Content & review policy

1. What this policy covers

This policy applies to everything readers send to the Mei ID Desk: photos, requests to read a mei, and owner reports (ratings and text about a knife). It explains how we decide what to publish, how we try to make sure reports come from real owners, and what happens when rules are broken. It is published by The JKI Editors, Tokyo, who operate the service.

2. How we check that reports are genuine

• Human review of every submission, in the order received.
• Ownership photo. An owner report must include a private photo of the knife next to a handwritten note with “JKI”, the date (within 7 days of sending) and the owner's handle. Reports where the editors have checked this photo are labelled Ownership photo checked. The photo itself is never published and is deleted 30 days after our decision.
• Image checks. We compare photos against earlier submissions and look for copies of shop or social-media images (reverse image search).
• Consistency checks. We may ask follow-up questions, for example about when and where the knife was bought.
• Bot and abuse protection. The form uses Cloudflare Turnstile and limits how many submissions can be sent from one email address or connection per day.
• Pattern checks. We regularly look for warning signs such as many reports about one product in a short time, near-identical wording, or clusters of submissions from the same source.

No check is perfect. If you think a report is not genuine, please tell us (section 8).

3. Incentives

We do not offer anything of value in exchange for a submission — not money, store credit, discounts, free knives, sharpening, merchandise, competition entries or early access. If we ever change this, the incentive will never depend on what the report says or how it rates the knife, every report written in exchange for it will be clearly labelled, and we will update this policy first.

If you received the knife itself free or at a special discount from a maker, shop or distributor, say so on the form. Your report will carry a Gifted knife or Discounted knife label and will be left out of any future averages or summary scores.

4. People in the knife trade

• If you (or close family) work for, own, or are paid by a knife maker, brand, shop, sharpening service or wholesaler, you must say so.
• You may not submit an owner report about knives made, branded or sold by the business you are connected to, or about its direct competitors in a way meant to harm them.
• Reports from people in the trade about other businesses' knives are labelled Industry and left out of any future averages.
• Makers and shops may ask us to read a mei, like anyone else. We do not publish cases for knives that are currently listed for sale, and a case page must not be used as a sales certificate.
• Nobody may impersonate a maker, shop or other person. Handles containing maker or shop names, “official” or “JKI” are not accepted.

5. Our own interests

JKI earns commission when readers buy through some shop links on this site (see the affiliate disclosure). That relationship has no influence on readings, on which reports we publish, or on how they are displayed. No maker or shop can pay to publish, hide, reorder or remove a case or report. Cases about knives the JKI Editors own say so, including how we got the knife (bought with our own money, or gifted). The JKI Editors do not write owner reports under a reader handle.

6. What we publish, decline or remove

We publish a submission when the sender chose to publish it and it meets these terms. We decline or remove content only for the following reasons, applied the same way to positive and negative content:

1. It contains confidential business information or trade secrets.
2. It is defamatory, harassing, abusive, obscene, vulgar or sexually explicit, or discriminates on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability or another personal characteristic.
3. It contains personal information about anyone (including the sender, beyond the chosen handle). Where we can, we blur or remove the detail instead of declining.
4. It is clearly false or misleading, or we have reasonable grounds to believe it is fake: not based on a real experience of the knife, written in exchange for an incentive, or sent with an undisclosed conflict of interest.
5. It is not about the knife or its maker (for example, complaints about delivery times are better sent to the shop).
6. The sender does not have the right to share the photos.
7. It is spam or advertising, or contains links or contact details for selling.
8. It duplicates something already submitted.
9. It is part of an attempt to sell the knife, or to help sell a copy as genuine.
10. For mei readings only: the photos are not clear enough to read the mei. We ask for better photos first.
11. We are required to remove it by law or by a court or authority.

Never a reason: a low (or high) rating, criticism of a maker, shop or our affiliate partners, or disagreement with our reading. Makers and shops cannot have a report removed simply because they dislike it.

Moderators may correct obvious formatting and remove personal data or links. We do not otherwise edit what owners write, and any edit is noted under the report.

7. How reports are shown

• Every published report appears in full on its case page, and is counted and excerpted on the maker's page, in date order.
• Ratings are shown exactly as given (1 to 5, or “not rated”). We do not currently calculate average ratings. If we introduce averages, we will explain the method here first: they will include every published report except those labelled Gifted, Discounted or Industry, which will be counted separately, and we will show how many reports each figure is based on.
• Labels (Ownership photo checked, Industry, Gifted, Discounted) appear next to each report.
• Makers and shops may reply to a report by emailing us from an official company address. Replies are shown under the report, marked as theirs.

8. Reporting a problem

If you think a case or report is fake, incentivised, infringes your rights, or breaks this policy, email [email protected] with the page link and your reason. We aim to acknowledge within 3 working days and decide within 14 days. While we investigate, we may label or temporarily hide the content. We tell the person who reported it what we decided.

9. What happens when rules are broken

• We remove the content, and may remove everything else the same person has sent.
• We may block the email address and handle from future submissions.
• If a business is behind fake or incentivised reports, we may remove all affected reports and add a notice to the maker's page saying that we removed reports for that reason.
• Where serious, we may report the matter to the relevant consumer-protection authority.

10. Records and review of this policy

We keep a log of every moderation decision (date, decision and reason code; no photos) for three years, so that we can check our own consistency. We keep a written assessment of the risks of fake and misleading reviews on this site and the steps we take against them, and we review it, and this policy, at least every six months and whenever we change how reports are collected or displayed.

This policy is written to meet the US Federal Trade Commission's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (16 CFR Part 465), the FTC Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255), and the UK Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (Schedule 20, banned practices on consumer reviews) and the CMA's guidance on fake reviews.

Version 2026-10-17. See also: Content & review policy · Submission terms & photo licence · Submission privacy notice · Not an authentication · Corrections · Affiliate disclosure.