> PrivacyGuides goes through their own process of vetting ... so I think the discussion

The discussion is not all that relevant as PrivacyGuides does not rely solely on community input. The core team pretty much generates content and lists recommendations based on (what they claim is) their own research (which isn't saying much).

  The forum and community really give us a lot of external insights, with the voting system letting us poll how popular something is. 

  While we put a very heavy importance on the community consensus, it is mostly up to the team to decide what comes and goes, where more heavy decisions require more votes...

  A reason why it has never really been written out is that policies can be gamed, and the team really wants to be able to veto decisions...

  As far as "evaluating"/reviewing tools the methods to do so are not documented...