About Interactive Atlas
Interactive Atlas is one application containing thirty-three independently themed encyclopedias. This page states how the family is organized, what its evidence practices are, and where it falls short of its own standard.
Interactive Atlas is operated by an individual. Questions, corrections and rights concerns are reviewed by a person.
Interactive Atlas is one application containing thirty-three independently themed encyclopedias. This page states how the family is organized, what its evidence practices are, and where it falls short of its own standard.
Interactive Atlas is operated by an individual. Questions, corrections and rights concerns are reviewed by a person.
One Family, Many Atlases
Each atlas keeps its own name, visual identity, evidence, taxonomy, profiles and communities. The family supplies the shared foundation: one account, one set of accessibility preferences, global messages and notifications, consistent navigation, and a shop that can draw from every atlas.
One engine is deployed per atlas rather than copied and forked, so a fix or an improvement made for one atlas reaches every atlas that shares the same underlying feature. What does not travel between atlases is content: an atlas's own entries, sources and taxonomy belong to that atlas alone.
One Family, Many Atlases
Each atlas keeps its own name, visual identity, evidence, taxonomy, profiles and communities. The family supplies the shared foundation: one account, one set of accessibility preferences, global messages and notifications, consistent navigation, and a shop that can draw from every atlas.
One engine is deployed per atlas rather than copied and forked, so a fix or an improvement made for one atlas reaches every atlas that shares the same underlying feature. What does not travel between atlases is content: an atlas's own entries, sources and taxonomy belong to that atlas alone.
Why Thirty-Three
The family is intentionally limited to thirty-three atlases. Thirty-three is the master teacher number in numerology, and Divinity Atlas was the first atlas, so the number belongs to the project's history. Growth inside that limit means making the existing atlases broader, deeper, better sourced and easier to traverse, rather than adding subjects without limit.
Within a section whose real-world extent is large, comprehensive coverage of that subject is still the goal: a category such as species, vehicle models or historical figures is worked toward its true scale over many sessions, never stopped once a small curated sample is done.
Why Thirty-Three
The family is intentionally limited to thirty-three atlases. Thirty-three is the master teacher number in numerology, and Divinity Atlas was the first atlas, so the number belongs to the project's history. Growth inside that limit means making the existing atlases broader, deeper, better sourced and easier to traverse, rather than adding subjects without limit.
Within a section whose real-world extent is large, comprehensive coverage of that subject is still the goal: a category such as species, vehicle models or historical figures is worked toward its true scale over many sessions, never stopped once a small curated sample is done.
How Knowledge Is Organized
Entries describe people, places, ideas, works, events, institutions, and the relationships among them. Structured facts retain their sources. Longer articles explain context and uncertainty. When credible sources disagree, the disagreement is meant to remain visible rather than being flattened into a single unexplained answer.
A subject is owned by the atlas where it belongs. When prose in one atlas names an entity held by another, a cross-atlas preview can show the destination atlas, a short description, and controls to listen to or open the full entry. That keeps one authoritative record for each subject without making the reader lose their place.
Every entry, relationship and cited fact carries an audit trail: who wrote it, when, and what changed. A write is not a raw edit against the database. It goes through a stored, reviewed procedure that records the actor, the session, and the exact before and after values of anything that changed, the same discipline this page's own words were written under. A change to already-published material goes through that same recorded path as a new entry; nothing is edited by an unrecorded change.
How Knowledge Is Organized
Entries describe people, places, ideas, works, events, institutions, and the relationships among them. Structured facts retain their sources. Longer articles explain context and uncertainty. When credible sources disagree, the disagreement is meant to remain visible rather than being flattened into a single unexplained answer.
A subject is owned by the atlas where it belongs. When prose in one atlas names an entity held by another, a cross-atlas preview can show the destination atlas, a short description, and controls to listen to or open the full entry. That keeps one authoritative record for each subject without making the reader lose their place.
Every entry, relationship and cited fact carries an audit trail: who wrote it, when, and what changed. A write is not a raw edit against the database. It goes through a stored, reviewed procedure that records the actor, the session, and the exact before and after values of anything that changed, the same discipline this page's own words were written under. A change to already-published material goes through that same recorded path as a new entry; nothing is edited by an unrecorded change.
How a Record Is Retired
Deletion, on the rare occasion an entry or a fact needs to come down, is a soft delete: the row is marked retired and stops appearing anywhere on the site, but it is not destroyed. That is deliberate. It makes an accidental removal recoverable, keeps a dispute's history intact, and means a correction can be reconstructed later rather than simply vanishing. What a reader sees is only ever the live, undeleted record.
How a Record Is Retired
Deletion, on the rare occasion an entry or a fact needs to come down, is a soft delete: the row is marked retired and stops appearing anywhere on the site, but it is not destroyed. That is deliberate. It makes an accidental removal recoverable, keeps a dispute's history intact, and means a correction can be reconstructed later rather than simply vanishing. What a reader sees is only ever the live, undeleted record.
One Account, Appropriate Context
You may read without signing in. One family account unlocks saved work, connections, messages, notifications, purchases and preferences across the application. Sign-in supports a passkey as well as a password, and a password reset uses a single-use, time-limited link sent to the address on the account.
An atlas profile remains distinct where local context matters, while global functions live in one place instead of being recreated thirty-three times.
You can delete your own account from account settings at any time, without needing to ask. Deleting it signs you out everywhere and ends access to your saved work and purchases under that account. See the Privacy Policy for what happens to your data after that, and the FAQ for a plain walk-through of the request.
One Account, Appropriate Context
You may read without signing in. One family account unlocks saved work, connections, messages, notifications, purchases and preferences across the application. Sign-in supports a passkey as well as a password, and a password reset uses a single-use, time-limited link sent to the address on the account.
An atlas profile remains distinct where local context matters, while global functions live in one place instead of being recreated thirty-three times.
You can delete your own account from account settings at any time, without needing to ask. Deleting it signs you out everywhere and ends access to your saved work and purchases under that account. See the Privacy Policy for what happens to your data after that, and the FAQ for a plain walk-through of the request.
Evidence, Dates, and Disagreement
Entries distinguish sourced facts from interpretation. Sources are attached as closely as the data permits, and dates matter: a current organization, officeholder, scientific classification, price or policy can change while an older source remains historically useful. The atlas shows the period a claim describes instead of presenting every statement as timeless.
When credible sources disagree, the disagreement is named and the competing positions are retained. Interactive Atlas is not an authority that settles every disputed question. It is a navigable record of what the evidence supports, what remains debated, and where a reader can examine the underlying sources.
Evidence, Dates, and Disagreement
Entries distinguish sourced facts from interpretation. Sources are attached as closely as the data permits, and dates matter: a current organization, officeholder, scientific classification, price or policy can change while an older source remains historically useful. The atlas shows the period a claim describes instead of presenting every statement as timeless.
When credible sources disagree, the disagreement is named and the competing positions are retained. Interactive Atlas is not an authority that settles every disputed question. It is a navigable record of what the evidence supports, what remains debated, and where a reader can examine the underlying sources.
Sources and How They Are Tiered
A citation on an entry carries a reliability tier, shown beside it. A tier-one source is a scholarly reference or a peer-reviewed work. A tier-two source is a reputable secondary source, such as a museum, a university or an established reference site. A tier-three source is the subject's own account, its own scripture, statement, catalog or publication, cited as its own claim rather than as independent verification of it.
The third tier is the one most often misread. Where the claim being supported is what a subject or tradition itself holds, that subject is the right authority for it, and citing it is the correct citation rather than a weak one. A tier-three source is the wrong citation only for a claim about an independent fact, such as a date or an outcome an outside record could confirm.
A structured fact, the dated, numbered or named value shown in a fact panel on an entry, is required to carry a source before it can be recorded at all; the underlying tables will not accept one without a citation attached. That is a property of how the data is built, not a promise about the quality of every citation, which is what the tier above is for. A specific claim in an entry's prose is expected to be supported by the source cited alongside it; a claim that is true but not supported by its own citation is treated as a defect to fix, not as a harmless embellishment.
Where the text quotes a source directly, the quotation is checked against the source's own raw text, not against a summary of it, and a page locator is kept with it so the exact passage can be found again.
Sources and How They Are Tiered
A citation on an entry carries a reliability tier, shown beside it. A tier-one source is a scholarly reference or a peer-reviewed work. A tier-two source is a reputable secondary source, such as a museum, a university or an established reference site. A tier-three source is the subject's own account, its own scripture, statement, catalog or publication, cited as its own claim rather than as independent verification of it.
The third tier is the one most often misread. Where the claim being supported is what a subject or tradition itself holds, that subject is the right authority for it, and citing it is the correct citation rather than a weak one. A tier-three source is the wrong citation only for a claim about an independent fact, such as a date or an outcome an outside record could confirm.
A structured fact, the dated, numbered or named value shown in a fact panel on an entry, is required to carry a source before it can be recorded at all; the underlying tables will not accept one without a citation attached. That is a property of how the data is built, not a promise about the quality of every citation, which is what the tier above is for. A specific claim in an entry's prose is expected to be supported by the source cited alongside it; a claim that is true but not supported by its own citation is treated as a defect to fix, not as a harmless embellishment.
Where the text quotes a source directly, the quotation is checked against the source's own raw text, not against a summary of it, and a page locator is kept with it so the exact passage can be found again.
Closed and Restricted Knowledge
Some material a tradition or a community holds is not meant for general publication: initiatory teaching, material restricted by season or by standing within a community, or a text whose own front matter states a requirement before it may be read. Where that is the case, most often on Divinity Atlas, the relevant entry records that the material exists and what it is for, without reproducing it. That a text has appeared in print elsewhere is not treated as a reason to republish it here.
Closed and Restricted Knowledge
Some material a tradition or a community holds is not meant for general publication: initiatory teaching, material restricted by season or by standing within a community, or a text whose own front matter states a requirement before it may be read. Where that is the case, most often on Divinity Atlas, the relevant entry records that the material exists and what it is for, without reproducing it. That a text has appeared in print elsewhere is not treated as a reason to republish it here.
Where Evidence Is Thin
Coverage is uneven across thirty-three atlases and will be for some time. Where the fuller literature has not yet been reached, an entry says what is established, what is asserted without a strong source, and what is not settled, rather than presenting a thin claim as a confident one. A short entry is a sign that work has not reached that subject yet, not a judgment that the subject does not merit fuller treatment.
Where Evidence Is Thin
Coverage is uneven across thirty-three atlases and will be for some time. Where the fuller literature has not yet been reached, an entry says what is established, what is asserted without a strong source, and what is not settled, rather than presenting a thin claim as a confident one. A short entry is a sign that work has not reached that subject yet, not a judgment that the subject does not merit fuller treatment.
What the Atlases Do Not Replace
The atlases are educational reference works. They do not replace a physician, attorney, accountant, therapist, emergency service, qualified tradesperson, or other professional who can evaluate an individual situation. Product, financial, legal, medical and safety information should be checked against current primary guidance before it is used to make a consequential decision.
What the Atlases Do Not Replace
The atlases are educational reference works. They do not replace a physician, attorney, accountant, therapist, emergency service, qualified tradesperson, or other professional who can evaluate an individual situation. Product, financial, legal, medical and safety information should be checked against current primary guidance before it is used to make a consequential decision.
Accessibility and Reader Control
Text size, theme, keyboard navigation, page landmarks and read-aloud controls are part of the shared application, built and checked against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at the AA level. A preference selected in one atlas travels with the reader throughout the family. Known barriers and the reporting process are listed in the Accessibility Statement.
Accessibility and Reader Control
Text size, theme, keyboard navigation, page landmarks and read-aloud controls are part of the shared application, built and checked against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at the AA level. A preference selected in one atlas travels with the reader throughout the family. Known barriers and the reporting process are listed in the Accessibility Statement.
Corrections and Accountability
A reader can report an error from the page where it appears. A useful report identifies the exact statement, explains the concern, and includes a source when one is available. A correction is reviewed against the evidence, and the outcome, whether the entry changes or stays as it was, is recorded rather than the disputed claim being silently altered.
Technical defects, accessibility barriers, privacy requests and rights concerns follow their own routes because they require different evidence and response times. The FAQ, Accessibility Statement and Copyright and Takedown page explain where to begin.
Corrections and Accountability
A reader can report an error from the page where it appears. A useful report identifies the exact statement, explains the concern, and includes a source when one is available. A correction is reviewed against the evidence, and the outcome, whether the entry changes or stays as it was, is recorded rather than the disputed claim being silently altered.
Technical defects, accessibility barriers, privacy requests and rights concerns follow their own routes because they require different evidence and response times. The FAQ, Accessibility Statement and Copyright and Takedown page explain where to begin.
The Reviewer Program
Subject specialists can review a section of an atlas against the sources cited for it and report what they find. A reviewer who completes a review and agrees to be named is acknowledged for it. Review is a check against the existing evidence and the existing write procedures; it does not replace the correction route above, which stays open to any reader.
The Reviewer Program
Subject specialists can review a section of an atlas against the sources cited for it and report what they find. A reviewer who completes a review and agrees to be named is acknowledged for it. Review is a check against the existing evidence and the existing write procedures; it does not replace the correction route above, which stays open to any reader.
Where This Falls Short
A page claiming a finished, error-free encyclopedia would not be believable, so three limits are stated plainly instead. Citation coverage is uneven: some kinds of entry are well sourced and others are not yet reached, and an uncited passage should be read as a claim awaiting verification rather than a settled one. Much of the atlas's prose was drafted with the help of an AI system and is checked against its cited sources as part of the same write process, a working assumption worth holding while you read. And depth is uneven: some entries carry long, well-sourced articles and others carry a single sourced line, because thirty-three atlases at real-world scale is worked toward over many sessions, not finished in one.
Where This Falls Short
A page claiming a finished, error-free encyclopedia would not be believable, so three limits are stated plainly instead. Citation coverage is uneven: some kinds of entry are well sourced and others are not yet reached, and an uncited passage should be read as a claim awaiting verification rather than a settled one. Much of the atlas's prose was drafted with the help of an AI system and is checked against its cited sources as part of the same write process, a working assumption worth holding while you read. And depth is uneven: some entries carry long, well-sourced articles and others carry a single sourced line, because thirty-three atlases at real-world scale is worked toward over many sessions, not finished in one.
How the Family Is Funded
Public reading is available without charge. The shop and any clearly priced paid features help support hosting, research, maintenance and accessibility work. A price is shown before a purchase is submitted. Editorial inclusion is not sold, and buying a product does not buy favorable coverage or control of an entry.
The shop sells made-to-order merchandise carrying an approved atlas glyph, at shop.interactiveatlas.org: a customizer shows an approximate on-screen preview and produces the actual print artwork to the fulfiller's own resolution and placement requirements. Prices, taxes, shipping, production estimates, and the returns and refund process are shown before an order is placed and are stated in full in the Terms.
How the Family Is Funded
Public reading is available without charge. The shop and any clearly priced paid features help support hosting, research, maintenance and accessibility work. A price is shown before a purchase is submitted. Editorial inclusion is not sold, and buying a product does not buy favorable coverage or control of an entry.
The shop sells made-to-order merchandise carrying an approved atlas glyph, at shop.interactiveatlas.org: a customizer shows an approximate on-screen preview and produces the actual print artwork to the fulfiller's own resolution and placement requirements. Prices, taxes, shipping, production estimates, and the returns and refund process are shown before an order is placed and are stated in full in the Terms.