4. Commitment to methodological standards and transparency

Our complete methodology is the totality of the explanations published in the Help section.

Dignitas moderators are the ones who ensure that the content published on the Dignitas website, by contributors, complies with the Dignitas methodology. According to our methodology:

• non-compliant statements are deleted or closed (details here);
• non-compliant authors are closed or deleted (details here);
• non-compliant answers are deleted (details here);
• non-compliant comments are deleted (details here).

We try to ensure that the statements/promises/changes of mind we collect also comply with practical requirements:

• to be current: for example, the statements made by the new mayor general of the Capital in the first months of his mandate (such as this);
• to cover major electoral events, see:
  • the campaign to verify the candidates for the 2024 presidential elections (those in round 1 and those in round 2);
  • the similar campaign for the 2025 presidential elections (round 1 and round 2);
  • the candidate verification campaign for the local elections in Bucharest in 2025;
• to show the long-term consequences of the (in)activity of mayors in a large city: see the verification campaign traffic in Bucharest;
• to follow up on electoral promises during a mandate, see the verification campaign mayors' achievements in 2020-2024.

If for a statement we find both evidence that confirms it and evidence that refutes it, then we will publish both types of evidence (in the form of separate answers). An example here.

We ensure that a source of data/information cited in an answer (verification of a claim) is used fairly, regardless of the author of the claim. Example: in the 2024 presidential election campaign, both the USR candidate Elena Lasconi and the PNL candidate Nicolae Ciucă had stated about the independent candidate Mircea Geoană that he was actually a PSD candidate (given that the PSD had an official candidate, Marcel Ciolacu, and the law does not allow a party to support 2 candidates for the same elections).

If we need official data/information from a state institution, in order to verify a politician's statement/promise, we contact the respective institution in writing and mark the respective statement/promise with a specific label, such as "requires official response from the City Hall", see here an example.

If the state institution does not respond to our request in a timely manner, we continue our verification work without taking into account the institution's official response; see an example here (The City Hall of Sector 1 did not respond to our request even after 2 years).

We ensure that our verifications:

• do not contain assumptions about the intentions of the politician who made a statement collected by us (in accordance with the Dignitas criteria, which dictate what type of political statements can or cannot be collected);
• do not contain statements made by any source, which are taken at their word without any verification;
• do not take the conclusions of any data source/studies (official or not), without first verifying their methodology;
• do not take a large amount of partisan language, which indirectly advertises the politician or political party to which the statement collected by us belongs.