason, its why. Think of the AI as a fast, wide-reading librarian, not an oracle: it gathers a starting point, and it is always marked AI-aggregated · unverified. It is never allowed to look like settled fact.
Stage two: the community makes it true
This is where the real knowledge lives. Cultural truth is not held in footnotes, it is held by the people who live the custom. So the source we care about is not a citation but a person: someone who says “yes, that is how we do it,” or better, “no, here is how it really goes where I come from.”
On every entry you will see a plain invitation: know better? put us right. When you do, that account is recorded, never erased. Where families disagree, we keep both, because a continent of thousands of cultures does not have one correct version, and pretending it does would be its own kind of erasure.
Stage three: an elder verifies it
The highest tier is not a machine’s confidence, it is a person’s name. When a recognised knowledge holder reviews an entry and consents to stand behind it, the entry is marked elder-verified and credited to them. That is the direction everything here is travelling: from a draft, through the community, to a named elder’s word.
The badges, in plain sight
Because unverified content must never be mistaken for verified, every entry wears one of these, always visible:
Drafted by the research pipeline. Not yet reviewed by people of this culture.
Endorsed or corrected by people of this culture.
Cited to a named knowledge holder, with consent.
What “source” means here
Not a bibliography. We deliberately do not manufacture scholarly-looking citations, a language model can invent a convincing reference as easily as a convincing fact, and a fake source is worse than an honest “unverified.” Our sources are people and affirmations, and they grow real as the community and its elders fill them in.
Our one bias: honesty over polish
If we are unsure, we say so. If your family tells it differently, that is not a problem to be smoothed over, it is the point. Help us on any custom or name, and read the editorial & verification policy for how it all governs.