Editorial Policy

This page explains how UPSC Help Center decides what to publish, how we check it, how we fix it when it is wrong, and where automation fits in. Everything here is published by the UPSC Help Center Editorial Team and operated by Gyaniversity Publications, an Indian educational publisher.

1. Our sourcing standard

For anything a candidate can be harmed by getting wrong — dates, fees, eligibility, attempts, certificates, results, cut-offs — the official portals are the only authority:

— upsc.gov.in — the Commission's own site: the examination notice, the annual calendar, press notes, result and cut-off releases, and annual reports.

— upsconline.gov.in — the Commission's online application portal: One Time Registration, the application form, the correction window, and the answer-key representation route.

— dopt.gov.in — the Department of Personnel and Training, for service and cadre rules.

— egazette.gov.in — The Gazette of India, where the examination rules are formally published.

We link the specific document, not a homepage, and where a rule sits in a numbered clause we quote it. News reports, coaching sites and aggregators are not authorities: we read them, but never as the last word.

2. How we verify, and what we do when sources disagree

Every factual claim is placed in one of four states before it reaches a page:

— Official — traced to a primary UPSC, DoPT or Gazette document, clause cited and linked. Published normally.

— Reported — two or more independent secondary sources agree, but we have not confirmed it against a primary document. Published only with a visible label.

— Disputed — sources conflict. We publish both versions, say which we would act on, and why.

— Unverified — a single secondary source, or one whose own numbers contradict each other. Not published at all.

We do not publish predictions as facts: no expected cut-off, no expected date, no per-optional success rate. Where a figure is genuinely disputed, we show the range and name the sources.

3. Review cadence and dates

Every factual page carries a visible last reviewed date, published in machine-readable form too, and pages not re-verified within a cycle are flagged as ageing.

— The whole factual surface is re-checked against each new examination notice, because that is when rules, dates and fees change.

— Stage pages are re-checked around the stage they cover: application pages before the window, exam-day pages before the exam, result pages when the Commission publishes.

We never change a page's date without changing the page. Refreshing a date to look current is dishonest: if the date moved, something on the page moved.

4. Corrections

If you find something wrong, email hello@upschelpcenter.com. Tell us the page and what looks wrong; a link helps but is not required.

— We acknowledge within 3 working days.

— We check it against the primary document.

— If we were wrong, we fix the page or remove the claim. Nothing is quietly deleted.

— Where the correction changes what a reader should do, we log it on the page with the date, and add it to our public corrections log.

We also correct widely repeated errors that are not ours — a cut-off from one cycle published everywhere as another cycle's, for example. Those corrections are about the claim, never about the site that made it.

5. Use of AI, stated plainly

Some drafts on this site are prepared with AI assistance. We say so plainly, because disclosure is honest and because Google asks publishers to disclose it. Here is how it works:

— AI is a drafting aid, helping us track a fast-moving annual process without a newsroom.

— Every published page is reviewed by a human editor against primary sources before it goes live. Dates, fees, eligibility, attempts, certificate windows and results are checked against the official document, not the draft.

— AI is never the final authority on any fact. If a draft and the notification disagree, the notification wins and the draft is rewritten. Anything we cannot trace to a linkable source is deleted, not published.

— News posts follow the same standard, and run only when something actually changed. A week with no real change gets no post.

6. Independence and advertising

This site carries advertising, because that is how a free site stays free. Two rules follow.

— Ads are labelled and kept separate from editorial content. They never appear disguised as navigation, links, or our own recommendations.

— Ad revenue plays no part in editorial decisions. No advertiser sees a page before it publishes, or can get a fact changed, softened or removed.

We also have a commercial relationship to disclose. Gyaniversity Publications, which operates this site, publishes UPSC study guides and runs AI study tutors. Where they are genuinely relevant to a page we may recommend them, clearly marked as ours. We do not sell coaching, we do not rank institutes, and we take no affiliate payment from any coaching company. Process pages and anything written for candidates who did not clear carry no product recommendations. Everything here stays free whether or not you buy anything.

7. What we will never publish

— Leaked, stolen or pre-release question papers, or claims that such a thing exists.

— Guaranteed-result, guaranteed-selection or guaranteed-rank claims, ours or anyone else's.

— Paid agent, "management quota" or fixer services, or contacts for anyone offering them.

— Scraped answer keys, solution dumps, or copyrighted material lifted from other publishers.

— Marks, personal data or documents of any candidate.

— An "official marking scheme" for Mains. The Commission does not publish one; any site claiming to have it is not telling the truth.

— Unverified statistics, invented success rates, or medical and mental-health claims we cannot source. Where distress is relevant we point to professional help; we never diagnose or advise clinically.

8. Not affiliated with UPSC

UPSC Help Center is an independent student help resource operated by Gyaniversity Publications. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to UPSC (Union Public Service Commission), the Department of Personnel and Training, or any Government of India body. "UPSC" and "Civil Services Examination" are used descriptively to identify the examination we write about. Always confirm official information at upsc.gov.in.

Questions about this policy: hello@upschelpcenter.com.