EDITORIAL METHODOLOGY

Projects

Nothing appears in the public index merely because an automated system found it. Discovery and research can be automated or machine-assisted; publication cannot. Every public project record has passed a human editorial decision.

Identifying the genuine project

Research begins with the project's own public presence: its canonical website, documentation, official social accounts and source-code repositories. The aim is to give people a defensible route to the genuine project and its best current canonical destination.

Checking current public presence

An editor checks the project's identity, relevant public links and current public presence. Where it helps, this is supplemented with independent or historical evidence — fresh checks of canonical links and redirects, Internet Archive snapshots, domain-registration records (supporting evidence only, never proof of age), GitHub history and Cardano on-chain identifiers. The Charter lists the evidence types and their limits.

The publication test

Before a project is published, the editor should be able to answer five questions:

1. Identity — are we confident this is the project it claims to be?
2. Destination — have we identified the best current canonical destination?
3. Currency — is there reasonable evidence that the project or resource currently exists in the state we describe?
4. Evidence — could we explain which sources led us to that conclusion?
5. Human review — has an editor actually looked at the record and its primary link?

If those questions cannot be answered adequately, the record stays in review and does not appear on the public index.

What “passing the quality bar” means

INDEX:80 does not rank projects, score investment merit or tell people what to buy. A project that has passed our quality bar has passed the publication test, with enough current, explainable evidence to justify including it in the index.

For project spotlights, we may also explain the particular evidence that stood out — for example active building, useful tools, open-source work, community contribution, clear project identity or other verifiable signals. That is editorial judgement, not a guarantee of security, token value, future success or investment performance.

Inactive and archived projects

History is kept rather than overwritten. When a website changes, a link dies, a new canonical domain appears or a project announces closure, that history stays part of the record. Archiving is a human editorial decision: an archived project keeps its page as a clearly marked historical record, but it no longer appears in the active directory.

The human decision

AI tools assist research, comparison and technical work, and their findings can disagree. No tool has editorial authority. A human reviews every project before publication, including its primary link, and makes the final decision. The Charter explains how AI assistance is governed.

People

INDEX:80 People maps public Cardano identities to the projects, organisations and ecosystem roles they are publicly associated with. A People profile is a directory record. It is not a background check, a reputation score, an endorsement or a ranking, and INDEX:80 is not an investigation service.

Public beta: publication is not endorsement

The People directory is in public beta. Profiles are compiled from public sources and published for community and subject review before every person listed has confirmed them. Publication does not mean the person has endorsed or approved their profile.

Profile images are sourced from the person's own public profile or other clearly attributable public source, whether or not the facts in the profile have been confirmed. Individuals may ask us to update, replace or remove an image at any time.

Public Cardano identity only

People are listed under the identity they use themselves in public Cardano spaces. INDEX:80 does not use third-party sources to connect a pseudonym to a legal or researched name the person does not use publicly — there is no deanonymisation. An INDEX:80 project page can help connect relationships, but it is never, on its own, evidence of someone's identity or role.

Roles and organisations

Profiles record the projects, organisations and roles a person is publicly associated with. A person's category describes their principal current contribution; role tags can cross categories. Current and previous roles are shown separately.

How a profile is published

Profiles are generated only from owner-approved records in the INDEX:80 Editorial People Registry. A record is published only when it has been approved and the person has an attributable public X or LinkedIn profile. Research notes and candidate lists are never published directly.

DReps and stake pools

DRep and stake pool facts are shown only when the current status has been checked against on-chain or official sources. INDEX:80 does not infer political views, beliefs or voting preferences from governance activity.

Profile images

Profile images are sourced from the person's own public profile or other clearly attributable public source. Individuals may ask us to update, replace or remove an image at any time; where no suitable image is available, the profile shows the INDEX:80 monogram. No private or researched photographs are used, and pseudonymous people are only ever shown with their public persona's own avatar.

Information INDEX:80 does not publish

INDEX:80 does not publish home locations, family details, private contact details, follower counts or other personal information unrelated to a person's public Cardano role. Internal research and review notes stay private.

Anyone listed can correct a fact, change their display identity, supply or decline an image, or object to being listed — see corrections and objections.

Evidence & verification

Projects: what “verified by INDEX:80” means

A verified project record means an editor has checked the project's identity, relevant public links and current public presence sufficiently to include it in the index, and can explain the evidence behind that decision.

People: Verified and Partial

Verified means key identity and current-role facts are supported by suitable public sources. Partial means some core facts are supported while checks remain open. These describe how complete the evidence is. They are not a judgement of merit.

Checked dates

A checked date records when INDEX:80 last checked a record against its sources. It is an observation made on that date, not a guarantee that nothing has changed since.

Sources and evidence

Official and subject-controlled sources come first, supported by independent or historical evidence where it helps. No single dataset is assumed to be infallible: a domain registration date does not prove a project existed on that date, and a working website does not prove the underlying project is healthy. INDEX:80 records the evidence and its limitations rather than turning uncertainty into false precision, and public evidence is shown with plain labels such as Official website, GitHub, Cardano on-chain record, Wayback archive or INDEX:80 link check.

Verification is not endorsement

Verification does not mean INDEX:80 has audited a project's code, guarantees its security, certifies its token, confirms every claim made by its team or recommends an investment. For People, a profile is not an endorsement of the person. Payment never buys inclusion, verification, ranking, Featured status or editorial influence.

Corrections & objections

An open index has to be correctable. Changes are reviewed rather than silently accepted, and material history is preserved where it helps explain what changed.

Projects

If a project link, classification, description, identifier or status is wrong, send a correction or project submission or email [email protected].

People

If you appear in the People directory, you can:

• correct a fact about your roles, projects or organisations;
• confirm or change the display identity used for you;
• supply a profile image, or decline one;
• object to being listed, or ask for your record to be reviewed.

Use Submit / corrections or email [email protected]. The privacy policy explains your data rights.

Specialist standards

Some categories apply an additional, more selective standard on top of the normal publication test.

Community Stake Pool Standard

Cardano has thousands of stake pools. INDEX:80 does not try to list them all. The Community Stake Pools category is a deliberately selective group of operators whose contribution to Cardano goes beyond routine block production.

To qualify, we look for:

• Current operation — an active on-chain pool and a current official public presence.
• Clear identity — a verifiable operator or team, pool identity and canonical links.
• Independent/community-led operation — smaller and single-pool operators are preferred; large exchange or institutional pool farms are outside the purpose of this category.
• Contribution beyond running a pool — for example tools, education, governance participation, open-source work, community support, events, content, charitable work or other useful ecosystem activity.
• Recent activity — reasonable evidence that the operator is still contributing to Cardano, not simply maintaining an old website or pool registration.
• No unresolved material concerns — if identity, activity or public claims cannot be supported well enough, the record stays in review.

Independent multi-pool operators can still appear where they are clearly community-led, but they are lower priority for spotlighting than smaller pools. Selection is not based on advertised APR, pool size, token incentives or payment to INDEX:80.

This category is curated rather than comprehensive and is reviewed over time. Inclusion means the operator passed this editorial standard at the time of review; it is not a recommendation to delegate and does not guarantee future pool performance.

Read the Editorial & Open Web Charter →