Development Preview

Publishing Policy (publishingpolicy.org) is under active development.

Functionality, features, interfaces, and terms may change. There are no uptime guarantees, and the service is provided as-is. Publishing Policy is not liable for any damages resulting from use of the service. There is no obligation to continue using the service.

During the Development Preview

The Development Preview is free to use. Try it out, and give us feedback on what's working and what isn't.

What's available

Define your standards

Walk through a guided process to articulate standards for everything your organization publishes: editorial content, marketing, advertising, social media, press releases, and more.

Verify your domain

Prove you control your URL through DNS, a well-known file, or a meta tag. Verification is valid for one year, then requires renewal.

Publish and share

Get a public policy page, an embeddable badge for your site, and structured data so search engines can surface your commitments. When you publish, we email you a complete copy of your policy as a timestamped receipt. Your content lives in your inbox regardless of what happens here.

Delete anytime

Delete your policy and its entire version history permanently. Unpublish to revert to a private draft.

What happens when you publish a policy

Your policy is tagged Development Preview.

Every policy published during this phase carries a visible Development Preview label. If someone cites your policy before you feel ready, the label signals it was published during an early phase, not a final commitment.

Published content is openly licensed.

When you publish a policy, it is licensed CC-BY 4.0. Anyone who quoted or shared it retains that right, even if you later delete it. This is by design: a publishing policy is a public commitment, and public commitments should be citable.

You're never locked in.

You can delete your policy, all version history, and all associated data at any time. Or unpublish to revert to a private draft. If we update the Terms and you disagree, you can still withdraw your content without accepting the new terms. Acceptance is required to use the platform, never to leave it.

You always have a copy.

When you publish or update a policy, we email you the full content with a timestamp. If the platform disappears tomorrow, your inbox has the record.

After the Development Preview

The Development Preview will end. We'll provide advance notice before it does. Here's what happens, and where the platform goes from there.

The transition

All published policies are unpublished.

Every published policy is automatically reverted to a private draft. Nothing is deleted. Your content stays in your account exactly as you left it.

You review the new terms and decide.

You'll see the updated Terms before taking any action. If you agree, you re-publish. If you don't, your drafts remain yours — you can export, edit, or delete them. No one is automatically carried over.

Your policy becomes official.

Preview-era policies are retired. When you re-publish under the final terms, your policy becomes an official record with any adjustments you choose to make. From that point on, you can always update your active policy, but every change is recorded in your version history.

Pricing may be introduced.

The Development Preview is free. If paid plans are introduced after the preview period, they'll be communicated before taking effect. Deleting your data and leaving will always be free.

Where the platform is headed

Durable policy records

Published policies become durable public records: a verifiable history of what publishers committed to, and when. You can still update or remove your policy, but the version history preserves what was public and for how long.

Community accountability

Readers will eventually be able to flag when a publisher's practices don't match their stated commitments. The platform will surface community signal, not make editorial judgments.

Publisher analytics

Publishers will be able to see how their policy is being viewed and referenced, helping them understand the reach of their commitments.

Built in public

The entire codebase is public. You can see exactly what we're building, how it works, and every change we make.

Publishing Policy is built and operated by Roarke Clinton. The plan is to incorporate as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit so the platform is governed independently, not controlled by any single person or company. Until that happens, it's a one-person operation with public code and transparent development.

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Legal agreements

This page is the plain-language summary. The formal terms govern your use of the platform: