I have no commercial arrangement with any of them: they are here because I use them, and because almost any claim on this site can be checked against one of them. The messaging platform's own documents are listed by name without a link — they are easy enough to find by searching.

The rest are linked, and they open in the same tab: if you leave, you leave.

Official platform documentation

The primary source. When anything you read on a blog — this one included — contradicts this documentation, believe the documentation.

  • Official FAQ

    The official frequently asked questions. Surprisingly complete: the real limits for channels and groups, how moderation works, and what happens when an account is reported. Start here before any guide.

  • Terms of service

    What you agree to by using the platform. Short and readable, which cannot be said of every terms of service.

  • Official blog

    Where product changes are announced. If a feature you rely on behaves differently from last week, the explanation is usually here before it is anywhere else.

  • Bot documentation

    The official introduction to bots. Even if you are not going to build anything, the first sections give you a realistic picture of what a bot can and cannot do — which is exactly where expectations are most inflated.

  • Link specification

    The complete catalogue of link formats, including the deep links with a parameter I describe in the measurement article. This is the exact reference if you want to build them properly.

Official ad platform

  • The ad platform itself

    This is where you should check current prices and conditions: they are the fastest-ageing figures and the ones most often repeated wrongly in third-party articles.

  • Official getting-started guide

    The platform's own explanation of how a sponsored message is created, what fields it has and what restrictions apply to links. It is the source of almost everything in article 02.

Third-party analytics for public channels

Services that track public channels from the outside. Useful for sizing up a channel you do not control; their figures are estimates, not official data, and are best treated as such.

  • TGStat tgstat.com

    Directory and statistics for public channels: estimated subscribers, average reach per post, and trend. I use it to get a sense of whether a channel has real activity before considering appearing in it.

  • Telemetr telemetr.io

    An alternative with different regional coverage. When both agree on a channel I trust the order of magnitude; when they diverge sharply, that usually means the channel is hard to measure from outside.

Advertising policies

  • Meta ad review policy facebook.com/business/ads/review-policy-guidelines

    Explains exactly what Meta looks at when reviewing an ad. It states in plain words that review can extend to where the ad sends people — the destination page — which is the basis of article 05. If you only open one link in this section, make it this one.

  • Meta Advertising Standards transparency.meta.com/policies/ad-standards/

    The official text of the standards applied during that review. If you spend money on ads, read it through once: it is shorter than it looks.

If something does not add up

I review these references whenever I update the site, but other people's documentation changes without warning. If you find something out of date, tell me and I will fix it.