Editorial standards
The rules every page on this site is written to, published so you can hold them against what you read.
Short answer
Every requirement on Playbright is attributed to a named source with its edition or year. Law, guidance and voluntary standards are labeled as what they are and never blurred. Costs appear as ranges with a stated basis and year. No page recommends a brand, invents a statistic, or presents a summary as a substitute for the standard itself.
On this page
Sourcing
Every factual claim on this site should be traceable to a document you can open. In practice that means:
- Requirements are attributed. A dimension, threshold or clearance names the document it comes from and, where it matters, the edition or year. "The CPSC handbook recommends" and "ASTM F1487 requires" are not interchangeable phrases and are not used interchangeably.
- Primary sources first. Federal guidance, published standards, and the agencies that write them, ahead of secondary coverage of them.
- Links to the source itself wherever it is publicly available. Several key standards are paid documents, and pages say so rather than pretending otherwise.
Distinguishing law, guidance and standard
This is the distinction most playground writing gets wrong, so it gets its own rule.
| Type | Example | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Law | 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design | Enforceable against covered entities |
| Federal guidance | CPSC Public Playground Safety Handbook | Not law in itself, widely adopted by reference |
| Voluntary consensus standard | ASTM F1487, F1292, F1951 | Binding when adopted by a state, a licensing body or a contract |
| State and local rules | Childcare licensing, local code | Controlling where they apply, and they vary |
Numbers
- Costs are ranges, with the year, the currency, the region and whether the figure is material-only or installed.
- Statistics are attributed and their limitations are stated. Injury data in particular is a sample without an exposure denominator, and pages that use it say what that does and does not allow you to conclude.
- No statistic, study, survey or research finding is invented or approximated from memory. If a figure cannot be verified in a source, the page describes the pattern qualitatively instead.
What is never published here
- Brand recommendations or rankings of specific products or suppliers.
- Invented expert quotes, testimonials or reader stories.
- Medical, legal or engineering advice. Where a reader needs a doctor, an attorney, an insurer or an engineer, the page says so.
- A claim that a summary here replaces the standard, the inspector or the code.
Accuracy and corrections
Pages are reviewed when a standard is revised, when a cost basis moves enough to matter, or when a reader tells us something is wrong. Corrections to a substantive error are made on the page and noted, rather than quietly edited away. How to send a correction sets out what to include, and how we research describes where the material comes from in the first place.
Frequently asked questions
Why are there no brand recommendations?
Because playground equipment is bought through procurement processes, specifications and local availability, not through recommendations, and because a ranking would date faster than the pages. Where a decision depends on a specific product, the useful advice is what to ask the supplier and which test report to read.
Why do cost figures appear as wide ranges?
Because installed playground prices genuinely vary that much. Region, labor rates, site access, project size, season, freight and prevailing wage requirements all move the number. A narrow figure would look more useful and be less true. Use the ranges to compare options, then get local quotes.
How do you handle disagreement in the evidence?
By saying so. Several questions in playground safety are genuinely contested or under-researched, and pages state what is well supported, what is contested and what is unknown rather than picking the confident-sounding answer. What the evidence says does this explicitly.