Our method

What BGM documents

• what is happening,
• what is not happening,
• and what is actually known at any given moment.

A simple model: Card / Event / Verification

This model makes institutional silence visible, without speculation.

Statuses based on verifiable criteria

Each card has a procedural status:

These statuses are based on binary criteria, are reproducible by a third party, and depend on neither political opinion nor moral judgement.

Doubt never automatically leads to the most severe status.

An explicit source hierarchy

BGM classifies its sources by nature and robustness:

• Legal and regulatory sources — Published official documents, including ordinances, Court of Auditors reports, Statbel/IBSA statistics, parliamentary minutes
• Administrative and budgetary sources — Institutional communications, including Actiris, STIB, SLRB, Brussels Environment, Iriscare, Brulocalis, BISA
• Operational sources — Reference press, including RTBF, VRT, Le Soir, De Standaard, L'Echo, La Libre, BX1, BRUZZ — used when the primary source is not available online
• Analytical or contextual sources — Analyses and studies, including Brupartners, universities, think tanks — provide context for raw data

No information is published without an identifiable source. Links, consultation dates, and limitations are always indicated.

View the full list of our sources

Strictly framed estimations

When BGM produces an estimation (e.g. budget adjustment, temporal comparison):

• it is explicitly flagged as an estimation,
• it is based on public data,
• its method, assumptions, and limitations are documented,
• a margin of uncertainty is indicated.

An estimation is never presented as an official fact.

Uncertainty management is part of the system

BGM never forces a conclusion. When information becomes uncertain, contradictory, or unverifiable, it is:

• flagged as such,
• maintained with reservation,
• or temporarily suspended.

Not concluding is sometimes the most rigorous position.

Our confidence levels

• Official source — Published institutional source — data directly verifiable in the source document
• BGM estimate — BGM estimate based on partial data, with documented methodology
• Unconfirmed — Information reported by the press only, not yet confirmed by an institutional source

What BGM does not do

• No political prediction
• No value judgement
• No emotional classification ("serious", "catastrophic")
• No political personalisation (no names, no parties)
• No undemonstrated causation

BGM documents processes, not intentions.

Transparency and contestation

All information published by BGM is sourced, dated, and verifiable.

A public contestation channel allows any citizen, journalist, or institution to:

• report an error,
• suggest a source,
• request a methodological clarification.

Every admissible contestation receives a documented response.

Verification protocol

A Verification is a documented editorial act whereby the BGM team assesses, on a given date, the state of an existing card against institutional sources, and makes explicit: either the absence of significant change, or the occurrence of a factual change, or the temporary inability to conclude.

Corrections policy

We distinguish three types of corrections:

• Minor correction — Typo, broken link, date update — corrected silently, tracked in Git history
• Substantial correction — Change to a figure, source, or interpretation — noted in the card's 'changeSummary' field
• Retraction — Removal of false information — explicitly flagged with explanation

Our independence

BGM is a project hosted by Advice That SRL, with no partisan, trade union, or media affiliation. Funding is transparent: no public subsidies, no political donations. The source code is published under the AGPL v3 licence.

Acknowledged limitations

BGM explicitly acknowledges:

• a framing centred on the impact of the absence of government,
• coverage limited to certain priority domains,
• a dependency on the availability of public data,
• a deliberately small editorial team.

These limitations are documented, not concealed.