How to comment

Your comments change what this guidance says. Everything on this site is a draft, and we are asking the people who have to produce, check or use ocean accounts to tell us where it falls short. You do not need an account, and you do not need to read a whole circular. Find one sentence that is wrong, unclear, or impossible in your country, select it, and tell us in a few lines. You can stay anonymous.

Prefer to watch first? How to comment on a circular walks through the whole thing on screen. Press play below to load it here, or open it on YouTube.

Select the text you want to comment on. Drag across a sentence or paragraph inside any circular — at least a few words. The comment form opens as soon as you let go.
Check the passage details. The form shows the circular, the paragraph and the text you selected, and quotes it back to you. You do not fill any of that in.
Choose a comment type and write your comment — at least 20 characters. A counter shows words and characters as you type. We suggest keeping a comment under 500 words, because one point per comment is easier for us to act on, but longer comments are accepted: the hard limit is 12,000 characters, and there is a separate 12,000 for replacement wording.
Add anything else that helps. The wording you would prefer, a reference that supports your point, and how serious it is.
Say who you are, or tick “Submit anonymously”. Named comments need a name and email address; organisation, country and role are optional.
Tick the consent box and press Submit. You do not need a GitHub account or any other login.

Using a keyboard? Press Tab through the page. A small paragraph number appears in the left margin of each paragraph and list item when you reach it; press Enter to open the same form. With a mouse, hover a paragraph and the same number appears beside it.

On a phone or tablet? Press and hold to select the text, then lift your finger — the form opens the same way. If it does not on your device, email your comment to info@oceanaccounts.org with the circular number and the first few words of the paragraph. It is recorded in exactly the same way.

You can comment on paragraphs, list items, tables, headings and quoted passages by selecting their text.

To comment on a figure, press Comment on this figure at the end of its caption — or select any of the caption’s text. The comment is filed against the passage that introduces the figure, with the figure’s number and caption already quoted in the form, so there is nothing for you to transcribe and no doubt about which figure you mean. Add what you would change: a label, an axis, a category, a colour that does not survive being photocopied.

Review a circular as a whole

Commenting on a passage tells us what to change. Some things cannot be said about a passage at all: whether a circular is clear enough to follow, whether your office could actually apply it with the data it has, and whether it sits correctly against the standards you already work to.

At the end of every circular there is a short structured review that asks exactly that, in three questions:

Is the guidance clear as written? — clear, mostly clear, or ambiguous in places.
Could your office apply this with the data it has? — yes, with difficulty, no, or not applicable to us.
Does it sit correctly against the standards and your national practice? — aligned, partly, or it departs.

Answer as few as you like. One judgement and nothing else is a complete and useful return — you do not have to write anything. There are three optional boxes if you want to say where it departs, what is missing, or anything else about the circular as a whole.

Because every respondent is asked the same three questions, the answers can be counted together. That is the whole point of it: a single office saying a method is out of reach is a comment we weigh, and eleven offices saying it is a finding we act on. It is not a vote, and nothing is scored or ranked in public — the editors still read and answer everything.

The review is in addition to commenting on passages, not instead of it. Use both: the review for how the circular lands, and a comment for each specific thing you would change. It asks who you are on the same terms as the comment form (or tick “Submit anonymously”), and gives you the same kind of receipt, which is listed in your browser beside your comments.

Choosing the comment type

The type decides which editor your comment reaches, so it is worth a moment.

Correction — something is factually wrong, internally inconsistent, or miscalculated, and you can say what is right.
Omission — something necessary is missing and should be added; say what, and where it belongs.
Clarification — the text is not wrong, but it is ambiguous; say which reading you took.
Objection — you disagree with a method, definition or recommendation and want it changed or dropped; give the reason.
Support — you agree with a contested or consequential choice and want that on the record, so it is not revised away. This is genuinely useful.
Question — you need an answer before you can comment properly.

Answers of general interest are published on the questions and answers page, signed by the Secretariat. The circular you were reading remains the authoritative text. File the question on the passage it concerns.

How serious is it?

Severity is your own assessment. It is recorded with your comment and read alongside it; it does not set our order of work.

Must-fix — left as it stands, this would produce a wrong account: an error a compiler following the text would carry into their numbers.
Should-fix — the guidance still works, but it is unclear, incomplete or inconsistent enough to cost a compiler time or invite divergent practice.
Nice-to-have — an improvement to wording, structure or presentation, with no consequence for what a compiler would produce.

Please use must-fix sparingly. A circular with forty must-fix comments tells us nothing about which one matters.

What makes a comment we can act on

Give us the wording you would put in its place. This is the single most useful thing you can do. Write it as the text should read, not as an instruction. A comment with replacement wording can be adopted directly; one without it has to be redrafted before it can be used.

One point, one comment. File each point separately, on the paragraph it concerns, rather than one long comment covering a whole circular. Each comment is handled and answered on its own.

For a point that spans several paragraphs, open the form on the first paragraph it affects and name the others in your text as section and paragraph — “also §3.4 ¶2 and ¶6” — never as a bare paragraph number, which restarts under every heading. For a point about the circular as a whole — its scope, structure, or whether it should exist — use its opening paragraph and say so in your first line.

Some circulars are marked Forthcoming. The number and title are settled but the text is not released, so there is no page and no form. This is most of Section 5, the country case studies, and TG-3.12 to TG-3.15. They are not part of this consultation: there is nothing to review yet, and a comment on a title is not a comment on a method. If you have a view on one — that it is needed, that it should cover something in particular, or that your country should be among the cases — email info@oceanaccounts.org with the circular number in the subject line. Please do not file the point on a neighbouring circular; it would be recorded against the wrong draft, and answered as though it were about that draft.

If your organisation is sending one consolidated response

Many statistical offices and ministries clear comments centrally and send one signed response over a covering note. That is welcome, and it is recorded in exactly the same way as comments filed through the form. Email it to info@oceanaccounts.org before Friday 13 November 2026.

Two things make a consolidated response as usable as individual comments, and without them it is markedly slower for us to act on:

Give each point its own numbered item, each naming the circular, the section and the paragraph — “TG-2.1 §3.2 ¶14” — with the comment type and, where you have it, the replacement wording. A table or a numbered list is ideal; an annotated copy of the circular is not, because a marginal note cannot be routed to an editor or answered on its own.
Say who the response is from, and whether the organisation is to appear in the published list of respondents.

We split a consolidated response into individual comments on receipt, so each point reaches the editor of the circular it concerns and is answered on its own — and the single reference we send back covers all of them.

A comment we can act on:

Correction, must-fix. §3.2 ¶14 states the residence principle applies to vessels flagged elsewhere; SNA 2025 §26.31 applies it to the operating unit. Replace with: “…”. Reference: SNA 2025 §26.31.

A comment we cannot:

This section is confused and needs rewriting.

If the form will not open, or will not send

A “bot check” box appears before you can send. It is a security check from Cloudflare and can take a few seconds. If it never appears — some institutional networks block it — email us your comment instead.
“Could not reach the comment service.” Nothing was sent. Your text is still in the form; wait a moment and press Submit again.
Submit does nothing. The form now says which box needs attention, in red, beside the box itself. Check that your comment is at least 20 characters, that a comment type is chosen, and that the consent box is ticked.
“Too many submissions.” There is a limit on how fast comments can be filed, set well above normal reviewing: sixty comments every ten minutes from one person. It is counted per person, not per office, so a group of you working through a circular on the same network do not share one allowance. The message tells you how long to wait, and your text is kept.
Not ready to send? Your comment saves itself as you type, per passage, and comes back when you next open that same passage — Save draft does the same on demand. Drafts stay in this browser on this device; they are not sent to us and we cannot see them.
Opened the form by accident? Press Escape or the × in the corner. Nothing is sent, and anything you had typed is kept as a draft.
Reviewing offline? The PDF, HTML and Word downloads carry the same paragraph markers as the page, written as ¶14. Note the section and paragraph against each finding as you read, then file them when you are back online — or send the list to info@oceanaccounts.org and we will record them for you.

What happens to your comment

Figure 1 A comment is anchored to the passage it was made against, triaged by type and severity, then carried through the review cycle. Source: TG-0.4 Structure and Conventions §7.1 (circular development workflow); How to comment (submission and publication rules).

Straight away, the form shows a receipt: a reference for the comment, and for named comments a submitter code. Press Copy receipt to put it on your clipboard. We do not send a confirmation email when you file a comment, so keep it — the reference is what you quote if you ever want the comment corrected or withdrawn. (You do get one message from us: the response covering all of your comments, after the consultation closes. See What happens to your comment.)

You do not have to transcribe anything. Every receipt is also kept in this browser under Your comments from this browser, at the bottom of the form, with Copy all references and Download as a text file — which is the version to attach to an internal review file. That list lives on your own device only; ours is the official record. The submitter code groups everything you send on one circular, so use the same email address each time and your comments stay together.

Afterwards, comments are sorted by circular, passage and type, and go to the editors of that circular. They feed the redraft, which then goes to Secretariat review. We do not reply comment by comment as they arrive — there are more comments than the Secretariat can answer one at a time, and answering early would mean answering before the redraft has decided anything.

Once the consultation closes and the comments have been adjudicated, we send you one response covering everything you sent. It lists each of your comments with what we did — applied, considered and not taken up, duplicate, or noted with no change needed — the editors’ reason, and where your comment changed the text. One message, when there is something to say, to the address you gave; nothing before then. Anonymous comments are answered in the consultation record instead, since we hold no address for them.

If you need an answer sooner, or want to withdraw or correct a comment, email info@oceanaccounts.org and quote your reference.

The consultation record — every comment received, anonymised, and what we did with it — is published once the consultation closes, and is the change log of the guidance.

Being named as a contributor

Comments that change the text are a contribution to this guidance, and we credit them. There are two levels, and the standard is set out here so you can see it before you decide how much work to put into a comment.

Consultation respondent. Your name and organisation appear in the list of consultation respondents published with the consultation record, alphabetically, not beside any comment. You reach this list by sending at least one genuine comment under your own name with the recognition box left ticked. Nothing else is required.

Named contributor to a circular. Your name, affiliation and (if you give one) ORCID appear on that circular itself, in its contributor list, and travel with it when it is cited. To reach this list, on that circular:

your comment must be accepted — the redraft is different because of it; and
the change must be substantive — it changes a definition, method, classification, recommendation, data source, number, or a factual claim. Typographic, grammatical and formatting fixes are welcome and are recorded, but they do not count towards this; and
you must meet the minimum: one accepted substantive comment that came with the replacement wording or a supporting reference, or three or more accepted substantive comments on the same circular.

We then email you the entry as it would appear and publish it only once you confirm. If we do not hear from you within 21 days, or you would rather not be named, you stay in the respondents list.

A few consequences worth knowing:

It is judged per circular. Qualifying on one circular does not name you on another.
Support and question comments do not count towards it. They matter to us, and we would rather have them than not, but they change no text.
Where several people make the same point, the first to file it is credited; the others are listed as respondents. If a later comment is the one that supplies the evidence or the wording we adopt, we credit both.
Anonymous comments cannot be credited. We record no name to credit.
Contributions that go past commenting — drafting a subsection, supplying a case study, a dataset or a figure — are handled as authorship, not through this route. Write to info@oceanaccounts.org.
Submitting on behalf of an institution names the institution. Where several colleagues each qualify, each is named.

The full rule, including the labels editors use, is the Secretariat’s consultation recognition policy; email us if you want a copy.

What we record, and what we publish

What you give us	Recorded	Published
Your comment, and any replacement wording or reference	Yes	Yes — may be quoted, summarised, or shown on the circular page beside the passage
Circular, passage and comment type; severity	Yes	Yes
Your name and organisation	Yes	Never beside your comment. With the recognition box left ticked, your name appears in the list of consultation respondents, and on a circular’s contributor list if your comments meet the threshold above
Your country or region, and role	Yes — including on anonymous comments	Only in aggregate, never identifying you
Your email address	Yes — held with your comment so we can reply, or correct or withdraw it at your request. Anonymous comments record no address	Never — not beside your comment, not in the contributor list, not in aggregate

Comments are held in a private, access-controlled store operated for the GOAP Secretariat and hosted by GitHub in the United States. Only the GOAP Secretariat can open that store — your name and email address are seen by the Secretariat alone, and by the editor of the circular concerned where the Secretariat brings them in on it. They are not visible to other respondents, to the wider GOAP membership, or to anyone outside the Secretariat, and they are removed from your comment before it is published or quoted. The site uses Cloudflare Turnstile to keep out automated submissions; Cloudflare receives your IP address for that check. The video on this page is hosted on YouTube and only loads when you press play — until you do, nothing about your visit reaches Google; once you do, YouTube receives your IP address and the usual details of the device you are watching on. We also count visits with Google Analytics, the same measurement this Partnership uses on oceanaccounts.org. It sets a cookie that gives your browser a random identifier, so that several pages read in one sitting are counted as one visit rather than several. It tells us which circulars are being read, how readers arrive and roughly where in the world they are; it is not joined to your name, your email or any comment you file, and we do not use it to advertise to you. To opt out, use your browser’s do-not-track or cookie settings, or Google’s own opt-out add-on — nothing on this page needs the cookie to work, and your comments are filed exactly the same way without it. Anonymous comments record no name, email or organisation, and you are not listed as a contributor — but country, region and role are still recorded.

What this site keeps in your browser

This site does store things in your browser, all of it on your own device and none of it visible to us. It is there so the form is not hostile to use:

What	Why	Cleared by
Your name, email, organisation, country and role	So you do not retype them on every comment. The form shows “Submitting as …” when it has them	change next to that line, or clearing site data
Your unsent drafts, one per passage	So closing the form, or losing your connection, does not lose what you wrote	Submitting the comment, or clearing site data
Your receipts — reference, submitter code, circular and passage for each comment you send	So you can find a reference again after you have closed the form. Listed under “Your comments from this browser”	Clearing site data
That you have seen the welcome notice	So you are not shown it on every page	Clearing site data

None of this is sent to us, and none of it follows you to another computer. (The analytics cookie described above is separate, and is the one thing on this page that does report back.) We cannot read it, and it is not the official record — ours is the store your comments were filed into. On a shared or public computer, clear site data for this site when you finish; your browser’s own autofill (usually under passwords and autofill in its settings) is separate again, and worth clearing too.

Circulars here are global consultation drafts, not agreed GOAP guidance, and should not be cited as adopted standards. About this consultation explains the Draft, Completed and Forthcoming labels, how to cite a draft, and the licence for reusing the text and figures.

Get help, or report a problem

About the guidance: Technical Guidance on Ocean Accounting
What these drafts are, how to cite them, and the licence: About this consultation
Find a circular: Find the right circular or the section list
Partnership: oceanaccounts.org
Enquiries: info@oceanaccounts.org
Security problems with the site or the comment form: email info@oceanaccounts.org with the address of the page and what you did, step by step, before the problem happened. Please do not use the comment form for this, and please do not post it publicly until we have replied.