Version 1.0 — effective 2026-04-22
Every claim in the Mulembe Nation knowledge graph is anchored to at least one source. This page explains how we rank the credibility of those sources. The ranking is a four-tier scale; it is not a judgment that any individual claim is true or false, but a statement about how strong the support for that claim is.
Tier 1 — Primary official records
Direct, dated records from the entity being described, or from a statutory body with jurisdiction over it.
Examples: the Kenya Gazette, National Assembly and Senate Hansard, court judgments and filings, IEBC certified election results, Auditor-General reports, Controller of Budget implementation reports, KNBS census and survey publications, company filings at the Business Registration Service.
Tier 1 sources are authoritative for what they cover. They are not infallible — official records contain errors — but errors in Tier 1 sources are themselves Tier 1 events when documented by another Tier 1 source.
Tier 2 — Published journalism and academic work
Reporting or analysis produced by outlets or institutions with documented editorial or peer-review processes.
Examples: Nation Media Group, Standard Group, Citizen, BBC Africa, Reuters, Bloomberg, AP, Al Jazeera, The Conversation Africa, peer-reviewed journals, working papers from recognised research institutions (IPAR, KIPPRA, IEA, AFIDEP, APHRC).
Tier 2 sources are credible but not authoritative. Where a Tier 2 source cites a Tier 1 source, we prefer the underlying Tier 1 source as the anchor and record the Tier 2 source as the route by which we found it.
Tier 3 — Public promotional materials
Content placed in public view by the subject itself for the purpose of public communication.
Examples: campaign posters and billboards, official corporate press releases, verified organisational social media posts about the organisation’s own activities, political party manifestos, candidate campaign websites.
Tier 3 sources are credible as evidence of what the subject has publicly claimed about itself. They are not evidence that those claims are true. A campaign poster claiming 200 delivered boreholes is evidence of the claim, not evidence of the boreholes.
Tier 4 — Community submissions with verification
Observations, photographs, or testimonies submitted to Mulembe Nation by community members, entering through our observation log and promoted only after editorial verification.
Examples: observed campaign events photographed by community members, reports of local meetings, flagged instances of service delivery or its absence, community-sourced translations and cultural context.
Tier 4 sources are only admitted after corroboration. A Tier 4 observation that matches a higher-tier source is promoted to the graph; one that stands alone remains in the observation log until corroborated or discarded.
Dispute handling
Where two or more sources support contradictory claims, we record the disagreement in the underlying data and surface it in the public interface with explicit visual and textual indication that the claim is contested. We do not adjudicate disputes between sources of the same tier by editorial fiat. We show the dispute; we do not silently resolve it.
Versioning
Changes to tier definitions, tier boundaries, or example sources require a version bump to this document. The Editor reviews it at least annually.
Questions or corrections on source-hierarchy classifications may be sent to editor@mulembenation.co.ke.
