Sources & Methodology

Every littoraly entry answers two questions about one thing: when did it start, and when were women let in. Both dates have to be verifiable before an entry publishes.

Claims are numbered in the text and linked to a source at the bottom of the entry, tied to the publisher, federation, or institutional record that verifies it. Primary sources are preferred throughout; an aggregator or secondary account is used only when nothing more direct is available, and that's noted when it happens.

The gap between the two dates isn't always a named rule. Some entries document an explicit ban, on the record from the governing body that enforced it. Others trace to a law or structural barrier that made participation impossible without a formal ban being written down anywhere. And in the most common case, there's no ban on record at all, just no earlier documented instance of women taking part, which is its own kind of evidence and is presented as such rather than dressed up as a formal exclusion.

If a source turns out to be wrong, or a better one exists, the fix is a correction to the entry, not a quiet edit. Corrections are always welcome.