Editorial policy and AI disclosure

In short

Terra Scripta's articles are written by AI. Before an article is offered to search engines or carries ads, it must pass a fact-check by a different AI; articles still awaiting that check are marked as drafts. No human expert reviews them before they are published. This page explains how that works, what its limits are, and how you can help us correct mistakes.

How articles are written

Each article is drafted by Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, from published, openly available sources: encyclopedias, museum, library and archive pages, primary sources in translation, and scholarly works. The article follows a fixed structure, from a one-sentence summary and an explanation for children to intermediate and advanced sections, a timeline, a glossary and a list of sources. Statements are kept to what the cited sources support.

English and Korean versions are written first. Versions in other languages are translated with AI, using the established names for people, places and works in each language. Every language version is published as a draft, and it is offered to search engines and carries ads only after it has passed the AI cross-review described below.

Terra Scripta is an independent project made by one person in South Korea, who also makes the map-based history videos on our YouTube channels. The editor chooses the topics, designs the maps, the article structure and the review process, and fixes reported mistakes, but is not a subject expert and does not check each article line by line.

AI cross-review

Before an article is marked as reviewed, a second AI model from a different company, OpenAI's Codex (gpt-6.1-sol), checks it independently. It compares dates, names, numbers, quotations and claims with the cited sources and, where needed, with stronger ones, such as primary sources and scholarly works rather than general websites.

When the writing model and the reviewing model disagree, the question is not settled by a vote or by the writing model's own judgement, but by the stronger source. If no source settles it, the claim is marked as uncertain or removed. The review is repeated until no serious issue remains open, and the reviewing model, the date, the scope and the number of issues found and fixed are recorded with the article.

What the label means

Articles that have passed this review show the label "AI-written · AI fact-checked" near the title, with a note that no human expert has reviewed them, the reviewing model and the date of the last check. Articles without the label have not yet passed the review: they carry a draft notice, still list their sources, are kept out of search engines and carry no ads. The label is never added to articles that were not actually reviewed.

AI review reduces errors but cannot remove them, and it is not a substitute for review by a human specialist. For school work, research or anything important, please check the facts against the sources listed at the end of each article.

Sources and quotations

Every article lists the sources it relies on, with links where they are available online. We do not invent quotations or references: an automated check confirms that every source link opens and that every passage that cites a source points to one on the list, and a quotation that cannot be traced to a source is removed. Where historians disagree, the article says so instead of silently choosing one side.

Images, maps and data

Images come only from Wikimedia Commons, and only when they are in the public domain or under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA licences. The author and licence are shown with each image.

The map is drawn from open data: coastlines and rivers from Natural Earth (public domain), historical borders from Cliopatria / Seshat (CC BY 4.0) and OpenHistoricalMap (CC0), and people, works, places and events from Wikidata (CC0) and the UNESCO World Heritage List. Coordinates and borders always come from these datasets; AI never makes them up. Where the data is clearly wrong, it is corrected by hand, and borders before the modern era are approximate.

Corrections

If you find a mistake, write to contact@terrascripta.com or post on the Reports & Discussion board. Please include the page address and, if you can, a source. Corrections are checked against sources in the same way as new articles, and the fix is applied to every language version of the article.

Advertising

The site is free and is supported by Google AdSense. Ads appear only on articles that have passed the AI cross-review and on course pages, between sections and in the side column, and are labelled as ads. There are no ads on the map, on drafts, on the board or on information pages like this one. Advertisers have no say in what is written, and articles are not written to promote any product.

Our YouTube channel

Some articles have also been turned into videos on our YouTube channel, @terrascripta. The videos are made from the site's articles and maps, and an article links to the video made from it in the languages that have subtitles.

Related videos from other creators are chosen only from official channels, such as museums, universities, broadcasters and public institutions. A video is loaded only when you press play; see the privacy policy.