About this site

Plain-language meanings for laundry care labels, floor-plan symbols, road signs and hazard pictograms, each checked against the standard that defines it.

It is an independent site, run by Rorz Network LLC. Its companion, oldsymbols.com, covers where cultural, religious and ancient symbols came from. Where a symbol belongs to both, each site links to the other.

Editorial standards

Every page on whatdoesthissymbolmean.com is researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before it is published. Pages are written and checked in the sites’ own editor, and a page stays off the site, out of its search and out of its sitemap until it has been marked reviewed there.

Before a page can be marked reviewed:

• Research loaded from the research files is checked by a script first. It fetches every source again and stops the import if any recorded passage isn’t on it word for word.
• The page needs at least two sources, each with the passage that supports what the page says.
• The editor reads the text against those passages. A statement no passage supports is cut.
• Its drawing needs a text description, and every link in its text must lead to a page that exists.
• Wording that usually breaks a content rule, such as “you should” or a health claim, is flagged for the editor to judge against the sources.
• Religious and cultural pages get a separate check for respectful framing and for any overlap with hate symbols. A symbol system publishes only after its hate-symbol review is recorded.

Once a page is live, a change to its text waits, with the old text still showing, until it is approved the same way. The date of that approval is the “Last reviewed” date at the foot of the page.

Who reviews the pages

Every page names the person who reviewed it, beside the date of the review. Of the 1590 pages live on this site now:

• Rory Hansen reviewed 1590 pages

Every page is researched from published sources, and a person reviews it against those sources before it is published. How we research explains the whole process, and the contact page says how to reach us.

How the site is paid for

A few pages, where the symbol leads to a kind of product (a tire pressure gauge beside the tire pressure light), link to a search for it on Amazon. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases through those links. They never name a product or appear on safety warning lights, hazard symbols or road signs, and the page says what the symbol means whether or not anyone buys anything.

Corrections

If something on a page is wrong, use “Report a problem” at the foot of that page. Reports go straight to the editor.