Community Guidelines

Be accurate. Submit information you reasonably believe is correct, based on evidence. If you're not sure, say so or don't submit.

Cite your sources. Where possible, link to an authoritative source. The stronger the source, the more weight a contribution can carry.

Stay neutral. Stick to the factual ownership relationship. Vinegar is an index, not a soapbox. We're not the right place to argue whether a company is good or bad; we're the right place to show who owns what.

Be specific. “ParentCo owns BrandX as of 2024-03 (per SEC 10-K filing)” beats “ParentCo bought BrandX a while ago.”

Update, don't argue. If something is wrong, submit a correction with sources rather than starting a fight. Disagreements get resolved by evidence, not volume.

Not all sources are equal. When evaluating a submission, our moderators and automated systems generally weigh sources roughly in this order:

1. Tier 1 - Official filings and registries. Government and regulatory filings (SEC EDGAR, state corporate registries, Companies House, equivalent non-U.S. business registries), regulatory disclosures, court filings.
2. Tier 2 - Primary corporate documents. Annual reports, 10-K / 20-F / 8-K filings, official press releases on the company's own domain, formal merger or acquisition announcements, investor relations disclosures.
3. Tier 3 - Established journalism. News reporting from outlets with named authors, named editors, public corrections policies, and editorial standards.
4. Tier 4 - Trade publications and reference databases. Industry publications and structured reference sources with editorial review.
5. Tier 5 - Other secondary sources. Smaller blogs and commentary that cite higher-tier sources are useful for context but generally won't be treated as authoritative on their own.

Not accepted as standalone authoritative sources: anonymous forum or social-media posts, screenshots without provenance, content generated by AI without an underlying primary source, reputation-management blogs, and posts on a contributor's own site without independent corroboration. They can be supporting material; they aren't enough by themselves.

A single Tier 1 source can outweigh many Tier 5 sources. A claim with multiple corroborating mid-tier sources can outweigh a single ambiguous Tier 1 record. Moderators apply judgment.

If you have a personal, professional, or financial interest in how a company is represented on Vinegar, you must disclose it when you contribute about that company. Examples include:

• you work for, consult for, or are paid by the company;
• you're representing the company (see “Representative submissions” below);
• you own a meaningful equity stake;
• you compete directly with the company;
• you have a personal dispute with the company or someone associated with it.

Disclosure doesn't disqualify a contribution, but it lets reviewers weigh it correctly. Hiding a conflict of interest is itself a violation, and discovery may result in removal of the contribution and restrictions on the account.

If you're submitting a correction, contribution, or claim on behalf of a company referenced in Vinegar, additional rules apply:

• Identify yourself and your role, and your authority to act for the company.
• Be prepared to verify your affiliation through a corporate email domain, a posted contact channel on the company's official website, or a similar reasonable channel.
• Stick to facts. Representative submissions should provide sources or correct existing sources. They should not be press releases, marketing language, or reputational framing.
• A first-party request does not automatically override sourced information from independent registries, filings, or reporting. Depending on the evidence, your submission may add context, trigger a “Disputed” label, or result in correction or removal - or it may not change the record at all.
• Don't use shadow accounts. Submitting on a company's behalf while pretending to be an unrelated user is a serious violation and may result in a permanent ban for the account and others linked to it.

Harassment or hate. No targeting individuals, no slurs, no content attacking people based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, disability, or similar characteristics. This includes content directed at company employees, executives, or contributors.

Targeting private individuals. Vinegar is about corporate structures, not people. Don't post personal information about non-public individuals - for example, employees who are not publicly identified executives, family members of executives, or anyone who isn't a public-facing figure of the company. Don't post home addresses, personal phone numbers, personal email addresses, or other contact details for any individual. Don't tie public criticism of a company to a private individual's identity.

Defamation. Don't post claims that accuse a person or company of crimes, fraud, or other serious wrongdoing without strong, verifiable evidence. Submitting a corporate-ownership relationship is fine; alleging that an executive personally committed a crime is not what Vinegar is for.

Spam. No promotional content, no SEO link drops, no repeated submissions of the same low-quality claim, no off-topic material.

Intentionally misleading submissions. Don't submit information you know or suspect is wrong. Don't selectively cite outdated sources to push a narrative. Don't submit claims with an outdated “as of” date in order to revive an obsolete relationship.

Manipulated, fabricated, or misrepresented evidence. Don't:

• fabricate sources, citations, URLs, or quotes;
• alter screenshots, documents, filings, or images to change their meaning;
• misattribute quotes to a person or company;
• present AI-generated text as if it were a primary source;
• link to a real source while describing it inaccurately;
• present material from one company as if it were from another.

Source poisoning. Don't try to game source-quality systems by mass-creating low-quality sources, citing your own posts as independent sources, or coordinating to amplify a weak source until it appears authoritative. We treat this as a serious violation.

Impersonation. Don't pretend to be another person, a company representative, a journalist you aren't, or anyone you aren't. (Legitimate company-representative submissions are governed by the rules above.)

Vote, reputation, or moderation manipulation. No multiple accounts. No coordinated voting rings. No retaliatory reports. No gaming reputation tiers.

Editorial or political campaigning. Don't use submissions to push a boycott, a political position, or a moral judgment about a company. State the ownership; let users decide what to do with it.

Confidential or private information. Don't post leaked documents you don't have the right to share. Don't post private information about individuals.

Illegal content. Anything that violates applicable law, infringes intellectual property, or breaches a confidentiality obligation.

We rely on a mix of automated systems, community reports, and human review. We may:

• accept, label, or reject submissions;
• ask for additional sources before publishing;
• mark items as Disputed when sources conflict;
• apply confidence labels (see the UI copy section);
• restrict an account's ability to contribute, vote, or report;
• temporarily or permanently suspend accounts for serious or repeated violations.

Repeated misleading or manipulated-source violations are treated as some of the most serious offenses on Vinegar, because they damage the integrity of the index for everyone. Patterns we treat as escalating include:

1. First offense: removal of the contribution, warning, optional source-coaching message.
2. Second offense: removal, contribution rate-limit, contributor-tier reset.
3. Third offense: account suspension, with restoration only after appeal review.
4. Persistent or coordinated misleading sourcing: permanent ban, with linked accounts and devices addressed under our anti-abuse rules.

We try to act consistently and proportionately, but we don't promise a particular outcome on any individual submission, and we may decline to explain moderation decisions in detail when doing so would compromise abuse prevention.

If you think a moderation decision was wrong, you can appeal by emailing [email protected] with the contribution and your reasoning. Appeals filed in good faith are reviewed; appeals used to harass or to relitigate the same decision repeatedly may themselves be moderated.

Most contributors are doing this in good faith. Most reports are doing this in good faith. Assume the same of others until you have a real reason not to. Polite, sourced corrections beat sarcastic ones, and they're more likely to stick.