Methodology¶
The methodology layer documents the toolkit's editorial system at the depth a working partner needs to extend, adapt, or contest it. Five pages sit alongside this index.
How we chose tools narrates the selection process that produced the sixty-five tools from a discovery space of more than two hundred and fifty candidates. The page walks through the seven criterion groups, seven content policies, three architectural anchors, eight foundational decisions, and the four exclusion classes that together account for the gap between the inventory and the shortlist.
Selection criteria condenses the seven criterion groups as an evaluative rubric the reader can apply to tools encountered outside the toolkit. The rubric is operational: a working reader who has a new tool in attention runs through the seven groups in sequence, applies the override-flag format where caveat-pass or mitigation-pass routes fire, and produces a structured assessment that can be defended against another reader's read on the same tool. A worked example using a hypothetical 2026 SEA-language deepfake detector walks the application sequence.
Editorial patterns codifies the five recurring patterns the cards embed: access-barrier framing (Sensity → Graphika → Meta Content Library → DISARM Foundation Navigator gradient); vendor accuracy wrapping (Sensity 3-leg as anchor); cite-as-external-source redirect (Graphika as anchor); operator-identity independence caveat (Sebenarnya AIFA as anchor); honest-gap naming (Decision 7 in operation). Each pattern is anchored to a reference card and propagates across the toolkit wherever the underlying problem recurs.
Architectural anchors sets out the three anchors that govern the toolkit's framing of the detector class and the signal architecture. Anchor 1: the toolkit is not a directory of detectors. Anchor 2: at least two non-detector signals are required for any strong public claim. Anchor 3: detector plus detector is one signal class. The page describes the anchors as embedded operational logic the cards and trees encode.
Change log records the structural decisions that shaped the toolkit's current form: outline shape, the three anchors, the eight foundational decisions, the five content policies, the three reference cards, the five editorial patterns, the source-protection aggregation, and the Decision 7 honest-gap policy application. Each entry names the decision, the reason, and where the decision lands operationally.
Read order. A new reader to the methodology layer should read how we chose tools first as the process narrative, then selection criteria and editorial patterns as the operational reference layer, then architectural anchors for the framing logic that runs beneath both. The change log is a lookup page, not a sequential read. A reader extending the toolkit to a different region or use case should start with selection criteria and adapt the criterion-group framework to local context.