Content Review & Editing

Psilobase as a YMYL Property

Google's Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines define Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) pages as content that, if inaccurate or misleading, could directly harm the reader's health, safety, financial wellbeing, or civil rights. Psilobase sits squarely in this category. Every article on dosage, drug interactions, contraindications, or emergency response has the potential to influence real decisions with real physical consequences.

This classification has two practical consequences for content creators and reviewers on this portal.

First, the quality bar for factual accuracy is far higher than for typical informational sites. A recipe blog that incorrectly states a cooking time wastes a meal. A psychedelic harm-reduction portal that incorrectly states that psilocybin is safe to combine with lithium carbonate could contribute to a life-threatening seizure. The asymmetry between the cost of over-caution and the cost of under-caution is extreme, and the review process must reflect that.

Second, Google's quality raters will actively assess whether pages in this category demonstrate Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). Low E-E-A-T on YMYL pages is one of the clearest signals that triggers a quality downgrade in Google's algorithms. A portal without clear sourcing, transparent authorship, and consistent disclaimers will be treated as a low-quality result regardless of how much content it contains.

YMYL risk tiers on this portal

Not all pages carry the same YMYL weight. Assign a risk tier during initial content creation and re-check it at every review:

• Tier 1 — Highest risk: Dosage tables, contraindications, drug interactions, emergency response guides, crisis support pages. Any error here could directly cause harm. Mandatory dual review before publication.
• Tier 2 — High risk: Safety protocols, set and setting guides, integration advice, mental health considerations. Errors here could lead to unnecessary distress or poor decisions.
• Tier 3 — Medium risk: Legal status overviews, therapeutic research summaries, species identification guides. Errors here cause misinformation but rarely immediate physical harm.
• Tier 4 — Lower risk: History and culture pages, terminology glossaries, general science overviews. Still requires accuracy, but the margin for consequence is narrower.

When in doubt, assign the higher tier. It is never wrong to apply more scrutiny than a page strictly requires.

Content Accuracy Review Methodology

Accuracy review is not a single step at the end of writing — it is a discipline that runs through the entire content lifecycle. The process below applies to all new content and to all content flagged for refresh.

Step 1: Identify the claim type

Before you can evaluate a claim, you need to know what kind of claim it is. Every sentence that asserts a fact belongs to one of these categories:

• Empirical scientific claim: A statement about biological, pharmacological, or psychological phenomena. Example: "Psilocybin is converted to psilocin in the liver." This type requires a primary literature citation.
• Clinical research claim: A statement about outcomes observed in controlled studies. Example: "In a double-blind trial at Johns Hopkins, participants with treatment-resistant depression showed a significant reduction in scores on the GRID-HAMD-17 after two doses of psilocybin." Requires the specific study citation.
• Legal or regulatory claim: A statement about the legal status of a substance or practice in a jurisdiction. Example: "Psilocybin mushrooms are classified as a Schedule I controlled substance in the United States." Requires a link to the authoritative legal text and a date stamp.
• Harm-reduction guideline: A recommendation based on aggregated evidence and practitioner consensus. Example: "Testing your substance with a reagent kit before use can help identify adulterants." Requires citation to recognised harm-reduction organisations or research.
• Anecdotal or community claim: A statement derived from reported personal experiences rather than controlled evidence. Example: "Many users report that lemon tekking intensifies onset." Must be clearly flagged as anecdotal, not presented as established science.

Step 2: Source quality hierarchy

Once the claim type is established, locate the best available source. Apply this hierarchy strictly — always use the highest-quality source available rather than a secondary summary:

1. Peer-reviewed journal article (PubMed, PsycINFO, Nature, PNAS)
2. Published clinical trial report or pre-print with peer review pending
3. Systematic review or meta-analysis
4. Clinical practice guidelines from medical organisations
5. Government or regulatory agency publications (DEA, NHS, EMA)
6. Established harm-reduction organisation guidelines (DanceSafe, Zendo Project, MAPS)
7. Case study or case series (limited generalisability — state this explicitly)
8. Expert commentary or interview
9. Community-aggregated anecdote (e.g., Erowid, Reddit surveys — lowest quality, must be labelled)

Step 3: Assess recency

Even a high-quality source becomes unreliable if the field has moved on. As a rule, prefer sources published within the last five years for clinical and pharmacological claims. For legal claims, prefer sources dated within the last twelve months and always add a "verified as of" date. For well-established pharmacokinetic facts (e.g., the half-life of psilocin), older foundational studies are acceptable provided no contradictory evidence has emerged.

Step 4: Note conflicting evidence

It is intellectually dishonest, and bad for E-E-A-T, to cherry-pick only confirming sources. When the evidence is contested — and in psychedelic research it frequently is — the page must acknowledge this. Standard phrasing: "While one study found X, a subsequent trial with a larger sample found Y. The evidence base is still developing, and researchers have not yet reached consensus."

Fact-Checking Scientific Claims About Psilocybin

Psychedelic science is a fast-moving field, and it carries a legacy of political interference that distorted the literature for decades. Reviewers must be alert to both outdated claims and to overclaiming based on preliminary results. The domains below are the most frequently misrepresented on harm-reduction portals.

Pharmacokinetics

The basic pharmacokinetics of psilocybin are well established in the primary literature and should be stated consistently across the portal:

• Absorption: Psilocybin is rapidly absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. Onset of subjective effects typically occurs 20–60 minutes after oral ingestion, though this varies considerably based on whether the stomach is empty or full and on individual metabolic variation.
• Dephosphorylation: Psilocybin is a prodrug. It is converted to its active form, psilocin, primarily by alkaline phosphatases in the small intestine and liver. It is psilocin — not psilocybin — that crosses the blood-brain barrier and produces the psychoactive effect.
• Half-life: The plasma half-life of psilocin is approximately 2–3 hours. The subjective experience typically lasts 4–6 hours, with residual effects possible for several hours beyond that. Pages that state a flat "6-hour duration" are simplifying a variable process.
• Metabolism: Psilocin is oxidised to 4-hydroxyindole-3-acetic acid (4-HIAA) and glucuronide conjugates, which are excreted in urine. Psilocybin itself is not thought to be pharmacologically active at 5-HT2A receptors at typical doses.
• Detection window: Psilocin and its metabolites are typically detectable in urine for 24–72 hours after ingestion, though standard workplace drug panels often do not test for them. Do not state that psilocybin "does not show up on drug tests" without extensive qualification.

Dose-response relationships

Dose ranges for dried Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms are widely cited but highly variable due to differences in substrate, growing conditions, drying technique, and potency variation between and within batches. The figures below represent commonly cited ranges from the research and harm-reduction literature. Every page citing these numbers must include a caveat that individual sensitivity varies and that potency cannot be verified without laboratory testing:

• Threshold: 0.1 – 0.25 g dried mushroom. Subtle perceptual changes, mild mood shift. Often used as an initial sensitivity test.
• Low / museum dose: 0.5 – 1.5 g. Mild enhancement of colour and sound, light euphoria, manageable for most people in familiar environments.
• Moderate: 2.0 – 3.5 g. Clear visual and perceptual distortions, significant introspection, time distortion. Set, setting, and intention become much more important at this range.
• High: 3.5 – 5.0 g. Intense and unpredictable. Loss of ego boundaries is common. Not recommended without extensive prior experience and a trusted sitter.
• Very high / "heroic": 5.0 g and above. Associated with complete ego dissolution and profound mystical-type experiences. Clinical settings use structured doses in this range under controlled conditions only.

Do not present these ranges as universal. Pages aimed at beginners must emphasise starting at the very low end and never citing a "standard" dose without qualification.

Therapeutic research — institutional accuracy

Several major institutions are conducting psilocybin research, and their work is frequently misattributed or conflated. Key facts to verify on every citation:

• Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research (Baltimore, MD): Leading psilocybin research on depression, addiction (smoking cessation), and existential distress in cancer patients. Principal investigator: Roland Griffiths (deceased 2023), Matthew Johnson, Albert Garcia-Romeu. Do not attribute Johns Hopkins work to MAPS.
• NYU Langone Center for Psychedelic Medicine (New York): Research focus on alcohol use disorder and cancer-related distress. Do not conflate NYU results with Johns Hopkins results — different participant populations and protocols.
• MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies): Primarily associated with MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, not psilocybin. This is one of the most common factual errors on psychedelic portals. Verify explicitly which compound a MAPS citation refers to before including it on a psilocybin page.
• Imperial College London (Centre for Psychedelic Research): Robin Carhart-Harris and colleagues — responsible for foundational neuroimaging work on the default mode network and psilocybin's mechanism of action. Now relocated; verify current institutional affiliation before citing.

Neuroimaging and the default mode network

The default mode network (DMN) finding is one of the most cited pieces of neuroscience on this portal. The claim — that psilocybin disrupts activity in the DMN and that this disruption correlates with subjective ego dissolution — is supported by multiple fMRI studies. However, several caveats must accompany any mention of this research:

• Sample sizes in neuroimaging studies of psychedelics have historically been small (n=12 to n=30). Findings are preliminary and await large-scale replication.
• The DMN hypothesis is a model, not a settled fact. Alternative models of psilocybin's neural mechanism exist.
• Do not state that "psilocybin deactivates" the DMN. The finding is more nuanced: psilocybin decreases the coherence of DMN oscillations and increases inter-network connectivity.

Contraindications — non-negotiable accuracy requirements

The following contraindications represent the highest-risk content on the portal. Every contraindication listed must be reviewed by someone with pharmacological literacy at least annually, and any update must be logged with the source and date:

• Lithium carbonate: Multiple case reports and one case series document tonic-clonic seizures and cardiac events in people who combined lithium with psilocybin or psilocybin-containing mushrooms. The mechanism is not fully understood but may involve serotonergic and glutamatergic interactions. This is an absolute contraindication. Never soften this to "use with caution."
• MAOIs (monoamine oxidase inhibitors): Both irreversible MAOIs (phenelzine, tranylcypromine) and RIMAs (moclobemide) potentiate serotonergic activity. Combination with psilocybin risks serotonin syndrome. The interaction is more complex than with classic tryptamines but the risk is real. Flag explicitly.
• Personal or family history of psychosis, schizophrenia, or bipolar I disorder: Psilocybin can precipitate or exacerbate psychotic episodes in vulnerable individuals. This is a standard contraindication in all clinical trials and must appear prominently on dosage and preparation pages.
• Tramadol: Serotonergic drug. Combination risk is not as well documented as MAOIs but the mechanism of concern is real.
• Cardiovascular conditions: Psilocybin transiently raises blood pressure and heart rate. People with untreated hypertension or known cardiac arrhythmias should be aware of this.
• Pregnancy and breastfeeding: No safety data exists. The precautionary principle applies: do not present as "probably safe" in the absence of evidence.

Reviewing Legal Information

Legal content is the most temporally volatile content category on this portal. Laws change through legislative action, court rulings, regulatory rescheduling, and local decriminalisation ordinances. A legal statement that was accurate when published can become inaccurate — and potentially misleading in ways that could harm readers — within months.

Why legal content carries specific risk

A reader who acts on incorrect legal information about psilocybin possession or cultivation could face criminal prosecution. This is YMYL at its most direct. The content review process for legal pages must therefore be more conservative and more frequently updated than for any other content category.

Mandatory elements for every legal claim

1. Jurisdiction specificity: Never state a legal status without specifying the exact jurisdiction. "Psilocybin is illegal" is not an acceptable statement. "Psilocybin is classified as a Schedule I controlled substance under the United States Controlled Substances Act" is acceptable if accompanied by the date and a link to the relevant legislation.
2. Date stamp: Every legal claim must carry a "as of [Month Year]" notation adjacent to the claim, not hidden in a footer.
3. Authoritative source link: Link to the actual government or regulatory source, not to another harm-reduction or news site's summary of it.
4. Change acknowledgment: Pages covering jurisdictions with rapidly changing law (Oregon, Colorado in the US; multiple Netherlands municipalities; various UK review processes) must include an explicit note that the legal landscape is in flux and readers must verify current status independently.
5. Disclaimer placement: A legal disclaimer must appear at the top of any page covering legal status, not only at the bottom. Readers who leave halfway through still see the caveat.

Quarterly legal review schedule

Legal pages must be reviewed on a quarterly cycle at minimum, and immediately following any of these trigger events:

• Legislative vote on scheduling or rescheduling in a covered jurisdiction
• Court ruling affecting legal status
• Municipal or state decriminalisation or legalisation ordinance taking effect
• Reader-submitted correction reporting a change
• Major news report of a legal change in a covered jurisdiction

The reviewer should log: the page URL, the specific claim reviewed, the source consulted, the date of review, and whether the claim was confirmed accurate or updated. This log is not optional — it is the paper trail that demonstrates due diligence to both users and search engines.

Medical Claim Review Process

One of the most important distinctions in harm-reduction content writing is the line between an educational statement and a medical claim. Getting this wrong in either direction has costs: over-caution produces vague, unhelpful content; under-caution produces content that amounts to prescribing or diagnosing without a licence.

Defining the line

A medical claim asserts or strongly implies a therapeutic effect for a named condition in a way that could lead a reader to substitute the information for medical advice. Examples:

• "Psilocybin treats depression." — Medical claim. Do not publish without extensive qualification about the research context, and even then, the framing is dangerous.
• "Psilocybin cures addiction." — Medical claim. Never publish without severe qualification; the research does not support such unqualified language.
• "Psilocybin is safe for everyone with anxiety." — Medical claim with a safety implication.

An educational statement reports what research suggests in appropriately hedged language, without implying a direct therapeutic recommendation for the reader. Examples:

• "Research published in JAMA Psychiatry found that two doses of psilocybin, administered in a structured therapeutic setting, were associated with significant reductions in depression scores in a cohort of adults with treatment-resistant depression. The authors note that larger trials are needed before clinical conclusions can be drawn."
• "Early clinical trials suggest that psilocybin-assisted therapy may reduce alcohol consumption in people with alcohol use disorder. This research is preliminary."

The hedging words matter: suggests, may, associated with, in a structured setting, preliminary, in this cohort. Strip them out and you have a medical claim. Leave them in and you have educational content.

Standard disclaimer categories

Apply these disclaimers by content category, not as a blanket footer that readers learn to ignore:

• Dosage content: "Dosage information on this page is for educational purposes only. Individual responses to psilocybin vary significantly. Never adjust a dose based solely on information from this or any other website."
• Therapeutic research summaries: "Clinical research into psilocybin-assisted therapy is ongoing. The findings described here are from specific study populations under controlled conditions and do not constitute a recommendation for self-treatment."
• Contraindication content: "If you take any prescription medication or have any diagnosed health condition, consult your prescribing physician before considering psilocybin use. This list of contraindications is not exhaustive."
• Mental health content: "Psilocybin can intensify existing mental health conditions. This information is not a substitute for professional mental health assessment."

Disclaimers placed only at the bottom of long pages, or only on a general disclaimer page linked from the footer, are insufficient for YMYL content. Place the relevant disclaimer adjacent to the content it qualifies.

Readability Scoring

Complex vocabulary and long sentence structures are a genuine harm-reduction problem on psychedelic portals. A reader who is confused by difficult language during an experience, or who cannot quickly extract the key safety message from a dense paragraph, faces real risk. Readability is not a secondary concern — it is a safety concern.

Target grade levels by content type

• General educational content: Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 8–10. This corresponds to roughly the reading level of a UK broadsheet newspaper or a quality general-interest magazine. Most adults read comfortably at or above this level.
• Dosage and safety guides: Grade Level 7–9. These pages need to be accessible to readers who may be in a heightened emotional state making advance preparations.
• Emergency response and crisis pages: Grade Level 5–7. A reader who needs this content urgently must be able to scan it and extract action steps within seconds. Use numbered lists, imperative sentences, and bold key actions.
• Scientific research summaries: Grade Level 10–12 is acceptable where the technical accuracy of terminology is more important than accessibility. Always provide a plain-language summary at the top.

Tools for readability assessment

• Hemingway Editor (hemingwayapp.com): Highlights long sentences, passive voice, adverbs, and complex words. Provides a grade-level estimate. Free in browser.
• Readable (readable.com): More detailed Flesch-Kincaid scoring, plus sentiment analysis and keyword density.
• Microsoft Word / Google Docs: Both can display Flesch-Kincaid scores via the spelling and grammar review tools.
• WebFX Readability Test Tool (webfx.com/tools/read-able/): Simple URL-based test, useful for checking live pages.

Common readability problems and fixes

• Passive voice in safety statements: "It should be noted that lithium interaction has been documented to cause seizures" → "Combining psilocybin with lithium can cause seizures."
• Nominalisation: "The administration of psilocybin" → "Taking psilocybin."
• Jargon without explanation: Always define technical terms on first use. "The 5-HT2A receptor (a serotonin receptor in the brain)" not just "the 5-HT2A receptor."
• Wall-of-text paragraphs: Break any paragraph of more than four sentences. Use bullet lists for three or more parallel items.

E-E-A-T Signals for Psychedelic Portals

Google's E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) has specific implications for a harm-reduction portal covering a Schedule I substance. Understanding what signals are available — and which ones are not — helps prioritise where to invest review effort.

Experience

For YMYL content, "experience" means demonstrated first-hand involvement with the topic in a relevant professional or practitioner capacity. For a harm-reduction portal, this could include:

• Volunteer or professional work with drug checking services (DanceSafe, The Loop)
• Training or certification in harm-reduction practice
• Documented participation in clinical research as a facilitator, researcher, or participant guide
• Community work with peer support or crisis intervention in psychedelic contexts

Experience does not mean personal drug use, and claiming personal use as a credentialing experience is likely to reduce rather than increase E-E-A-T in a YMYL context.

Expertise

Expertise signals for psychedelic content include:

• Author bylines with credentials (PhD in pharmacology, MD, certified harm-reduction practitioner)
• Citations to peer-reviewed literature — every factual claim in Tier 1 and Tier 2 content must have one
• Quotes or expert review statements from named researchers or practitioners
• Content that demonstrates mastery of the nuances of the field, including acknowledging uncertainty and contradictory evidence

Authoritativeness

Authority is partly earned through external signals:

• Backlinks from established harm-reduction organisations (DanceSafe, Zendo Project, MAPS, Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies)
• Mentions in recognised psychedelic research or journalism publications
• Partnerships or content collaborations with academic institutions or clinical research centres
• Consistent citation from other reputable sources

Note that authority in this space cannot be faked by purchasing links or manufacturing social proof. Quality raters are specifically trained to identify thin authority signals.

Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness is the most directly actionable E-E-A-T signal. Every page can be assessed for these trust markers:

• Transparent methodology: explain how claims were researched and sourced
• Clear and prominent disclaimers that are proportionate to the content risk tier
• No commercial bias: if any page includes affiliate links, recommendations, or sponsored content, this must be disclosed
• Correction policy: a stated process for how errors are handled and how readers can report them
• Accurate and consistent factual content across the portal — one contradictory page undermines trust in all others
• Up-to-date content with visible review dates

Updating Stale Statistics and Research Citations

Content staleness is one of the most common and most damaging content quality failures on long-running information portals. In a fast-moving research field, statistics and citations can become outdated within 12–18 months. On a YMYL portal, stale data is not just an embarrassment — it is a credibility and safety failure.

Common staleness traps in psychedelic content

• Clinical trial enrollment numbers: Trials expand, add cohorts, complete enrollment, and publish updates continuously. A statement that "a Johns Hopkins trial is enrolling 30 participants" may have been accurate in 2020 and be entirely obsolete in 2025.
• Legal status statistics: The number of US cities or states with decriminalisation policies has changed every year since 2019. Any page stating a specific count needs a quarterly check.
• Prevalence and use statistics: Drug use surveys (SAMHSA, ONS, EMCDDA) are updated annually. Never cite a prevalence figure without its survey year.
• Economic estimates: Projected market size figures for the psychedelic therapy industry are generated by market research firms and become outdated rapidly. Use with caution and always cite the source and date.
• Research paper counts: "Over 100 studies have been published on psilocybin" is a number that changes constantly. Prefer relative terms ("a growing body of research") or cite a specific database search with its date.

Review triggers for citations

In addition to the scheduled review calendar (see next section), citations must be reviewed immediately upon:

• Publication of a new meta-analysis or systematic review in a relevant area (new meta-analyses supersede the individual studies they aggregate)
• Publication of a large-scale Phase 2 or Phase 3 clinical trial result
• A legal change in a jurisdiction covered by the portal
• Receipt of a reader correction
• A major retraction or correction in the primary literature

The reviewer should search PubMed and Google Scholar at the start of any refresh cycle using the page's key terms. Set up Google Scholar alerts for core terms ("psilocybin depression," "psilocybin pharmacokinetics," "psychedelic clinical trial") to receive email notifications when new papers are indexed.

Content Freshness Protocols

A review calendar is only useful if it is followed and documented. The schedule below represents minimum review intervals. High-traffic pages or pages with known fast-changing content should be reviewed more frequently.

Review calendar by content type

Using version control to track freshness

Every HTML file in the portal is tracked in git. Use the following practices to make content age visible:

• Run git log --follow -1 -- path/to/file.html to find the last commit date for a specific file.
• Add a visible "Last reviewed: [Month Year]" line within the article, not just a <meta> tag. Readers and quality raters can both see it.
• Maintain a plain-text review log at /optimization/review-log.txt that records page, reviewer, date, changes made, and sources consulted. This log is the audit trail.
• Tag review commits clearly: "Content review: safety/contraindications.html — confirmed accurate against PubMed 2024-12" rather than a generic commit message.

Peer Review Process for Sensitive Content

"Peer review" in an academic context means formal evaluation by independent domain experts before publication. A small harm-reduction portal cannot replicate that process — but it can implement a structured cross-check system that provides meaningful quality assurance without requiring a full academic apparatus.

What peer review means in this context

For Psilobase, peer review means: before any Tier 1 or Tier 2 content is published or significantly updated, it is reviewed by at least one person other than the original author, who applies the accuracy and safety standards described in this document. This is cross-checking, not formal academic peer review, and the distinction should not be overstated in how it is described to readers.

Who reviews what

• Contraindication and drug interaction claims: Reviewer should have pharmacology or clinical background, or should be specifically checking citations against primary pharmacological literature. If no person with this background is available, every claim must be traced directly to a peer-reviewed source and noted as "verified against [specific citation]."
• Legal claims: Reviewer should have legal literacy — the ability to read and correctly interpret statutory text — for the relevant jurisdiction. Legal claims verified only from secondary summaries carry higher error risk.
• Clinical research summaries: Reviewer should be able to read and interpret the methods and results sections of a clinical trial report. Verification of statistical claims (effect sizes, p-values, confidence intervals) requires statistical literacy.
• Harm-reduction practice guidelines: Review by someone with direct harm-reduction practice experience, or verification against published guidelines from recognised harm-reduction organisations.
• Personal experience reports and anecdotes: If published, these must be reviewed by a harm-reduction practitioner to assess whether any claims within the account are dangerous if generalised. Anecdotes must always be clearly labelled as individual accounts, not representative findings.

Documenting the review

The review log entry for any peer-reviewed content update must record:

1. Page reviewed
2. Section or claim reviewed
3. Reviewer name or role
4. Date of review
5. Source(s) consulted
6. Outcome: confirmed accurate, updated (with what change), or flagged for further review

Entries without this level of detail cannot serve as a trustworthy audit trail.

Content Quality Scoring Table

Use the following rubric to score any page before publishing or after a major review. A page that scores below 70 out of 100 should not be published or re-published until deficiencies are addressed.

Maximum possible score: 100 points. Minimum to publish: 70. Tier 1 content requires a score of 85 or above before publication.

Frequently Asked Questions