Dates Before Customs
Every guide starts by asking which calendar part controls the answer. A festival may use a lunar date. A solar term uses the solar-term table. A zodiac year may change at Lunar New Year rather than January 1. A public event may move to a weekend or local schedule. Mixing those parts is the fastest way to mislead people.
The policy is usable: first name the date basis, then explain the custom, then tell the person what still needs local verification. This applies to Chinese New Year, Qingming, Dragon Boat, Mid-Autumn, Dongzhi, zodiac calculators, and school projects. A clear date sentence prevents the rest of the explanation from becoming a pile of loosely related customs.
Dates before customs for Editorial rules starts with the chosen entry point. Set the first editorial rule: identify the calendar part before explaining action. The section should work like a signpost: pick the festival, date tool, food guide, activity page, regional case, or source note that answers the immediate question. Keep the source guide close when the person has moved from browsing into a specific lookup.
Food Examples Stay Named and Local
Food pages treat dishes as cultural examples, not mandatory menus. Dumplings, tangyuan, zongzi, mooncakes, qingtuan, Laba porridge, spring pancakes, sesame foods, and seasonal fruit can all explain a calendar moment. They still need region, household, access, substitution, and setting. A classroom tasting, restaurant menu, and family meal do not use the same authority.
The writing rule is to say what the food helps explain. Qingtuan can make Qingming and Jiangnan spring practice visible. Zongzi can make Dragon Boat memory and wrapping variation visible. Tangyuan can appear in Lantern Festival and Dongzhi with different meanings. If a dish cannot be tied to a date, region, festival part, or household example, it does not belong as the center of a page.
Food examples stay named and local for Editorial rules starts with the chosen entry point. Prevent festival and solar-term foods from becoming universal menu rules. The section should work like a signpost: pick the festival, date tool, food guide, activity page, regional case, or source note that answers the immediate question. Keep the source guide close when the person has moved from browsing into a specific lookup.
Regional Customs Are Not National Rules
Regional practice must be named when it matters. Cantonese New Year meals, Jiangnan qingtuan, Hong Kong Mid-Autumn lantern nights, Taiwan Lantern Festival displays, Chinatown parades, and Sichuan Laba memory can all be strong examples. They fail only when the writing makes one place sound like all Chinese households.
The policy also protects overseas people. A diaspora family may use a weekend, available ingredients, a local school calendar, or a community parade schedule. That adaptation is real, but it has to be described as local or household practice. The writing can give a respectful sentence for a host, teacher, or person without pretending every region shares the same detail. Name the place or community before widening the claim.
Regional customs are not national rules for Editorial rules starts with the chosen entry point. Name the local setting whenever practice changes by place or community. The section should work like a signpost: pick the festival, date tool, food guide, activity page, regional case, or source note that answers the immediate question. Keep the source guide close when the person has moved from browsing into a specific lookup.
Zodiac and Gan-Zhi Stay Cultural
Zodiac and Gan-Zhi pages explain language, year labels, animal motifs, greetings, decorations, art, and the 60-year naming system. They can help someone understand why a horse, dragon, rabbit, or rooster appears on a card or why a year has a stem-branch name. They can also explain why a January birthday may belong to the previous lunar year.
They do not tell people who they are, who they match with, or what will happen next. Personality verdicts, compatibility promises, lucky-number lists, and deterministic forecasts are outside the policy. When symbolism appears, it is framed as folklore, art, greeting language, or calendar vocabulary. The safest path is motif first, date boundary second, personal prediction never.
Zodiac and Gan-Zhi stay cultural for Editorial rules starts with the chosen entry point. Keep animal and cycle pages away from unsupported prediction claims. The section should work like a signpost: pick the festival, date tool, food guide, activity page, regional case, or source note that answers the immediate question. Keep the source guide close when the person has moved from browsing into a specific lookup.
Zodiac Gan-Zhi stay for core Editorial Policy begins with the chosen entry point. Zodiac gan-zhi stay uses No predictions or live event scheduling; Food notes are examples with region, family, substitution, and seasonal context visible; they are not universal menu rules.; Activity guidance is written for modest family, classroom, and event use, with adaptation and local verification kept visible.; Regional custom is never treated as a national rule; the editing standard is to name place, community, event setting, or household context when it matters.. Open the source guide only when the next question is narrower than this section and needs its own date, food, activity, symbol, region, or source explanation.
Tool Results Need Friction
Tools on these guides are designed to slow down overconfident answers. A lunar converter needs an input date, result field, browser or timezone caveat, and a next guide. A zodiac calculator needs the animal, Gan-Zhi label, and Lunar New Year cutoff note together. A solar-term finder needs nearest term, next term, exact-year or approximate-window signal, and a path into a guide.
That friction is intentional. A tool can help choose the next page, but it cannot decide a family ceremony, public event, travel plan, school policy, or health-related action. A cautious result is better than a confident wrong result. The tool needs to leave the person with a smaller next step: verify the date, open the relevant guide, or check a local source before acting.
Tool results need friction for Editorial rules starts with the chosen entry point. Explain why calculators and converters include boundary notes and next steps. The section should work like a signpost: pick the festival, date tool, food guide, activity page, regional case, or source note that answers the immediate question. Keep the source guide close when the person has moved from browsing into a specific lookup.
Image Policy: Images Must Match The Claim
An image is accepted because it helps the person understand the claim. A zodiac animal page needs the matching animal or a clear cultural motif. A food page needs the dish or a close food setting. A solar-term page needs the season cue. A tool page needs calendar or cycle language. A festival page needs the festival, food, object, or public setting it discusses.
License, credit, and reachability are required, but they are not enough. A beautiful lantern photo does not explain qingtuan. A generic snowy road does not explain Dongzhi food. The alt text and fit reason have to say what the image contributes to the person's question. When that cannot be done honestly, the image is weak even if the file loads.
Image policy: images must match the claim for Editorial rules starts with the chosen entry point. State the visual standard without turning images into decoration. The section should work like a signpost: pick the festival, date tool, food guide, activity page, regional case, or source note that answers the immediate question. Keep the source guide close when the person has moved from browsing into a specific lookup.
How The Site Handles Uncertainty
Uncertainty is not hidden. If a date depends on Lunar New Year, the boundary is named. If a food differs by region, the region is named. If a public event depends on an organizer, the explanation says so. If a practice belongs to some households and not others, the sentence uses that scope. Narrow wording is treated as a strength because it keeps the answer usable.
The site prefers a clear limited sentence over a sweeping claim. That means a page may say that many southern Dongzhi explanations feature tangyuan, while many northern explanations feature dumplings. It may say that White Dew is a seasonal image even when local dew does not appear. It may say that a zodiac animal is a motif, not a verdict about a person.
How the site handles uncertainty for Editorial rules starts with the chosen entry point. Explain the policy for unknown, mixed, or locally variable answers. The section should work like a signpost: pick the festival, date tool, food guide, activity page, regional case, or source note that answers the immediate question. Keep the source guide close when the person has moved from browsing into a specific lookup.
Where The Policy Points Next
Open the sources guide when the question is evidence: which reference supports the date, motif, food, activity, or regional caveat. Open Chinese festivals when a named holiday is the main question. Open 24 solar terms when the starting point is a seasonal word, date window, food cue, or observation activity. Open seasonal foods or family activities when planning has become usable.
Open Chinese zodiac when the question is animal motif, year label, or birthday boundary. Open Gan-Zhi when stems, branches, elements, or the 60-year cycle control the answer. Open the tools when the person begins with a date. The policy exists so those paths stay clear: date, source, food, activity, symbol, and region each keep their own job.
Where the policy sends people for Editorial rules starts with the chosen entry point. Direct people into source notes, hubs, tools, and topic families. The section should work like a signpost: pick the festival, date tool, food guide, activity page, regional case, or source note that answers the immediate question. Keep the source guide close when the person has moved from browsing into a specific lookup.