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Corrections come first
If something here is wrong, we want to know, and a correction is the message we act on fastest. A reference work with no correction route is just a set of assertions.
Legal and label facts
If a jurisdiction rule on this site is out of date or wrong, tell us which jurisdiction, which rule, and which authority publishes the current position. We will pull the claim back to an unverified state while we recheck it rather than leaving it standing, so a report gets the wrong rule off the page before anyone finds time to research the right one.
Recipes
If a specification here does not work, tell us what you made, what happened, and what you changed. Measures, dilution, and strength estimates are all things we would rather correct than defend. "Too sweet at this ratio" is a useful report; so is "the stated yield does not fit the glass named".
Production safety
If a production page understates a hazard or omits one, that is the highest priority report we receive. Say which page and which hazard.
Presentation and access
If something is unreadable, unusable with a keyboard, broken with a screen reader, or broken at your screen size, that is a defect and we want it reported the same way as a factual error. Tell us the page, the browser, and roughly the screen width.
What makes a report useful
You do not have to write it this way, and this is just what lets us act without a round trip.
| Include | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| The page address | Several pages may touch the subject. Only one of them answers your question. |
| The exact sentence, quoted | Pages get edited. A quote survives the edit and pins down what you read. |
| What the correct position is | "This is wrong" tells us to look. "This should say X" tells us what to check. |
| Where that can be checked | A regulator, a statute, a standards body, or a paper. This is the part that determines how quickly we can act, because we cannot publish a correction on your say-so any more than we could publish the original on ours. |
| The jurisdiction, for a legal report | A rule is only right or wrong inside one. |
A report without a source is still worth sending. It moves the claim to unverified while we look, which is the right state for a claim somebody has credibly questioned.
How reports are prioritised
- Safety. An understated or missing hazard, or anything that could lead a reader to think they are able to drive. Acted on immediately.
- Legal facts. A wrong or stale rule. Pulled to unverified on receipt, then rechecked.
- Measures and figures. A recipe or a calculation that does not hold up.
- Everything else. Typos, broken links, unclear writing, missing coverage.
Substantive corrections change the page and the update date. We do not quietly edit and leave the old date standing.
Offering to review
KnownAlcohol needs qualified reviewers for law, production safety, sensory method, recipes, public health, nutrition, and responsible use. The roles and the qualification each one requires are published. If you hold one and would review in that scope, get in touch with your credential and the scope you would take.
We will not add a reviewer badge without a real, checkable qualification, so a review offer needs something we can verify. A badge here names a person, a qualification, a scope, and a date, and it is worthless if any of those is decorative.
What we cannot help with
- Medical questions about yourself or someone else. We cannot assess a person. If someone may have alcohol poisoning, call emergency services now. In the US that is 911. See the signs and first actions. For medication questions, a pharmacist can answer today without an appointment.
- Legal advice. We publish general information about published rules with the jurisdiction and date attached. We cannot tell you what applies to your situation, your venue, or your licence. A lawyer licensed where you are can.
- Whether you are able to drive. Nothing here can answer that, and we will not guess. If you have been drinking, arrange another way home.
- Product placement, sponsored coverage, or reviews of a bottle you send us. We do not publish brand rankings, scores, awards, or prices, and an unsolicited bottle does not change that. See the independence section.
- Link exchanges, guest posts, and paid placement. There is no version of these we accept.
- Home distillation questions. We do not publish instructions for it and we cannot help you do it.
Challenging a legal statement
Every rule stated here names the jurisdiction it applies in, the body that publishes it, the exact reference, and the date somebody last read that source. All four are on the page, which means a challenge can be specific.
The most useful form is: this page says X, the reference it cites says Y, and here is the part I am reading. That can be checked in minutes. A report that the page is simply wrong takes much longer and often turns out to be a difference between two jurisdictions rather than an error.
Rules also move. If a reference has been amended or replaced since the date on the page, say which amendment, and the page is rechecked against the current text rather than the one that was read at the time.
What happens after you report something
A report about a fact gets checked against the source the page cites. If the source says what the page says, you get told that and pointed at the source. If it does not, the page changes.
A substantive correction changes the page and its update date, so the change is visible rather than silent. A typo or a broken link is fixed without a date change, because nothing about the meaning moved.
Quoting and reusing what is here
Quote a sentence or two with a link and no permission is needed. That is what the material is for, and a link lets your reader check the source themselves.
What is not welcome is republishing a page whole, presenting a modified version as ours, or lifting a table of rules without the jurisdiction and date attached to it. A rule stripped of those two things stops being checkable, which is the only reason it was worth anything.
If the site does not work with your tools
If a page is unusable with a screen reader, a keyboard, or any other assistive technology, that is treated as a defect in the page rather than as a feature request.
Say which page, which tool, and what happened. A description of what you expected to happen is more useful than a description of what the page looks like, because the second is the part we can already see.
How to reach us
Use the contact address published on this site. Include the page URL. If you are reporting a safety or legal error, say so in the subject line so it is triaged first.
We read everything. We do not reply to everything, and a correction that lands may show up as a changed page rather than as a reply, so if a page you reported is fixed, that is the acknowledgement.