Trust & transparency

Methodology & sources

Our data model starts with a simple promise: readers should be able to see where a material fact came from and when it was checked.

Source precedence

Official records first. Disagreement stays visible.

Secondary sources may help discovery, but they do not silently replace primary data. Conflicting official observations are preserved and flagged for human review. Social account links are labeled separately because their directory is community-maintained.

01Congress.gov API

Members, service, legislation, and related congressional records

02Biographical Directory

Bioguide identifiers, biographies, and service history

03House & Senate

Current rosters, leadership, committees, and official member pages

04House Clerk election statistics

Official compilations of state-certified federal election results

05Congress Legislators social directory

Official legislative-office social accounts; campaign and personal accounts excluded

06GovInfo & House Clerk roll calls

Bill status, sponsors, cosponsors, and official individual House votes

07Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Official releases used to verify congressional visits to Taiwan

Imported fact

Reported by a source

Stored with source organization, URL, retrieval date, and last-verified date. Automated sync never overwrites editorial work.

Computed

Derived by a published rule

Examples include service length, region, margin bands, and vacancy counts. The underlying official fields remain available.

Editorial

Written and reviewed by people

Analysis requires citations and is separated from imported fields. Internal notes never appear in public pages or exports.

Update cadence

Freshness is a field, not a feeling.

Current-member records are checked on a scheduled cadence and after known transitions. Each section carries its own freshness threshold. Failed syncs produce a stale-data notice rather than hiding the last known official observation.

Responsible classification

Unknown is a valid answer.

Hello Taiwan does not infer gender, ethnicity, religion, ideology, or Taiwan stance from a name, portrait, party, or model judgment. A YES/NO label is used only for an official individual roll call. Voice votes and unanimous consent are labeled as having no individual record; cosponsorship is shown separately and its absence is not classified as opposition.