Fact-checking politicians is a tricky business. It’s even trickier when a candidate or government official makes a claim that is neither solidly true nor outright false.

To account for this elusive middle, many fact-checkers incorporate “half true” rulings, or some variation of that, into their ratings systems. Unfortunately, these not-quite-true-but-not-quite-false judgments often lead to further confusion, which is the exact opposite of what a fact-check is supposed to do in the first place.