Editorial Standards
These standards govern everything published here. They exist so you can judge each article's reliability yourself — not so you have to take the publisher's word for it.
Choosing subjects
Five Minute Feed prioritizes subjects that credible research can actually explain: human behavior, science and nature, how technology and everyday systems operate, consumer and economic life, common misconceptions, and unusual but well-documented discoveries. Every article answers its central question clearly, explains the underlying mechanism, and cites sources that support the specific claims being made — a working link alone is not enough.
A good question does not automatically deserve publication. If reliable research cannot support a useful explanation, the subject stays unpublished. Politics, elections, government policy, and culture-war controversies are not recurring editorial subjects here; when a topic genuinely requires historical or governmental context to be explained accurately, that context is included neutrally.
Lead with the answer
Every article states its short answer in the first lines. No artificial suspense, no throat-clearing introductions, no saving the point for the last paragraph. If you read only the first thirty seconds, you should leave with the useful part.
Short by design
Most articles run roughly 150–400 words — long enough to explain the mechanism, short enough to read in about five minutes. Flexibility exists when an explanation genuinely requires more; filler and artificial length requirements do not.
Explain the mechanism
Explain the mechanism, not just the phenomenon. Describing what happens leaves a reader with a fact; explaining why it happens leaves them with understanding. Articles prioritize the general rule that accounts for the behavior, while acknowledging the meaningful exceptions to it.
The exception is not the rule — but neither is a guess
The guiding principle: the exception is not the rule, but a generalization must not be presented as a statistical majority without evidence. Articles explain what typically happens while marking the difference between a documented pattern and a reasonable impression. Anecdotes illustrate; they do not establish.
What we mean by “More or less…”
Five Minute Feed explains how things generally work, based on the best reliable information we can find.
We focus on the useful explanation rather than every possible exception. That doesn’t mean exceptions are unimportant, or that every question has a settled answer.
We try to distinguish established facts from interpretations, acknowledge meaningful uncertainty and avoid speaking in absolutes when the evidence doesn’t support them.
Our goal isn’t to tell the whole story in five minutes. It’s to give you a useful understanding of the part that matters most.
There’s always more to explore if you’re curious.
Label the evidence
Articles distinguish the kinds of claim they make: documented facts, research findings, reasonable interpretations, working hypotheses, and open uncertainty. Where a claim rests on interpretation rather than evidence, the article says so in plain words — usually in the nuance section — instead of borrowing confidence it hasn't earned. Anecdotes illustrate; they are never treated as representative evidence, and no claim is made about what most people do or believe without support.
Understanding is not endorsement
Understanding is not endorsement. Acknowledgment is not acceptance. Five Minute Feed exists to reduce cognitive load by explaining the mechanisms behind confusing, inefficient, or dysfunctional systems. Explaining why something happens the way it does is not approval of it. The goal is understanding — not outrage, not blame, and not an obligation to fix every problem described.
Brand-neutral by default
Explanations default to brand-neutral language. Companies and individuals are named only when the name is necessary to the explanation itself. Articles avoid unsupported allegations and do not assume motives the evidence does not show.
Neutral on contested ground
Political and social topics are covered in neutral language. Articles describe what is documented, name the disagreements fairly, and take no side. The goal is to help readers understand the question, not to tell them what to think about it.
Sources or silence
Every published article carries at least one relevant, credible, clickable source, and each source is checked against the claim it is cited for. Contested or complex claims carry several. Sources are never invented: no fabricated studies, statistics, quotations, or expert credentials, ever.
If a topic cannot yet be sourced credibly, the article stays in draft and does not appear on the site. Unpublished drafts may exist in the editorial workspace; they are not publicly visible, searchable, or linked.
Approval before publication
No article becomes publicly published without the publisher's explicit approval. Nothing reaches the site — or its search, its feeds, or its structured data — until a person has decided it is ready.
Dated and reviewable
Every article shows its publication date and the date it was last reviewed. When an article is corrected or meaningfully updated, the review date changes and the correction is made in place — no silent edits.
Independence
Five Minute Feed is free and runs no advertising, sponsorships, or affiliate links. It is operated by one independent person who enjoys learning — not an institution claiming professional authority. What the articles get right, they get right through sourcing, not status.
Errors found after publication are fixed in place, with the review date updated so the change is visible. The site has no comment section or contact form; if a contact channel is added later, it will be described on the Site Information page.