How to report something
Every page on the Atlas has a correction form at the foot of it, above the sources. Use the one on the page in question — it records which page you were on, which saves both of us a round trip. If your report is about the site as a whole rather than one page, use the contact form.
The most useful reports say three things: what the page currently claims, what it should say, and where the correct version comes from. A named source turns a report into a fix.
What happens then
Because every measured fact on this site is stored with its producer, its observation period and the date it was retrieved, a report can be checked against the record rather than debated. Broadly:
- A wrong figure with a source behind it. Usually means the underlying series has been revised or a newer observation exists. The pipeline is re-run and the page updates with the new observation period.
- A wrong figure with no source behind it. That is a bug in this site, and the figure is removed until it can be sourced properly.
- A wrong statement in a researched section. The source article is re-read. If the claim is not supported by it, the section is regenerated or the claim removed.
- A wrong editorial judgement. Argued on the merits and changed if you are right.
- An image problem. Misattribution, wrong licence or a takedown request — handled under the photo policy, and the image comes down while it is checked.
What the Atlas will not do
It will not remove accurate but unflattering material because a business, municipality or institution would prefer it gone. Documented problems — water supply pressure on the Riviera, money-laundering risk in construction, the state of the railways, the historic accident record in chrome mining — are on the site because they are part of an honest description of the country.
Material changes
Where a correction materially changes what a page said, the change is made and the page's last-updated date moves. The Atlas does not silently rewrite history on substantive matters: if a claim was wrong in a way that mattered, the corrected page says what changed.