Editorial policy

This page describes how content on SupportDecode is produced, checked, and corrected, as the process works today. Where something is planned rather than real, it says planned.

Primary sources first

Every calculator is built from primary sources: the state statute, court rule, or official guideline document that defines the formula. Each number in our data files carries a citation to its official source and the date we last reviewed it, and the build fails if a published rule is missing either one. The full list of cited sources is public on the sources page, and the methodology page explains how the engines compute.

How the math is verified

Before a state ships, we write test scenarios by hand from the official documents: 10 per state, 510 in total across the 51 states covered so far. Each one works the formula out on paper and records the expected result. Our automated test suite runs all 510 scenarios as full engine regression fixtures on every code change, requiring agreement within the published verification tolerance.

Honest status: 58 of the 510 scenarios match full outputs from official state calculators or estimators. Another 3 match worked examples published in official rules or workbooks. The remaining 449 are calculated from official formula documents, schedules, or worksheets but are not independent official-tool confirmations. Of those, 156 still need an official calculator, worksheet, or interpretation cross-check. See the state-by-state verification registry.

Quality gates

Automated checks block a page from publishing when it fails any of these:

• A rule without an official source citation or review date fails the build.
• A style gate scans all site copy for banned filler phrasing, so pages stay plain and readable.
• A similarity gate compares every state page against its siblings; more than 70 percent overlap fails the build. Each state page must earn its place with that state's own rules, examples, and history.
• Broken internal links and unreachable pages fail the build.

Corrections

We triage every reported error within 48 hours. Confirmed errors are fixed, and every material fix gets a dated entry on the public updates page. We do not correct silently: if a number was wrong, the changelog says what changed and when. Report errors through the contact page, ideally with the page, the number, and the official source you checked.

Keeping data current

Federal law requires every state to review its child support guidelines at least every four years, so rule changes are constant somewhere. Our cadence: a full sweep of every cited source at least quarterly, and when we learn a state has changed a figure, a target of updating the affected pages within 7 days. Review dates on each page show when its data was last checked.

Who reviews: today and planned

Today, pages are researched and reviewed by the SupportDecode Editorial Team, working from the official documents described above. No attorney currently reviews this site, and no page claims otherwise.

Planned: attorney review of state pages by lawyers licensed in the relevant state, with the reviewer named and dated on each reviewed page. This will be stated on a page only when it has actually happened. We will never invent a reviewer, a credential, or a review date.