Plain answers  

Plain answers to the first five questions.

These are the questions a buyer or a creator asks in their first sixty seconds on the site. They’re answered in plain language, never evasive, and each answer links back to the trust signal it rests on — the Folkmark reviewer checklist, the open registry, and the seal page itself.

Why these five

The questions a buyer or a creator asks first.

Before a buyer taps a seal, and before a creator decides whether to submit, both reach for the same handful of answers: what’s this for, what does it prove, who is on the other end. We answer them here so the rest of the site can get on with the work — the registry, the seal, the review. Each answer below links to the place a reader can verify the claim: the public reviewer checklist, the open /registry, and a worked seal page.

None of these answers are pulled forward from a marketing brief. They’re the same questions a Folkmark reviewer reads when they sit down with a submission — and the same wording the questionnaire in /submit asks in plain text.

Questions, briefly

The honest fine print.

01

How is this different from an AI detector?

Detectors score surface style — the next model release shifts the threshold and the same sentence flips from human to machine. We do something different: a real reviewer reads your work and the evidence that you wrote it (draft log, version history, screenshots from your studio), then signs the result next to your name on the public registry. The output isn’t a probability — it’s a judgement, accountable to a person. See the full method on the process page.
02

What counts as evidence of process?

Anything that ties the work to your working day and shows the trajectory from first draft to finished piece: version history, draft timestamps, screenshots of your desk, screen or studio, and file-history captures. The reviewer reads the evidence alongside question 4 of the submission form — how each piece of evidence relates to the work — and rejects if the two stop lining up. A short, published checklist and a worked walk-through live on the process page.
03

Who actually reviews my submission?

A named Folkmark reviewer — never a model, never an offshore vendor — spends roughly twenty minutes with each submission. They read your piece, the five short answers on the submission form (the same questionnaire a Folkmark reviewer works from), and your evidence, in that order, before deciding the pass-flag for each. The reviewer’s name sits on the row when the seal is issued. We never auto-reject: every submission is read by a person.
04

Can I use a grammar checker / spellcheck?

Yes. Normal writing tools — spellcheck, a dictionary lookup, a grammar checker like Grammarly — are part of the working day and do not break the seal. What doesbreak it is rewriting the work via an LLM, or generating the draft with AI and then claiming human authorship. The reviewer’s question 5 — “how would you describe why a buyer should trust this is yours, not a generated mimic?” — is designed to surface exactly that failure mode. The full rule and a worked example are on the process page.
05

What happens if my work is rejected?

You receive a short, plain-language note from the reviewer naming the failed pass-flag — for example, the timeline doesn’t line up with the file history, the evidence shows a different hand, or the submission reads as rewrites of an LLM draft. You may resubmit with stronger evidence; the next reviewer reads the new submission against the same five-question questionnaire. A rejected submission is logged internally but does not appear on the public registry — only the pieces that pass the checklist do.

Ready when you are

The next step is a 20-minute review by a real person.

Submit a single piece, a small studio batch, or a press order — each lands on the same checklist and, on approval, on the public registry. Most single-piece reviews close within five working days.

Request your first seal

We never auto-reject — every submission is read by hand.

How the review works →