Editorial policy

1. Where listings come from

Every place on this site comes from OpenStreetMap, pulled through the Overpass API on the date shown in each page's byline. The raw pull, the Census file and the script that turns them into the site's data are committed in the site's repository, so anyone can reproduce the list. Each listing links to its OSM record; that link is the source, and the "verified" stamp is the pull date, which is the last time we checked the record existed with those tags. We do not verify places in person unless we say so on the page.

2. What counts as each category

A place is included when its OpenStreetMap tags match one of these rules. The rules are mechanical on purpose.

Category	OSM rule
Coffee	amenity=cafe
Tacos	amenity=restaurant or fast_food with cuisine mexican, taco or tex-mex, or 'taco' in the name
Parks	leisure=park, not access=private
Live music and bars	amenity=bar, pub, biergarten or nightclub, or live_music=yes
Bookstores	shop=books
Libraries	amenity=library
Swimming holes and pools	leisure=swimming_area, or a public leisure=swimming_pool
Farmers markets	amenity=marketplace

"Live music and bars" is named that way because the tags that describe Austin's music rooms are mostly bar tags; we would rather be accurate than tidy. A place tagged with a brand is marked as a chain and listed after the independents. The brand tag is our only proxy for ownership, and it is imperfect in both directions.

3. How districts are drawn

Austin has no single official neighborhood map. We use 12 center points with a radius each, and assign every place to the nearest center whose radius contains it. Places outside every radius are dropped. This is disclosed on every neighborhood page because it has visible effects: residential districts show small counts, and places on an edge can land on a neighbor's page.

District	Center (lat, lon)	Radius
South Congress	30.2489, -97.7501	1.1 km
East Austin	30.264, -97.722	1.6 km
Hyde Park	30.305, -97.728	1.1 km
Zilker	30.262, -97.771	1.3 km
Mueller	30.299, -97.705	1.3 km
Rainey Street	30.2585, -97.7385	0.7 km
The Domain	30.401, -97.725	1.4 km
Clarksville	30.281, -97.762	1 km
Bouldin Creek	30.247, -97.762	1 km
Travis Heights	30.245, -97.742	1 km
North Loop	30.319, -97.722	1 km
Barton Hills	30.256, -97.79	1.2 km

4. Thresholds

A category gets its own page at 5 or more tagged places, and a category-in-district page at 5 or more in that district. Below that we do not publish a page, because a page with two entries is not a resource. Entries under the threshold still appear on their neighborhood page. Duplicate records with the same name and category within about 110 metres are merged.

5. What we do not publish

Ratings or rankings of any kind. Order is independents first, then alphabetical.
Opening hours, prices or menus. Use the official site link where mappers recorded one.
Reviews, quotes or testimonials we did not collect ourselves.
Photographs of real places that we do not own, and no machine-generated images of real places at all.
Any listing, position or mention that was paid for. Paid content is a separate, labeled article; see section 7.
Invented author personas, credentials or "last updated" dates that do not match a real data refresh.

6. Corrections

If a listing is wrong, closed, misfiled or missing, write to the corrections address, which is published here once the site's mail is set up (it is not yet), with the page and the place. Corrections to a name, address or category are made in the next data refresh, and if the error is ours rather than the map's we fix the page directly. The most durable fix is to correct the record on OpenStreetMap; we pull from there. We note material corrections at the bottom of the affected page.

7. Sponsored content

Businesses and agencies can buy a sponsored article or a labeled placement through the partner page. Every sponsored article carries a visible disclosure at the top and bottom naming the sponsor, and every outbound link in it is marked rel="sponsored" unless a different attribute is agreed and stated in the disclosure. Sponsored articles are kept in their own section, do not appear in the listings, and do not change the order or content of any list. We refuse gambling, adult and cannabis placements and anything that would mislead a reader about a real place.

8. Data licenses

Place data is © OpenStreetMap contributors under the Open Database License. Census figures are public domain. The site's own text is ours; quote it with a link.