Editorial Standards & Transparency
RKB is source-backed by design: every official claim can be traced to where it came from, and nothing reaches a reader as reviewed knowledge until a human has reviewed it. This page explains exactly how content moves from a draft to published, and what every status you might see actually means.
The editorial pipeline
Every official document — a care sheet or a knowledge document — moves through these stages in order. It cannot skip ahead, and it can be sent back to draft at any review stage.
- Draft
- Internal Review
- Scientific Review
- Published
- Archived
What each status means
Wherever you see a status badge on the site, this is what it tells you about how far that content has travelled and whether it should be trusted as reviewed guidance.
The document is still being researched and written by an editor. It has not entered review, is not published, and is not shown on the public site. No claim in a draft should be treated as reviewed RKB knowledge.
An RKB editor is reviewing the draft for sourcing completeness, structure, and any unresolved cross-source conflicts before it can be handed to a scientific reviewer. Still not published, and still not treated as reviewed knowledge.
A qualified, human domain specialist (for example a veterinarian, herpetologist, or an experienced breeder for the relevant taxon) is reviewing the husbandry claims and resolving welfare-critical conflicts. An AI never performs this step and never resolves a conflict on its own. Content here is close to publication but not yet published.
The document has passed scientific review and is queued for final publication (canonical URL, media, structured data). It becomes publicly visible once its status moves to Published.
The document has completed the full editorial pipeline — draft, internal review, human scientific review, and approval — and is publicly visible. Every official claim links back to the reference, evidence, or research session that supports it. This is the only state RKB presents as reviewed official knowledge.
A previously published document that newer reviewed content has superseded. It may remain visible for continuity but is no longer the current guidance — always prefer the version it points to.
The document has been withdrawn from active guidance — for example because it was replaced, or because its subject is no longer in scope. It is kept for record-keeping and transparency but is not presented as current care information.
The human-review boundary
An AI never performs scientific review, and never resolves a welfare-critical husbandry conflict on its own. The Scientific Review stage is always carried out by a qualified human specialist — a veterinarian, herpetologist, or an experienced breeder for the relevant taxon. This is a firm, constitutional boundary of the project, not a preference.
Automated tooling can draft, cross-reference sources, and surface conflicts for a human to resolve — but it cannot approve a fact, resolve a conflict, or publish. See the About page for the sourcing model and the References catalog for how sources are rated.
Community vs. official knowledge
Registered keepers can share husbandry experience — tips, warnings, enclosure examples. Community content is moderated before it appears and is always shown in a clearly separate section, never merged into or presented as official guidance. Where many keepers independently report similar (or conflicting) observations, RKB surfaces that as community consensus — labeled as such, never resolved automatically.
Learn more about the community model on the Community guide.