Sources and reliability

Source classes

Evidence is labelled as an original report, independent confirmation, citation or repost, aggregator, official source, or retraction and denial. Source URLs are canonicalised by publisher and article identity; AMP, tracking parameters, country editions and copied citations do not turn one claim into several confirmations.

Tier 1

Reporters or outlets with strong first-hand access, clear wording, specialist coverage and a reliable historical record in the relevant context. A Tier 1 label is not a guarantee.

Tier 2 and Tier 3

Tier 2 indicates useful reporting with a good but less consistent or less direct record. Tier 3 indicates limited historical evidence, frequent secondary reporting or a record that requires stronger corroboration.

Unverified

An unverified source has not met the public reliability threshold. It can be retained for review but cannot make an article indexable or independently justify publication.

Context and measurement

Tiers may differ by league, club or information type. Almost Signed considers original-claim count, resolved outcomes, completion and false-claim rates, correction behaviour, specialist access and sample size. Small samples are shown as low confidence rather than converted into certainty.

Public-table threshold

The public reliability table is limited to football sources with at least ten tracked claims. Non-football discovery noise, duplicate publisher aliases and smaller samples remain internal until they provide enough evidence for a meaningful public profile.