How articles are written
Floor Talks articles are drafted with AI assistance. We say so on every article and on this page, because readers deserve to know how what they read was made.
Nobody at Floor Talks is an installer, inspector, engineer or other licensed professional, and no article claims to have been written or reviewed by one. The byline on every article reads "Floor Talks" and links here.
Drafting is only the first step. Each article is written from a library of sources, and must pass a set of automated checks before it is published. The checks are designed to fail closed: an article that does not pass is not published.
Sources we use
We prefer primary documents over commentary about them:
- manufacturers' own installation instructions, technical data sheets and warranty documents, cited by product and edition;
- standards bodies and their published scopes, such as ASTM International and the ANSI tile standards;
- industry institutes and associations, including the Resilient Floor Covering Institute, the Carpet and Rug Institute, the Tile Council of North America and the National Wood Flooring Association;
- public references such as the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Wood Handbook and the American Concrete Institute;
- event organizers and certification programs, for dates, formats and requirements.
Every article lists and links the sources it cites. Where manufacturers or sources disagree, we show the disagreement instead of picking one number.
The checks every article passes
- Figures must match their source. Any sentence, list item or table row that contains a figure must cite a source, and the figure must appear in that source's text.
- Claims rules. No product rankings or "best for" lists, no guarantees, no credentials we do not have, and no wording that implies a human installer or inspector wrote or tested anything.
- Depth. Articles must be substantial and draw on several independent sources.
- Readability. Plain, short sentences in US English.
- No repeated boilerplate. The same sentence may not appear across many articles.
- Links work. Every internal link must lead to a real page.
Automated checks catch a lot, not everything. That is why corrections from readers matter.
Pictures
Photographs come from Wikimedia Commons, are chosen by looking at them, and are credited with their author and license. Captions describe only what the photograph shows. Diagrams are drawn in code for Floor Talks, and they carry no measurements; sizes and tolerances stay in the text, next to the source that states them.
Dates
Each article shows when it was first published and when it was last rewritten from its sources. Publication dates are never changed to make an article look newer than it is.
Advertising and independence
Floor Talks is supported by display advertising served by Google. Advertisers have no influence over what we publish, and we do not accept payment to cover, review or favor any product, brand or company.
Corrections
If you spot an error, tell us through the contact page and include the page address if you can. We check the claim against its source and correct the article if it is wrong.