The Window Standard. Australian window coverings: rules, recalls, ratings. The Window Standard. Australian window coverings: rules, recalls, ratings.

The method

How this site works

The Window Standard is researched, written and maintained with AI systems, operating under standing editorial rules set and enforced by the small Australian team that runs it. We publish that fact with pride rather than as a confession, because the method is the product: every factual claim on this site links the primary source it came from, so you can check us in one click.

How stories are found

We maintain a standing watch-list of primary sources for this beat: the federal legislation register, the ACCC's product-safety pages and recalls feed, each state's consumer-affairs and tenancy authorities, Standards Australia's catalogue, the industry rating schemes, and the ABS series nearest to window-covering demand. Our systems read those sources on a rotation, in whatever format they publish: web pages, gazetted PDFs, spreadsheets. A story exists when a document changes, a rule commences, a recall lands or a dataset moves, not when we need content. Quiet weeks produce no stories, deliberately: this beat's news arrives in bursts around commencement dates and recalls, and we do not manufacture urgency between them.

How stories are sourced

  • Every factual claim links its primary source: the regulation as made, the recall notice, the standard, the Budget page, the ABS release. If we cannot trace a claim to a primary source, it does not run.
  • The first screen carries the answer and the citation. A compliance story names the instrument and, where we have verified it, the clause.
  • The rules differ by state, so every compliance story declares its scope before it says anything else: the state banner at the top of the page.
  • Compliance pages carry the date we last checked them against the regulation. Rules move; an undated compliance page is a trap.
  • No fabricated quotes, ever. If a story has no quotable source, it runs without quotes. Where mandated warning text or a regulator's risk statement is quoted, it is quoted verbatim from the instrument or notice.
  • Data stories carry a methodology note saying exactly which series was used, what it does and does not measure, and when we fetched it. Industry-body and commercial figures (WSAA, IBISWorld, HIA and the like) are attributed by name as estimates or advocacy, never laundered into neutral fact.
  • We report on standards; we do not issue them. Nothing here is Standards Australia, the ACCC or a state regulator speaking, and nothing here is legal advice. The linked instrument is always the authority.

What we do not cover

We write about products, regulations, standards, recalls and data. We do not cover court cases, name private individuals, or run controversy stories about people. Where a rule's origin involves a death, as the cord-safety rules' does, we state the fact once, plainly, from official sources only, and never use it as a hook. Anything that would turn on a person rather than a document is outside this masthead's scope by design.

How corrections work

Every story carries a correction link that lands with the editors alongside the page it concerns. When a correction arrives, we check the claim against the cited primary source, not against opinion, ours included. If the page is wrong, we fix it and log the correction on the page. If the source has changed since our check date, we update the page and its checked date. If the page was right, we log that outcome too when the query raised something readers might share. A correction request never disappears silently. Compliance explainers also carry a standing invitation: if a regulator has changed a rule since our check date, tell us, because that is the exact failure mode a dated compliance page exists to prevent.

Who pays for this

The Window Standard is free to read and carries no paywall, no registration and no tracking of readers. It is funded by clearly labelled advertising. Advertising never buys editorial: sponsored or partner content, when it exists, is written and fact-checked by us to the same citation bar and labelled SPONSORED, and a product pitch dressed as a story gets a polite no. Advertisers get proximity to an honest page, not influence over it.

So there is no ambiguity, this is exactly what that label looks like. A story with a commercial arrangement behind it wears this at the very top, before you read a word of the piece:

Sponsored content · example

This article is sponsored by [the business, named in full]. Like everything on The Window Standard it was written and fact-checked by us to the same standard, every factual claim in it links to a primary source, and the arrangement bought a labelled placement and nothing else: not favourable coverage, not a soft edit, not silence on anything we would otherwise report. How advertising works here.

A real one names the sponsor in full. If you ever see a story here that reads like an advertisement and does not carry that banner, it is a mistake and we want to know: tell us.

Check us

The fastest way to hold this site to its promises is to click any citation and read the instrument yourself. If what we wrote and what the document says ever differ, use the correction form. That loop, reader to document to correction log, is the entire trust model, and it does not require you to trust us at all.