Editorial Policy
Last updated: 12 November 2026
Top Personalities exists to give readers biographies they can trust: readable, well-sourced and honest about what is known, what is interpreted and what is disputed. This policy explains how we choose subjects, how we write about them and what we will not do.
Independence
Top Personalities is independent. We do not accept payment for profiles, list placements, rankings or favourable coverage, and we do not publish sponsored biographies. No person, organisation, estate or advertiser can pay to be included, ranked higher or written about more kindly. If that ever changes, it will be disclosed on this page first.
How subjects are chosen
We cover people of genuine, documented public significance — in science, technology, business, politics, history, literature, the arts and sport — from every country and era. Selection is an editorial judgement based on documented achievement and lasting public interest, not on fame alone, and not on any single ranking or popularity score. Our launch wave covers 60 to 80 profiles, expanding in batches toward worldwide coverage.
We publish neutral lists, never a single "most famous person" verdict for a country. Our lists state their selection method on the page, and we do not copy other sites' list orders.
Accuracy comes before speed
Every biography is researched from reliable sources and reviewed before publication. A profile needs at least three independent sources and a second check with AI assistance before it can be published, and every factual claim carries a status — verified, interpretation, disputed or unconfirmed. Unconfirmed claims are never published as fact. Where sources disagree, the profile shows both perspectives with their sources, rather than silently choosing one side.
Missing information is shown as "Not reliably documented" — never guessed, estimated or filled in from an unreliable source. The full process is described in our Fact-Checking Methodology and our Sources Policy.
Living people
Living people receive stricter review. We publish no speculative private information, no unverified contentious claims, no net-worth figures and no fabricated quotes about a living person. Personal details are included only when they are widely published by reliable sources and relevant to the person's public life. Controversies, where they are documented by high-quality sources, are reported neutrally, with the person's own response included when it is on the record. Because a living person's life keeps changing, their profile is re-checked and updated as new reliable information appears — a stale living-person profile is worse than no profile.
Contested and sensitive figures
Some historical figures are dominated by atrocity and contested-claims content. We have deferred profiles of such figures until a dedicated contested-figure editorial policy is approved, rather than publishing rushed or incomplete accounts. No profile is published until it can be handled fairly, accurately and with both sides of disputed claims properly sourced.
Quotations
A quotation appears on this site only when it can be traced to a reliable, attributable source. Famous lines with no traceable primary source are left out, however widely they are repeated. We never invent or paraphrase a quotation into existence.
Images
Portraits come only from Wikimedia Commons (public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA) or other freely licensed sources, with a licence check for every file and full attribution on the page. We never use scraped photos, social-media downloads or watermarked news-agency images. Where no freely licensed portrait exists, the profile uses a monogram card. See our Image Licensing Policy.
Corrections
When we get something wrong, we fix it. Corrections can be reported by email to hola@toppersonalities.com, and every report is logged. Verified errors are corrected on the page, and significant corrections are noted. See our Corrections Policy.
Who is responsible
Top Personalities is written and edited by Abdul Hannan, who authors the biographies. Every profile is second-checked with AI assistance before publication. Questions about this policy, or about anything published here, can be sent to hola@toppersonalities.com — see our Contact page. More about the site is on the About page.