Editorial Policy

The AgoraVox editorial policy consists in making freely available to its readers thematic information detected by citizen. We are indeed convinced that every citizen is potentialy capable to primarily identify information otherwise hard to reach or purposely hidden, that do not benefit from traditional media coverage. Stories based on facts, enriched with references, with a true informational input, about checkable and if possible exclusive facts, will be given priority. Thereby, on AgoraVox, word is neither the one of the "people", nor the one of the "elite". Word is given to those who have original and exclusive facts to relate to.

Revising committee and editorial responsibility
We are aware that initiatives like the one of AgoraVox potentially increase the risks to spread rumors, disinformation, or to relay willing or unwilling manipulations. For this reason, we believe it is necessary to set a revising committee that would act as a "filter". However, each author remains responsible on first place of affirmations published and he/she has the duty to check their accuracy before submitting them for publication.

The revising committee will check the compliance of the submitted stories with the AgoraVox editorial policy and when doubts remain, it may initiate complementary investigations. Otherwise, AgoraVox urges each potential author to pay maximum attention to the intellectual property rights governing information he/she intends to publish, and especially to respect copyrights.

In the unfortunate case a story holds inaccurate information that bypassed both the author’s and revising committee’s filters, it can be deleted at any moment, above all when no reader pointed out the inaccuracy in the comments of the article.

By submitting a story or a document on AgoraVox, authors implicitely agree that it may be freely reproduced on third-party websites or off the internet by other media. Unless clearly expressed notice, authors also agree that the revising comittee reproduced a story already published on their blog or website, when it suits the AgoraVox editorial policy.

Composition and operation of the revising committee
Given the specificity of AgoraVox, the revising committee is not an exact copy of the ones found within a traditional newspaper editorial committee. It is indeed set up with AgoraVox authors and also with strategic watch and information search experts from the Cybion company. By its work and experience, the Cybion company has gained a know-how which is essential to the search for new potential authors on the Internet, new exclusive stories, and essential to try and validate submitted or found information so that they comply with the editorial policy set up. Currently, during this initial beta phase, the revising committee extends and diversifies. It will be disclosed shortly.

Validation of a story
On a general basis, the objective of AgoraVox is to publish news stories that feature events or objective facts, that can be checked and be as exclusive as possible. In other words, AgoraVox will not publish stories that solely express personal opinions, when they are subjective and non checkable. For this reason, anyone can become a reporter for AgoraVox, independantly from his/her political, economical, religious, cultural or social viewpoints. The nature of our editorial team is thus necessarily motley. Our desire is to gather a various range of profiles in order to create a real editorial and informational diversity. It is however also possible to freely comment any published story ("add a comment" at the bottom of the page).

Though we favor facts linked with news, it is also possible to submit a background story on a precise topic on condition to bring new elements. Stories listed under the "Opinion Column" section can be not in adequacy with the AgoraVox editorial policy described previously. It can favor personal opinions. However such stories will only be published if they bring an original and well documented viewpoint.

The committee will not alter the bottom line of a submitted story without consent forum its author. Nonetheless, it will ensure the correctness of the syntax used, spelling, and layout, and it may modify the title to help readers gain interest in it. Files attached to stories (photographs, short movies, audio samples) may be pushed or deleted, depending on the case, or be optimized especially if the content or files size require it. Besides, when judged necessary, a story may be moved to a different section than the one it was initially submitted for. Finally, the revising committee may also alter the story to fix mistakes of minor inaccuracies (for instance when there is a mistake on a date or on the name of someone quoted), but under the condition these corrections do not alter the meaning and scope of the story.

Refusal of a story
Generally speaking, submissions that do not comply with the editorial policy as described above will be rejected. More precisely, submissions will systematically be rejected when they feature libellous, pornographic or commercial content, as well as when they encourage hatred, racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. A story that has been submitted several times (even under different titles) may also be refused.

Comments on the stories are also governed by the editorial policy and they must be respectfull, otherwise they may be deleted without notice.

The following conditions summarize reasons leading to a publication refusal:

* Copyrighted content
* Delivers a personal opinion while lacking documentation
* Not recent / does not cover news
* Not exclusive
* Describes misleading or non checkable facts
* Too short
* Too long
* Unclear, imprecise
* Content may be libellous
* Features pornographic content
* Features commercial content
* Encourages hatred, racism, sexism, homophobia
* Already submitted item

The reason why a story is refused will be visible in the account of each author in the "refused stories" section (the reason will be in front of the title of the refused story).

Conditions for publication on AgoraVox
Any who wants to become a reporter and be able to publish stories on AgoraVox agrees with the following conditions:

1. Each author agrees with the AgoraVox editorial policy. In particular, he/she remains responsible for stories he/she asks for publication. The author must check the accuracy, reliability and originality of its story before submitting it.

2. AgoraVox may investigate a submitted story further if judged necessary.

3. AgoraVox urges each author to pay maximum attention to the various intellectual property rights governing the information used in their story, and to comply with copyrights.

4. Any story featuring inaccurate information will be immediately deleted.

5. By publishing stories on AgoraVox, authors agree that all or part of their stories may be reproduced by partners media. Unless clearly expressed notice, authors also agree that the revising comittee reproduced a story already published on their blog or website, when it suits the AgoraVox editorial policy.

6. Except within the "Opinion Column" section, AgoraVox will not publish stories that solely express personal subjective opinions.

7. It is allowed to comment a published story or to submit an analysis on a specific topic, enlighten with additions.

8. The revising comittee will not alter the ideas expressed within a story without consent of its author.

9. Libellous stories will systematically be rejected, as well as stories encouraging hatred, racism, sexism, homophobia...

10. AgoraVox does not claim any political, economical, cultural or religious belonging or tendencies