Editorial policy

Formats

Articles are labelled by format: practical articles explain how something is done and what to check; analysis examines how the industry works; news, project, interview and opinion pieces are labelled as such on the article. Opinion is signed and never presented as reporting.

Sources and evidence

When an article relies on a document, standard, report or dataset, it lists it under Sources at the end, with the publisher and date where known. Numbers, prices and technical limits are tied to a named source in the sentence where they appear; where no reliable source exists the article gives a reasoned range or leaves the number out. Local prices are only quoted with their date, place, currency and unit.

Articles built on general engineering practice may carry no source list. Treat their figures as indicative, and check them against your own site, supplier and municipal engineer before spending money.

Checks before publication

Every article is checked against the house rules before it is published: a direct answer to its title, plain English, no prices, fees, statistics or populations without a named source, no invented studies, reports or links, technical limits given as general practice with the instruction to confirm them against the project’s specification, and claims about a town’s ground, water, market or people stated as things to check rather than as facts. An article that fails a check is revised, and a passage that still fails after revision is removed before the article appears.

No article is reviewed by an engineer. Where an article carries a note naming a reviewer and their role, that review happened; where it carries none, it did not. Every article is published as general guidance, not as engineering advice for any particular site: confirm the details for your own plot with a qualified person before you commit money.

The editorial desk audited the articles published before this policy took effect and corrected or qualified the passages that could not be supported. Remaining passages that need expert confirmation are marked as general practice in the text.

Places

Every article names the town or region it is written for, and the site labels local reporting as such. Conditions in Hargeisa are not conditions in Berbera or Bosaso: ground, water, salt, prices and rules all differ. We do not present a finding about one place as a rule for every place.

Dates

Each article shows its publication date. When the substance of an article changes after publication, the article also shows the date of that update. Cosmetic edits, tag changes and republishing do not change either date.

Corrections

When a contact route is configured, every article carries a Report an error link. Until then corrections cannot be submitted through the site. When we do correct an article we date the correction; we do not remove articles to hide a mistake.

Independence

Somali Construction Review carries no advertising and no sponsored articles. It does not sell construction services, and it does not name a contractor, supplier or engineer as recommended unless the article explains why.