Editorial policy
Useful first. Clear about how it was made.
Plain Act publishes practical management guidance for first-time and working managers. This policy explains the standards used for scope, originality, source handling, production tools, editing, updates, corrections, and commercial independence.
Policy reviewed: August 31, 2026.
01 — Mission
Make management guidance usable under pressure.
Plain Act is built around a narrow editorial purpose: help managers see a workplace problem clearly enough to take a responsible next action without unnecessary noise, hype, or performance.
A page should still be useful if all advertising, affiliate links, and purchase buttons are ignored.
02 — Scope
What Plain Act covers.
Primary topics include first-time management, authority, delegation, feedback, difficult conversations, meetings, workload and capacity, managing up, former-peer transitions, decision timing, and the first 30–90 days in a management role.
The publication provides general management guidance. It is not positioned as legal, employment-law, clinical, medical, financial, or employer-specific HR advice. A reader may need qualified professional or internal-policy guidance when a situation carries those risks.
03 — Originality and utility
Pages need an independent reason to exist.
Indexable articles, guides, and tools are expected to solve a distinct reader problem and add practical value through examples, scripts, checklists, decision rules, scenarios, templates, agendas, or worked applications where appropriate.
Plain Act does not treat copied definitions, lightly rewritten third-party material, synonym replacement, mass page generation, or generic word-count padding as acceptable editorial value. A weak page may be merged, noindexed, rebuilt, or removed instead of expanded with filler.
04 — Sources and factual claims
External facts should be distinguishable from editorial judgment.
When a page materially relies on a research finding, law, platform rule, product specification, price, policy, or other externally verifiable fact, the source should be identified or linked when practical and appropriate.
Illustrative workplace examples, scripts, and management judgments are not presented as research findings unless a source is explicitly provided. A source supports the factual claim for which it is cited; it does not automatically validate every recommendation on the page.
05 — Production tools
Software assistance is not treated as authority.
Plain Act may use software tools, including AI-assisted tools, during research organization, drafting, editing, formatting, coding, or production. These tools are not named as experts, reviewers, or evidence sources merely because they produced text or code.
Publication responsibility remains with PlainAct Publishing. AI-generated or software-generated output is not, by itself, treated as proof of a factual claim. Where factual accuracy matters, the relevant source or live product behavior should be checked independently.
06 — Editing and review
Review is tied to the page, not a fictional reviewer identity.
Editorial review can include checking the page's user intent, examples, internal links, overlapping topics, claims, structure, metadata, and whether the advice remains useful without a purchase. Technical pages may also be checked against the current production site or source configuration.
Plain Act does not create fictional experts, named reviewers, credentials, testimonials, or years of experience to make a page appear more authoritative.
07 — Updates
Dates should describe real events.
Material may be revised for factual accuracy, clarity, usefulness, structure, broken links, changed third-party information, stronger examples, or a better distinction from another page.
An “updated”, “reviewed”, or similar date should be shown only when an actual review or material update occurred. Minor styling or automated deployment changes do not automatically justify presenting an editorial review date.
08 — Commercial independence
Commercial links do not decide editorial conclusions.
Plain Act publishes paid books and may use clearly disclosed affiliate relationships. Those commercial relationships do not change the standard that free editorial pages should provide a complete core answer without requiring a purchase.
When a recommendation or outbound link can generate a commission, the relationship should be disclosed in a way that is reasonably visible to the reader. See the Affiliate Disclosure.
09 — Corrections
Report an error.
If you find a factual error, broken source, misleading statement, outdated detail, or material omission, email info@plain-act.com. Include the page URL, the exact point that needs review, and supporting evidence when available.
Reports are handled under the Corrections Policy. Plain Act does not promise real-time review, but confirmed material issues may be corrected, clarified, expanded, or removed.