This policy describes how PhoneClarity content is produced and what standards it must meet before it is published.
What we publish, and why
We publish a guide only when there is a real, distinct problem to solve, when existing content does not already answer it well, and when reliable evidence exists to answer it accurately. Keyword variations that share the same intent are answered by one canonical page rather than several near-duplicates.
Article volume is not a goal. A smaller number of accurate, maintained guides is worth more than a large number of thin ones.
Source hierarchy
Sources are ranked by how much weight they can carry:
- Highest — official Apple, Samsung, and Google documentation, official manufacturer support pages, official manuals, and official release notes.
- Supporting — reputable technical documentation and high-quality technical publications.
- Discovery only — community forums and discussion threads. These help us learn that a symptom exists. They never establish that a technical claim is true.
Important technical claims are expected to rest on official documentation where such documentation exists.
Claim verification
Before publication, the important claims in a guide are extracted and checked individually against the sources supporting them. Each is recorded as verified, partially verified, unsupported, or contradicted. Any important claim that is unsupported or contradicted blocks publication until it is corrected or removed.
We never invent settings names, menu paths, procedures, error codes, technical facts, model compatibility, or OS behaviour. Where an exact error message cannot be verified, we do not publish it.
Safety standards
Procedures are classified by risk. Guides present low-risk steps first and escalate only when necessary.
- Low risk — restarting, checking a cable or charger, checking settings, permissions, and updates, reconnecting WiFi, toggling Bluetooth.
- Medium risk — resetting network settings, clearing app data, reinstalling apps, recovery mode, system configuration changes.
- High risk — factory reset, firmware flashing, bootloader operations, battery replacement, opening the device, board-level and charging-port repair.
Before any destructive step, a guide explains the possible data loss, recommends a backup where appropriate, offers safer alternatives first, and states whether the action is reversible. High-risk hardware procedures normally direct readers to official support or a qualified repair professional instead of providing instructions.
AI use
AI tools assist with research organisation, clustering, drafting, summarisation, internal link suggestions, and quality checks. AI does not decide what is technically true. The production order is fixed: research, then evidence, then AI-assisted drafting, then claim extraction, then fact checking, then safety validation, then human review, then publication. Human review is the final gate on every guide.
We never present AI-generated text as first-hand experience, and we never fabricate testing we did not do.
Freshness and verification dates
Every guide carries a Last Verified date. We record the published date, the updated date, the OS version the procedure was checked against, and the model information it applies to.
A guide is revisited when an OS update changes the procedure, when a new device changes the diagnosis, when official support guidance changes, when a known bug is fixed, or when an important new cause emerges. We do not change dates simply to make a page look fresh.
Retiring and merging content
Guides are merged, redirected, or retired when the problem stops being relevant, when the intent is fully covered by a better page, when the information becomes obsolete, or when we cannot maintain it reliably.
Independence and monetisation
PhoneClarity is supported by advertising and, where relevant, affiliate links. Commercial considerations do not determine what we recommend or what we publish. Advertising never blocks or obscures troubleshooting steps, and any affiliate recommendation must be directly relevant to the problem being solved.
What we do not claim
PhoneClarity does not employ certified technicians, does not operate a repair facility or laboratory, and does not perform first-hand device testing. We do not claim otherwise anywhere on this site.