REFERENCE
Sponsorship copy rules
๐ TL;DR / Quick Summary <div style="background: rgba(0,0,0,0.3); border: 1px dashed rgba(255,255,255,0.2); padding: 15px; border-radius: 8px; color: rgba(255,255,255,0.7); margin-bottom: 30px;"> The rules for a sponsored slot in Slack in the System, written on 20 January in the hour I signed ๐ค Lumen Roadmaps - newsletter sponsorship, so that the rule existed before the first slot did. Forty words, written by me, labelled as sponsored, never inside the essay. Oren Shapiro accepted the page without changing a word. </div>
๐ ๏ธ Instructions / Core Material Run through before every sponsored issue in ๐ Slack in the System - 2025 issues:
- Forty words or fewer. Counted, not estimated
- I wrote it. The sponsor sends facts; I send back sentences. They may correct a fact and may not add an adjective
- Labelled. The word Sponsored on its own line above the copy, in the label face
- Outside the essay. Below the closing question, above the footer. Never between two paragraphs of mine
- One link, to their front page. No tracking I would not accept as a reader
- No claim I cannot check. Used by teams at stays out unless I have seen it
- Not a competitor of Halden, and not anybody I buy from at work
- The essay was finished first. Topic and sponsor are never chosen together
- Noor's three comments cover the essay only. She does not edit the forty words and has said she would rather not
- Invoice raised the same week, filed with the month's papers
โ ๏ธ Key Warnings / Constraints
- One sponsor per issue and no more than one sponsored issue in two. Six slots in 2025 was the right number; eight would have been felt.
- If a sponsor asks to see the essay first, the answer is no and the slot is refundable.
- The day the forty words are easier to write than the nine hundred, something has gone wrong.
๐ Related Entities & Resources
- ๐ค Lumen Roadmaps - newsletter sponsorship: the agreement these rules were written for
- ๐ Slack in the System - 2025 issues: the issues the six slots ran in
- ๐ข Quillstack: the platform the labelled block is laid out on