How sources are selected and weighted on The La Línea Guide. This page is the technical companion to Editorial Policy — Editorial Policy covers what we commit to, this covers how the work gets done.
Official sources first
Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE), Boletín Oficial de la Junta de Andalucía (BOJA), Ayuntamiento de La Línea de la Concepción, Junta de Andalucía health and education portals, Gibraltar Government statistics. These are the primary references for anything legal, fiscal, or administrative.
When an official source exists and contradicts a secondary one, the official source wins — unless the official source is itself contested (in which case we say so and explain).
Local journalism, weighted
Local press is used where the official record is silent or behind. In rough order of weight:
- Europa Sur — regional daily, strongest local political and economic coverage
- El Faro de la Bahía — Bay-of-Gibraltar focus, useful for cross-border stories
- Diario Área — regional, lighter
- La Voz del Sur Cádiz — investigative, occasional sharp pieces on La Línea
- ABC Andalucía, El País regional editions — used when they cover La Línea specifically
Lived knowledge, marked as such
What it costs to park near the frontier on a Friday in August is not in any official document. The same goes for which chiringuitos open at what time, which gestores actually answer the phone, which streets close for the Velada. We say so when the source is direct observation — and when the observation is from a particular date or season, we say that too. Lived knowledge is marked anecdotal in the confidence calibration (see Editorial Policy for the full system).
What we don’t use
- Tripadvisor or any aggregator rating as a source for whether a place is good
- “Best of La Línea” listicle sites and content-farm SEO pages
- Sponsored content on travel blogs presented as editorial
- AI-generated guides without identified authors
- Wikipedia as a citation — fine as a starting point, never as the source we rely on
Translation
Where the source is in Spanish (BOE, BOJA, Spanish-language press), the translation into English on this site is ours. We link to the Spanish original; you can verify. Where the translation is non-obvious or contested, we include the Spanish phrase in brackets.
Conflicts of interest
If a post covers a topic where the operator has a personal or business interest, that’s disclosed at the top of the post. The same applies to family or close-personal connections to a business mentioned. Sponsorship disclosures are covered in Partner with us.
How to challenge a source
If you think a source we cite is wrong, weak, or misused, tell us. Include the post, the specific source citation, and what you think is wrong. We respond — and if a re-check shows we got it wrong, the post is updated and the change goes in Corrections.