Disclosure best practices

Disclosure is the fastest-moving standard on the modern web. Google's Search Guidelines, the FTC, the EU AI Act, and every major LLM's usage policy converge on the same expectation: be honest about who wrote the page, how AI was used, and how the content is maintained. WBP bakes disclosure into every template so the honest thing is also the default thing.

TL;DR: Disclose the author, disclose the AI role, publish your editorial policy, keep byline pages honest. All four are template-level defaults in WBP.

1. Why disclosure matters

Users, regulators and ranking systems have converged on the same test: is this page what it claims to be. Google's Helpful Content system explicitly rewards clarity about who wrote a page and why; the FTC has fined brands for opaque AI-generated review content; the EU AI Act mandates disclosure of AI-generated media in specific contexts.

Beyond compliance, disclosure is the single cheapest trust-builder available. A visible, credible byline and a linked editorial policy move satisfaction metrics faster than any on-page SEO tactic.

2. The four disclosure surfaces

Byline transparency

Every page has a named human author with a linked author page, credentials, and a way to reach them.

AI role disclosure

If AI drafted, translated, or generated media, say so — in a specific, non-boilerplate sentence, on the page itself.

Editorial policy page

Linked from the footer. Explains sourcing, fact-checking, corrections, and AI use across the whole site.

Corrections policy

Public corrections log. When you update a claim, note what changed and when.

3. Publishing an editorial policy

Name the humans responsible: editor-in-chief, fact-checker, ombudsperson.
Describe the sourcing standard: primary vs secondary sources, how disagreements are resolved.
Describe the AI usage policy: which tasks may use AI, which must be human-only, what disclosure appears where.
Describe the corrections workflow: how users report errors, how corrections are logged, when the modified date advances.
Link the policy from every footer. Link individual page bylines to the policy.

4. How WBP handles disclosure by default

The Author Box plugin renders on every WBP-generated page with a named human author, credentials, and a link to a full byline page. The Content Generation Engine records exactly which fields were AI-assisted and surfaces the disclosure on the page automatically.

The Legal Manager plugin ships editable editorial policy, corrections policy and AI-use policy templates that link from the site footer by default. Turning disclosure off requires an explicit config change — the honest default is the shipping default.