How Project Big Things is written

Project Big Things is an independent guide to Big Things and the places around them: giant fruit and fish, dinosaurs and cowboys, public art, odd landmarks and the stories of the people who made them. This page explains who is responsible for it, how we research and check what we publish, how we use AI, and how to tell us when we are wrong.

Project Big Things is published and edited by Peter Walker, who is the Publisher and the Editor and is responsible for what appears on the site.

Features are credited to Project Big Things Editorial. That credit means the piece was prepared for the site through its editorial process, which includes AI-assisted research and drafting, and was reviewed and approved for publication by the Editor. Where a named person wrote or substantially reworked a feature, we name them as its author. We do not attach a personal byline to work that person did not do.

The site has two kinds of content, and they are not held to the same standard.

Catalogue listings are the entries for individual places. Most are basic listings: a name, a location, a category and a short description assembled from a small number of public sources. They are useful for finding a place and are not the product of a full investigation. Some listings have had more research than others: records researched in depth show the date they were last checked. Treat any listing as a starting point, and check conditions with the operator or the local council before you travel.

Features, guides and routes are written pieces. They are the work this policy describes. They name their sources, and their material claims are reviewed against those sources before they are published, as described below. Few features exist yet, and we will add more slowly.

A feature is built from public sources that it lists: government and council records, heritage registers, museum and library collections, historical newspapers, tourism bodies and local historians. Where sources disagree we say so. Where something is local tradition rather than documented history, we say that, and we leave out what we cannot trace to a source. Each feature gives the date its sources were last read.

We do not invent quotes, visits, interviews or experiences. If we have not been somewhere ourselves, we do not write as if we had.

Before a feature is published, the Editor reviews it and approves it. The review concentrates on the material factual claims: dates, numbers, quotations, names, and anything about access or safety that a reader might rely on. Those claims are compared with the sources the feature lists, where we can reach them. Where a claim cannot be confirmed, or sources disagree, the feature says so or leaves the claim out. Not every sentence is checked individually, and catalogue listings are not reviewed in this way. We also run automated and AI-assisted checks that look for unsupported statements. Those checks help find mistakes; they are not a substitute for the Editor's review, and we do not count them as one.

Practical information such as roads, access and distances appears only where a source supports it, and we say when a figure is approximate. Conditions change. Check before you go, especially on remote or unsealed roads and at places that are not open to the public all day.

Checking reduces errors but cannot remove them, and we are a small publication. If you find a mistake, please tell us.

We use AI tools to help find and read sources, organise research and prepare drafts. AI tools are not authors, editors or approvers. A person decides what is published. Where AI assistance materially shaped a feature, the feature says so.

Our illustrations, called Portraits, are made with generative tools to a house style. They are drawings, not photographs. Photographs, where we use them, are labelled as photographs and credited with their licence.

Images on a feature carry a credit and a licence. We use photographs that were taken for us, openly licensed, or used with the rights holder's permission. If you hold the rights to an image and believe it is credited wrongly, tell us and we will look at it.

Editorial decisions are made by the Editor. Operators and advertisers cannot buy coverage, change what we say or review a feature before it is published, and we do not present sponsored content as editorial.

We do not currently show third-party advertising on features. If we introduce it, it will be labelled, kept apart from the text, and kept off corrections, this page and safety or access information, and this page will be updated first. Links to operators are there because readers need them, not because they pay.

We want to correct mistakes openly. When we change a feature in a way that matters to a reader, we add a dated note to the feature saying what changed. To report a mistake, use Suggest an update. We read reports as we are able and give priority to anything involving safety, access, privacy or rights. We cannot promise a reply time, and we do not promise to reply to every report individually.

Some places are memorials, or sacred or culturally significant sites. For First Nations and other community material we follow the community's or the official description where one exists, and we do not interpret beyond our sources. If the people a piece concerns ask us to change or remove something, we will consider the request promptly and act on it where it is reasonable to do so.

Use Suggest an update, or write to us through Contact and support. Anything involving safety, rights or privacy is handled first.