How we verify

Provenance, method, status: three separate labels

We start from official sources — town halls, tourist offices, the Verdon Regional Nature Park, federations (fishing, hiking) — and from open data (data.gouv.fr, IRVE, Hub’Eau, OpenStreetMap), which we never present as official sources. For each business page, we state separately where the information comes from (provenance), what we did with it (method) and whether it is still fresh (status): these labels are detailed further down. We invent nothing: a data point we cannot find stays absent rather than approximate.

Four freshness markers

Every sensitive data point can carry four markers, so you know exactly what you are reading:

• Verification date — when the information was last checked.
• Source — where it comes from, so you can trace it back to the origin.
• Volatility — how fast it can change (an opening time moves faster than an altitude).
• Next review — when we plan to re-check it.

On the home page, the “Today” page and the state of the Verdon, each live data point shows the time of its last measurement, in Paris time, and after three hours it is flagged as old instead of being presented as current; road restrictions rely on a schedule of recorded roadworks, with no measurement time.

When sources disagree

It happens — a historical date, an altitude, an opening time. When it does, we show both versions, we explain our choice when we make one, and we date the decision. What remains uncertain is presented as such, never dressed up as certainty.

Spotted an error?

Things change on the ground, and no one is infallible. If a piece of information looks wrong or out of date, write to us at [email protected]: we check and correct quickly, then update the verification date.

The bounded role of artificial intelligence

We use AI to structure and write faster, never to invent. No sensitive figure (distance, price, phone number, date) is published on the word of a model alone: it is verified and cross-checked. AI is a writing tool; verification stays human.

What is actually in place

What follows describes mechanisms that are actually in place on the site, not intentions.

Sources: official ones first

• We cite official sources first: town halls, tourist offices, State services (.gouv.fr sites), the Parc naturel régional du Verdon and the French Hiking Federation. A register of the official sources of each municipality (town hall, tourist office) is kept in our data.
• Commercial booking or review platforms are never presented as official references. OpenStreetMap and Wikipedia may be shown as public sources, but they do not count as official verification.
• Each business page states three separate things: where the information comes from (provenance), what LiveVerdon did with it (method) and whether it is still fresh (status).
• Provenance — five cases. Official source cited: town hall, tourist office, park or State service, including an official list that names the business; the French state business register counts only for legal existence, the registered name, the SIREN or SIRET number, the registered address and the declared activity. Open data: OpenStreetMap or another open database, only when it is the page’s sole source; never presented as an official source. Declared by the business: information entered by an authenticated owner, or given by the business in a direct, dated written reply to LiveVerdon, under the business’s own responsibility; it is not a check by LiveVerdon. Business’s own website: the page relies on the business’s own website, with no official source and no authenticated owner. Third-party source: everything else (booking or review platform, directory, collaborative database).
• Method — four cases. Checked against sources: LiveVerdon read the source and the information is there, on the date shown; this label requires an official source to be cited and is given neither to a page that relies only on OpenStreetMap, nor because the business has its own website; the business register alone does not earn it either: the page then says “Existence checked in the business register”, and its opening hours, telephone number and services have not been checked. Cross-checked: two independent sources say the same thing; tourist-office portals fed by the same database count as a single source, and no business page receives this label automatically. Calculated: a value obtained by calculation from a source (counts, distances). Automatic feed: data collected by a machine, without human review (the live data on the home page).
• Status — five cases. Up to date: the date shown is less than 365 days old. To be rechecked: the date is older. To be confirmed: no check is dated, or a doubt has been flagged. Source unavailable: the source no longer responds. Last known information: the last value collected is given with its date, never as current data. A page without a date is never presented as up to date.
• Every week, an automatic check goes through the register of official sources and flags links that no longer respond or whose content has changed.
• The territory’s agenda is collected every week, but no automatically collected event is published without human approval: the site shows an approved snapshot.

Freshness and dates

• The live data on the home page — the alert at the top and the “Right now in the Verdon” block (weather, fire risk, roads, swimming) — has a freshness threshold of 3 h. Beyond that, the value is no longer shown: the page says the data is unavailable and gives the time of the last measurement, never old data presented as current.
• The last-modified date declared to search engines is calculated from the site’s change history, never entered by hand. It does not replace the verification date shown on pages, which attests that a check was made.

Corrections

• When a news item is corrected, the correction is published at the end of the article, in a “Corrections” section, with its date. No news correction has been published to date.

Editorial independence and separation of commercial content

• The verification status of a business page depends only on its check information (verification date, cited sources), never on the business’s paid plan.
• A paid plan buys visibility in the directory (the businesses concerned appear at the top of the lists), not a “verified” status.
• News items are not tied to any paid plan: their list has no commercial field and does not use the business directory data.

A daily automatic check: the Guardian

• Every day, an automatic check — the Guardian — looks at three things: that the site works, that our data are consistent with one another, and how up to date our facts are, cross-checked against public databases (Wikidata, SIRENE, Mérimée).
• The Guardian corrects nothing itself: it observes, cites its sources and raises an alert; a person checks before any correction.
• Its real history, check by check, is public: Guardian history.

The order of listings in the directory, and what a LiveVerdon plan changes in it, are described on the page How listings are ranked.