The journal
Editorial policy
The rules this desk holds itself to, written down so that a reader can hold it to them too.
This page describes how The Forge Ledger is made. It is short, because a policy nobody can check against the pages is decoration.
Choosing a subject
A page exists when there is a reader question and a source that answers it. If the only material available is other people's summaries, we do not write the page. That rule is why the journal has four sections rather than twenty tags.
Sourcing a claim
Dates, names, places and numbers are taken from a published source and attributed on the page. Historical claims about the works in Troy, Watervliet and Albany come from the published record, not from local memory. Where sources disagree, the page says so.
The rule on safety
This is the strictest rule here and it exists because the subject is hot metal. We do not invent safety guidance. We do not write a temperature, a distance, a ventilation rate or a protective equipment specification from our own head. Where a page touches on a hazard, it points at the body that published the guidance and says which one. If we cannot find a published source for a piece of advice, the advice does not go on the page, however sensible it sounds. Nothing here replaces training in a shop with someone who can watch what you are doing.
The photographs
The images on this site are illustrations produced for the site. They do not document a named workshop, a named person, a named piece of work or a real event, and an illustration never stands as evidence for a claim in the text. The text carries its own sources.
Money
Nothing here is paid for. No advertising, no sponsored page, no affiliate link, no paid placement in any list of books, tools or schools. If that ever changes it will be labelled on the page it affects, above the content.
Corrections
An error is corrected on the page that carries it. A page that turns out to be wrong throughout is rewritten or withdrawn, and a withdrawn address answers honestly instead of redirecting somewhere flattering. Reports go to the desk.