Editorial Policy

This page is the receipts for every guide on the site. If a recommendation can’t survive the process below, it doesn’t publish.

Where information comes from

Every article starts with primary sources: the manufacturer’s published specifications, owner’s manuals, warranty documents, and parts listings, plus current retailer listings to confirm model numbers are real, current, and correctly named. Secondary sources — owner reports across forums and retailer reviews, in aggregate — inform the “how this behaves over a season” observations, always described as patterns, never as our own testing.

Two rules hold throughout:

1. If a spec can’t be verified, it’s hedged, not invented. You’ll see “around 85 lb (mfr. spec)” or “EGO lists…” rather than false precision.
2. Numbers that change constantly don’t get printed. No prices, no “deals,” no availability claims — only price bands, which age slowly.

What “review” means here

At launch, every review on this site carries the banner “Editorial research & specification analysis.” That’s the honest label: a structured evaluation of the mower’s specifications, platform position, warranty terms, and documented owner-experience patterns.

We will never slap “hands-on tested” on a page where it didn’t happen. If the site later does genuine hands-on testing, those reviews will say so explicitly — and until then, you should assume none of them are. Invented ratings numbers (9.73/10 and friends) are banned outright; our rating scale is five English words on purpose.

Original analysis is mandatory

Every article must contain at least one decision asset you couldn’t get from a manufacturer page: a yard-fit calculation, a battery-ecosystem breakdown, a deck-passes comparison, a cost-of-ownership angle, or a decision framework. Repackaged spec sheets aren’t reviews; they’re ads we don’t get paid for.

Corrections

Mistakes happen; burying them doesn’t. The process:

1. Report it — hello@wirefreemower.com, corrections get priority.
2. We verify against primary sources and fix confirmed errors promptly.
3. Material corrections are noted on the page (what changed and when), rather than silently edited after the fact.

Factual spec corrections are usually live within a day or two of verification.

AI-assistance transparency

WireFreeMower uses AI tools as part of the editorial workflow — for drafting, structure, and research assistance — under human editorial direction, the same way a newsroom uses databases and spell-check. Every claim in a published guide is checked against primary sources by an editor before it goes live, and the editorial judgments (what we recommend, what we warn about, the ratings words) are human decisions. We don’t publish auto-generated pages with no human review, and we don’t use AI to fabricate quotes, reviews, or test results — see the about page for what this site refuses to do.

Updates

Guides carry an “Updated” date. When a model is discontinued, a warranty changes, or a spec is corrected, the page is revised and the date moves. Robot-mower and battery lineups move fastest and get re-checked most often.

Who to hold responsible

The WireFreeMower Editorial Team owns every word published here, AI-assisted drafting included. Praise, complaints, and corrections all go to the same place: hello@wirefreemower.com.