Editorial Policy

How articles are researched, written, reviewed, updated, and corrected on AdvoraHQ — and what you should know before trusting anything you read here.

Last Updated: May 9, 2026
Effective From: January 2026
Policy Version: 2.1
Operator: Daniel Hayes, AdvoraHQ

Contents

1. Mission and Core Principles
2. Who Writes This Site
3. Editorial Independence
4. AI and Technology Policy
5. Research and Sourcing Standards
6. The Article Production Process
7. Images, Charts, and Visual Content
8. Quotations, Citations, and Attribution
9. Plagiarism and Originality
10. Corrections, Updates, and Versioning
11. Affiliate and Advertising Disclosure
12. How AdvoraHQ Makes Money
13. Reader Engagement and Comments
14. Editorial Review Cadence
15. What This Site Is Not
16. Reach the Editor

01 — Mission and Core Principles

AdvoraHQ exists because most online finance writing is a summary of a summary of a summary. A blog post quotes an article, which cites a press release, which paraphrased the original document — and by the time readers see it, the nuance is lost and the errors have multiplied.

This site does the opposite. Every article is built on primary sources the author has read in full. That single standard is the foundation for everything else.

Core Principles

Accuracy before speed. Articles are not published because a topic is trending. They are published because the underlying source material has been read, verified, and clearly understood.

Primary sources only. Official documents, legislation, court rulings, and regulatory publications form the foundation of every claim. Secondary sources provide context, never foundation.

Plain English over jargon. Legal and financial writing has a bad habit of hiding behind terminology. The job here is to translate — not to sound credentialed.

Transparency about limitations. The author is not a licensed attorney, CPA, EA, or financial advisor, and that is stated openly in every relevant context.

02 — Who Writes This Site

Honesty about authorship is the foundation of editorial trust, so this section matters.

All articles on AdvoraHQ are written by one person: Daniel Hayes, the founder and sole writer of the site. There is no team of editors, no rotating contributors, no ghostwriters. When you read an article here, one named human wrote it and takes full responsibility for its accuracy.

This is deliberate. A one-person publication produces less than a multi-writer site, but it offers something larger sites often cannot: a single, traceable line of accountability for every claim on the site.

The Author’s Background

Daniel Hayes is a self-taught finance researcher. He holds no professional financial license and does not claim any. His working knowledge of personal finance, U.S. tax policy, insurance regulation, consumer law, and credit comes from years of independent reading of primary source material — IRS publications, federal and state legislation, court rulings, SEC filings, CFPB enforcement actions, and peer-reviewed journals.

This background is stated plainly, in every relevant context, because readers deserve to know who is writing what they read. Full author detail is on the author page and the about page.

03 — Editorial Independence

AdvoraHQ maintains a strict separation between editorial content and commercial relationships. No advertiser, affiliate partner, or outside party has ever influenced an article’s content, conclusions, or recommendations.

No company has ever paid to be covered favorably on this site. No advertiser has editorial preview. No affiliate partner has the ability to change a rating or alter a conclusion. If that ever changes, this policy will change first.

When affiliate links appear in an article, they are disclosed at the top of that article. The presence of an affiliate relationship never determines whether a product is covered, and it never influences how the product is described.

04 — AI and Technology Policy

AI tools are part of modern writing, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. Here is exactly how AI is — and is not — used on this site.

Where AI Is Used

• Drafting assistance: AI may help structure outlines, suggest phrasings, or draft transition sentences.
• Language refinement: AI may improve readability, grammar, and sentence clarity in human-written drafts.
• Research summarization: AI may help summarize long documents for initial review — but never as a substitute for reading the source.

Where AI Is Not Used

• Factual claims. No specific claim, figure, statute reference, or citation is sourced from AI. Every factual statement traces back to a primary source read by the author directly.
• Analysis and conclusions. The interpretation of what a rule means, what a ruling implies, or what a regulation changes is always human.
• Source citations. AI is known to fabricate citations. No citation appears in an article unless the underlying document has been opened and verified.

The Rule

AI assists. It does not author. Every article on AdvoraHQ is reviewed, fact-checked against primary sources, and approved by a human (Daniel Hayes) before publication. If AI-generated text cannot be verified, it is removed — not published.

05 — Research and Sourcing Standards

The quality of an article is determined by the quality of its sources. AdvoraHQ uses a tiered sourcing standard.

Tier 1 — Primary Sources (Required Foundation)

Every factual claim on AdvoraHQ traces back to at least one Tier 1 source:

• IRS publications, revenue rulings, revenue procedures, private letter rulings, and official guidance
• Full text of federal and state legislation (bills, statutes, regulations)
• Federal and state court opinions (tax court, circuit courts, supreme courts)
• SEC filings accessed through EDGAR
• CFPB, FTC, and FINRA official publications
• State insurance department bulletins and enforcement actions
• Treasury Department publications
• Federal Reserve and FDIC publications

Tier 2 — Academic and Professional Sources (Context)

• Peer-reviewed journals in tax law, insurance economics, and public finance
• Bar association publications and law review articles
• Published work from licensed actuaries, attorneys, and CPAs
• Working papers from established research institutions (NBER, Brookings, Tax Policy Center)

Tier 3 — Secondary Sources (Context Only)

News reporting from established outlets is used only to identify stories worth investigating, never as the basis for factual claims. If a news article reports on an IRS ruling, the ruling itself is read before anything is written about it.

What Is Never Cited

• Anonymous blog posts or content-farm articles
• Social media posts presented as authoritative
• Forum discussions (Reddit, Quora) as primary evidence
• AI-generated summaries of documents that have not been independently verified
• Promotional material from companies whose products are under review
• Other personal finance blogs as factual basis

For the full breakdown of how these sourcing standards apply to specific product categories — including the evaluation criteria and scoring weights used for credit card, insurance, banking, and investment reviews — see the Our Methodology page.

06 — The Article Production Process

Because AdvoraHQ is a one-person publication, the review process is different from what a larger site would describe. Here is the actual workflow — no invented layers.

1. Topic Selection and Source Identification
   Before writing begins, the primary source material is identified and gathered. If the relevant IRS publication, statute, or ruling cannot be located in full, the topic is shelved until it can be.
2. Full Source Reading
   Every primary source is read in full — not skimmed, not summarized. Notes are taken directly from the source, with section and page references.
3. First Draft
   The article is drafted, with every factual claim tied to a specific source already identified. Claims without a source do not make it into the draft.
4. Self-Review and Source Verification
   The draft is reviewed against the original sources one more time. Every figure, date, statute reference, and claim is re-checked against the primary material.
5. Readability Pass
   The draft is revised for plain language, jargon removal, and logical flow.
6. Final Pre-Publication Check
   Links are tested. Affiliate disclosures are added if applicable. Schema markup is verified. Internal links to related articles are added.
7. Publication
   The article is published with a publication date, author byline (Daniel Hayes), and a “Last Reviewed” timestamp.

This is honest about what it is. There is no separate fact-checker or editor-in-chief, because there is no larger staff. What there is, instead, is one person who reads every source, writes every word, and stands behind every claim.

07 — Images, Charts, and Visual Content

Visual content on AdvoraHQ follows the same transparency standard as written content.

• Stock photography: Images of people, places, and general scenes are sourced from licensed stock libraries (Pexels, Unsplash, or licensed alternatives) with usage rights verified before publication.
• AI-generated illustrations: Where AI-generated visuals are used to illustrate concepts, they are clearly created for illustration purposes and never depict real, identifiable individuals.
• Charts and data visualizations: Original charts are built from publicly available data and source-cited where the data originated.
• Screenshots: Screenshots of public IRS forms, legislation, or court documents are used for educational illustration under fair use.
• No misleading visuals: No image is altered to misrepresent reality. No chart is presented with truncated axes designed to mislead.

08 — Quotations, Citations, and Attribution

Direct quotations from primary sources are used sparingly and always with full attribution. Standards for citation:

• Statute references include the section number and the official name (e.g., IRC §831(b))
• Court opinions are cited with case name, court, and decision date
• IRS publications are cited with publication number and year
• Academic sources are cited with author, title, journal, and year
• News sources are linked but not used as foundation for factual claims

Where a contributor provides quoted commentary on the record, their full name, professional credentials, and current affiliation are disclosed. Anonymous sources are not used.

09 — Plagiarism and Originality

Every article on AdvoraHQ is original work. Articles are not republished, syndicated, or reposted from other sites without explicit attribution.

Where an idea, framework, or analytical approach was first published elsewhere, the original source is credited even when the language is entirely original. Direct passages from any third-party source are placed in quotation marks with attribution and a working link to the original.

Plagiarism — including unattributed paraphrasing — is incompatible with the editorial standard of this site and would result in immediate retraction of any affected article.

10 — Corrections, Updates, and Versioning

Tax thresholds change. Regulations are amended. Court rulings overturn prior rulings. An article that was accurate in 2024 may be outdated in 2026. This is handled in three ways.

Corrections

When a factual error is identified — by the author, a reader, or an outside source — the article is corrected promptly, and a dated correction notice is added at the top. Errors are not quietly edited out. Readers deserve to know what changed and when.

Updates

When underlying law or regulation changes, affected articles are updated to reflect the new reality. Updates include a dated “Last Updated” note so readers know they are reading current information.

Archival

Articles about specific legislative or regulatory moments (for example, a particular tax year’s thresholds) are retained with clear date markers rather than rewritten, so the historical record stays intact.

Reporting an Error

If you believe an article contains a factual error, please email Daniel.Hayes@advorahq.com with:

• The article URL
• The specific claim you are questioning
• If possible, the primary source showing the correct information

Verified error reports are corrected within one to three business days. Error reports are the most important type of reader message this site receives.

11 — Affiliate and Advertising Disclosure

Some articles on AdvoraHQ contain affiliate links. When an affiliate link appears, it is disclosed clearly at the top of that article — not in a footer or buried at the bottom. If you click an affiliate link and complete a purchase, the site may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.

Affiliate disclosure follows U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines on endorsement and testimonial advertising. Full details are available in the Affiliate Disclosure. Display advertising on the site is provided by Google AdSense and is clearly visually distinct from editorial content.

Affiliate income has never determined whether a product is covered or how it is described. Editorial content is not for sale.

12 — How AdvoraHQ Makes Money

Hidden incentives are a plague in finance writing. Here is how this site earns revenue, stated plainly.

• Display advertising via Google AdSense. Advertisers have no input into content and no preview of articles.
• Affiliate links in some articles, disclosed at the top of every article where they appear.

What AdvoraHQ does not do:

• Accept payment for editorial coverage
• Take sponsored articles disguised as editorial
• Sell rankings, ratings, or “best of” list placements
• Allow advertisers to dictate or preview content

13 — Reader Engagement and Comments

Reader comments — when enabled — are moderated to maintain a useful, civil discussion. The following content is not allowed and will be removed:

• Spam, link-stuffing, or promotional content
• Personal attacks, harassment, or abusive language
• Misinformation presented as fact without source
• Off-topic content unrelated to the article
• Solicitation of personalized financial, legal, or tax advice

The author is not a licensed advisor and cannot answer requests for personalized advice in comments. Such questions are politely redirected to qualified professionals.

14 — Editorial Review Cadence

To keep the site accurate and current, scheduled reviews are conducted on a defined cadence:

• High-velocity topics (tax thresholds, contribution limits, IRS guidance, current rates): reviewed quarterly and updated when the underlying figures change.
• Medium-velocity topics (insurance regulations, credit card terms, lending rules): reviewed every six months.
• Stable topics (general principles, definitions, historical analysis): reviewed annually.
• Reader-flagged content: reviewed immediately upon receipt of a credible correction request.

Every published article displays a “Last Updated” date. If you encounter information that appears outdated, please report it.

15 — What This Site Is Not

Finally — and most importantly — a clear statement of what AdvoraHQ is not and what it cannot do.

• AdvoraHQ is not a licensed financial, legal, or tax advisory service.
• Daniel Hayes is not a licensed attorney, CPA, EA, registered investment advisor, or insurance broker.
• Nothing on this site constitutes personalized legal, tax, financial, or investment advice.
• Reading an article does not create any advisor-client relationship.
• Articles are written for general educational purposes and may not reflect the most current law in every jurisdiction.

For decisions that affect your money, business, taxes, or legal situation, consult a qualified, licensed professional in your jurisdiction. This disclaimer is not a formality — it is the honest limit of what independent research can offer.

16 — Reach the Editor

Editorial feedback, corrections, and source tips are welcome at any time.

Daniel Hayes
Founder and Editor, AdvoraHQ
📧 Daniel.Hayes@advorahq.com

General inquiries can also be sent through the Contact page.

Last Updated: May 9, 2026
Operator: Daniel Hayes, AdvoraHQ
Policy Version: 2.1