Where these questions come from

Every article on this site starts from a question somebody actually asked, in public, in their own words. This page explains how those are found, what the quote at the top of an article means, and what we will not write about.

The quote at the top of an article

Each article opens with the question it answers. There are two kinds, and the label tells you which one you are looking at.

• “The question” — the words of the person who asked, quoted exactly as they posted them, typos and all. The community they posted in is named alongside the article. We do not tidy these up: “Need help warming up a cold, tiled apartment!!!” is what somebody wrote, and smoothing it into “How do I heat a tiled room?” would be us putting words in their mouth.
• “The question this answers” — our own words. Some articles were written from a pattern across many searches rather than from one post, so there is no individual to quote. In that case we state the question the page answers and attribute it to nobody, because inventing a person to have asked it would be a lie about where the article came from.

The difference is not cosmetic. One is evidence that a real person had this problem; the other is a description of what the page is for. We would rather label them differently than let you assume the stronger claim.

How a question gets found

We read public discussion forums where people describe real problems — the kind of post that starts “I’ve got a budget of £300 and I can’t work out whether…”. Posts are grouped by the underlying question, and the ones many different people are asking some version of get written about first.

Nothing here is written to fill a keyword gap. If nobody asked it, we do not answer it. The fuller account of how candidates are scored is on the methodology page.

What we will not answer

A question has to be one where a specific, buyable thing is the honest answer, and where that answer will still be true in a year. That rules out a lot:

• Anything we cannot resolve from documentation and owner reports. We do not test hardware. If answering needs a lab, we are not the right site.
• Services, subscriptions, bookings and places. The answer to “where should I stay in Lisbon” is not a product, and pretending otherwise would bend the answer toward whatever we could link to.
• Questions whose answer changes monthly. Live pricing, stock, and “what’s the best deal right now” go stale faster than we can maintain them.
• Questions already answered well. If the manufacturer’s own page says it plainly, another page saying the same thing is noise.

Answering, and what the answer rests on

Every recommendation rests on published specifications and on what real owners reported — never on hands-on testing, because we do not do any. What that means in practice, and the four things this process genuinely cannot establish, is set out atthe limits of this method.

One article recommends at most one product. Often that is exactly one; sometimes it is none, because the honest answer is that nothing here is worth buying and the right move is to keep what you have. An article that tells you not to spend money is not a failed article.

Where the money comes from

Links to products are affiliate links, and a purchase may earn a commission at no cost to you. Which product gets recommended is decided before any link is attached, and no manufacturer pays to appear here. The full statement is on the affiliate disclosure page.