Editorial Policy
Last updated April 21, 2026
Review chain
Every article on this publication goes through a three-stage review chain before publication. The chain is documented per article in the byline.
- Author drafts. The named author writes the article. Authors are credentialed in the article's domain.
- Domain reviewer signs off. Statistical reviewer (Filipovic-Reyes) for accuracy and methodology articles; director (Strömberg-Ojeda) for athlete and clinician-facing pieces; research editor (Fortunato-Webb) for evidence-synthesis articles.
- Director gates publication. The director reviews the final draft regardless of who authored or reviewed, and is the named gating signature on every keystone review.
Articles that fail any stage of review are returned to the author with documented feedback. Approximately 18% of submissions in the past six months have been returned at least once; the average article goes through 1.4 review-cycles.
Evidence grading
Every claim in published articles is graded under a GRADE-aligned framework adapted for consumer software. The grades are:
- High: Multiple independent peer-reviewed studies converging on the claim. Currently rare in the consumer-app category.
- Moderate: Single independent peer-reviewed study or multiple consistent independent studies of moderate quality.
- Low: Vendor-funded studies; small-sample academic work; single-source claims.
- Very low: Marketing claims, anonymous-tester reviews, unsupported assertions.
Articles citing low-grade or very-low-grade evidence flag the grade explicitly. The rubric is documented in the evidence grade glossary entry and our evidence map article.
Fact-checking
Every numerical claim in published articles must trace to a primary source. Citations are independently verified by the research editor before publication. If a citation cannot be verified, the claim is removed.
Quarterly review passes re-verify the citation status of all keystone-review citations. The April 2026 quarterly pass (logged in the changelog) re-verified all DAI 2026 references via direct correspondence with the study authors.
Corrections
Factual errors brought to our attention at corrections@whatsthebestcalorietracking.app are acknowledged within 72 hours and corrected within an additional 72 hours where the error is confirmed. Corrections are logged in the changelog and a corrigendum note is added to the affected article.
Material errors that change the substance of a ranking or recommendation are flagged at the top of the affected article and re-circulated to readers via the homepage's "recent articles" section.
Editorial independence
This publication is editorially independent. No app vendor reviews or comments on a draft before publication. No app vendor has access to score data before publication. The publication's editorial team has refused two pitches in the past six months on conflict-of-interest grounds; the refusals are documented in the changelog without revealing the specific entities.
Use of AI
The editorial team uses AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT) for citation finding, copy editing, and research summarization. AI tools do not produce primary writing on this publication. Every article is authored by a named human contributor. The use is consistent with the practice of the academic publishing community in 2026.
Anonymous content
This publication does not publish anonymous content, contributor-pool content, or articles whose author cannot be identified. The byline is the editorial signature; the credentials are the editorial backstop. We do not buy bylined content from contractor pools.