Editorial Policy
The rules this site is written under, published so you can hold us to them.
Sourcing standards
Every factual claim on this site must be traceable to a named source. In practice that means:
| Claim type | Required source |
|---|---|
| Ply count, core material, gauge | The manufacturer's published product specification |
| Oven-safe temperature | The manufacturer's specification, cited and quoted |
| Warranty terms | The manufacturer's own warranty document, linked |
| Country of manufacture | The manufacturer's published statement |
| Performance test results | The publication that ran the test, named and linked |
| Price | Never stated. Buy links go to the live listing. |
| Ratings and review counts | Never stated. We have no such data. |
Every page carries a Sources block listing what it drew on. We do not write "experts say", "studies show" or "most cooks prefer" without a named source, and if a claim cannot be sourced it does not go on the page.
Where a retailer and a manufacturer disagree on a specification, we use the manufacturer's figure and say that the discrepancy exists, because the manufacturer's number is the one the warranty is written against.
What we will never publish
- Invented testing. No "in our testing" where no testing happened, no test-kitchen or lab we do not have, no invented number of hours or products tested. See how we evaluate.
- Invented credentials. Michael W. is the hands-on owner behind our publisher. That is the whole credential set and no page will imply more.
- Fabricated reviews or testimonials. There are no customer testimonials on this site because we have none. A clean page beats an invented one.
- Made-up specifications, prices or ASINs. If we cannot verify a figure, the page says so rather than guessing.
- Expert quotes from people we did not speak to.
- Self-authored review ratings in structured data. Our scores are visible on the page as editorial judgment and are deliberately never marked up as product review ratings, because we do not run a testing lab.
- False urgency. No countdowns, no "limited time", no "don't miss out". This is a site about buying things once.
Correction protocol
Errors get fixed. The rule is that we do not silently edit a factual claim.
- You tell us, or we find it.
- We verify against the primary source.
- We correct the page immediately.
- We append a dated correction note at the foot of the page saying what was wrong and what it now says.
- We update the "last updated" date.
Typographical fixes and wording changes that do not alter meaning are not annotated. Anything that changes a fact, a figure or a recommendation is.
Report an error to contact@plyandpan.com or through the contact form. Naming the page and the claim helps.
Update cadence
| Content type | Reviewed | Trigger for an earlier update |
|---|---|---|
| Roundups | Quarterly | A pick is discontinued or substantially revised |
| Brand comparisons | At least annually | A new model line or a specification change |
| Warranty pages | At least twice a year | Any published change to terms |
| Technique and troubleshooting | Annually | New evidence on a mechanism |
| Trust pages | On change | Immediately, if our commitments change |
Every page shows a visible "last updated" date. Staleness is a genuine weakness in this category — there are still cookware roundups ranking well with year-stamped titles two years out of date — and we would rather you could see ours than have it hidden.
Authorship
Everything here is written by Michael W.. There is no second author, no contributor pool, no fact-checking department, and no expert review panel. Where a page carries a byline, that byline is a real person, and the machine-readable author on every article matches it.
Product selection
Products appear in our roundups because they are real, currently sold, and relevant to the category — identified through research into what the market actually offers and what buyers are actually comparing. They do not appear because of commission rate, because a brand asked, or because of availability of an affiliate link.
Where a product is genuinely the right answer and we cannot earn from it, we say so and link to it anyway.
Imagery
Photography on this site is licensed stock. Where an image appears beside a named product, the alt description states that it is illustrative and not a photograph of the reviewed unit. We do not present stock photography as evidence of our own use, our own premises, or our own testing.
Independence
We take no free product and no sponsorship, and commission does not influence rankings. Those commitments are set out in full on the affiliate disclosure page, and they are the basis on which this site describes itself as independent. If they ever stop being true, that page changes before anything else does.