Create a correction process for published articles

Give readers a usable reporting route

An article library needs a way for readers to report errors that reaches a responsible person. Place a clear contact route in the editorial policy or article template and ask for the page URL, disputed statement, and supporting evidence. Do not require a reader to reconstruct your internal workflow. Assign someone to review reports and distinguish factual errors from disagreements about recommendations. A correction process is part of maintaining useful content, especially when articles contain product details or instructions that can change after the original publication.

Triage by reader impact

Prioritize issues that could cause an incorrect action, misrepresent a product, or materially change a buying decision. A broken link may be urgent in a setup tutorial but less consequential in a background reading list. Record what is known, what needs checking, and whether the affected passage should be temporarily qualified while the investigation proceeds. Avoid automatically accepting or rejecting a report based on who submitted it. Inspect the evidence and preserve the original wording internally so the team can understand the error and prevent similar mistakes.

Correct the complete dependency chain

A factual change may affect a table, a recommendation, a summary, and metadata. Search for every dependent statement rather than editing only the sentence named in the report. Google's publication-date guidance is useful for representing updates consistently, while its helpful-content documentation provides broader quality context. Decide whether a visible correction note is warranted based on the materiality of the change. A typo and a reversed recommendation do not need identical treatment. The note should explain the meaningful correction without exposing private information from the reader who reported it.

Hypothetical example: an incorrect integration claim

Imagine an article states that a tool supports direct publishing to a CMS. A reader points out that the product only exports a file for manual upload. The editor checks the official documentation and confirms the error. They revise the feature table, rewrite the workflow, remove a claim about automatic scheduling, and update the recommendation for teams needing automation. A short correction note explains the distinction. The change is not complete until all passages that relied on direct publishing have been reviewed in the live article.

Use corrections to improve production

Classify the cause: stale source, unsupported inference, transcription error, unclear brief, or missed review. Update the relevant checklist or knowledge pack rather than adding a vague reminder to be careful. Track time to resolution and repeated error types without turning the process into blame. Verify the corrected page after deployment, including cached previews where relevant. Close the report with a clear record of what changed. A correction system earns its value when the same mistake becomes less likely across the rest of the library, not merely when one page is repaired.

• Record the disputed passage, evidence, resolution, and affected article revision.
• Review tables and recommendations that depend on the corrected statement.
• Confirm the live page contains the repair before closing the report.