How posts are reviewed.

Who writes here

The creator blog is invitation-based. A writing key is issued to an Octa account by a person, one account at a time, and it arrives as a card inside the app. There is nothing to apply for, nothing to buy, and no way to issue yourself one. If you make music in Octa and want to write about it, tell us and we will note your account.

A post is written on octaverum.com in a plain editor, saved as you go, and sent for review when you decide it is finished. Approved posts earn credits in the app. That is the whole arrangement: we can read what you wrote and check it, which is why writing is the one kind of sharing we are able to reward.

What we check

Four things, in this order, and nothing else:

• Length. There is a minimum, and the editor shows you exactly how far along you are while you write, so a post is never turned away for a reason you could not see coming.
• Whether it is writing. A deterministic check looks at the structure of the text — repetition, keyboard runs, the letter patterns every written language has, the small connecting words every language uses. It looks at structure, not spelling: typos, a second language, a script we do not speak, and an unusual way of putting a sentence together all pass. It is meant to catch a keyboard being leaned on, not an accent.
• Whether it is yours and new. A post that is the same as one already on the blog, or the same as one of your own that was taken down, is not published again.
• The house rules. No promoting other services, no harvesting contacts, no keyword stuffing, and nothing we would not publish on our own pages.

We do not check whether we agree with you. A post can say that a feature is bad, that a song did not work, or that the result was worse than the one before — and it will be published.

The three outcomes

Published. The post goes live at its own address, under your creator name, with the date it was published and the date it was last edited. The credits are added to your wallet once.

Not published. Nothing is deducted and nothing is held against you. You are told which check the post did not pass, in plain language, and the draft stays in the editor. You can edit it and send it again as often as you like.

Waiting. Sometimes a check cannot complete — a component is unavailable, or the result is close to a line. When that happens the post waits for a person. It is never published by accident and never turned away by accident. This is deliberate: when something is broken, the safe answer is to wait, not to guess.

Automated decisions

Most decisions are made automatically. When a post is not published by an automated check, the message says so. A person reviews every post that is held, every report we receive, and every decision you ask us to look at again.

If you disagree

Reply to the message you received, or write to contact@octaverum.com with the link. A person reads it. We will tell you what we decided and why, and if we were wrong we will publish the post and add the credits. Asking us to look again costs nothing and there is no limit on it.

Taking a post down

You can take any of your own posts down from the editor, at any time, without asking us. The page stops working for everyone within about half a minute, and we ask search engines to drop it. Copies that other people or other services have already made are outside our control — that is true of anything published anywhere, and it is the reason to think before you publish rather than after.

Taking a post down reverses the credits it earned. If we take a post down ourselves, you are told which rule it broke, whether the decision was automated, and how to disagree with it.

Reporting a post

Anyone can report a post, whether or not they have an Octa account: use the report form, or the link at the bottom of the post itself. You will get a reference immediately, a person reviews it, and we tell you what we decided and what you can do if you disagree. We do not run an email-only inbox for this, because a takedown needs a record and a clock, and an inbox has neither.

Search engines

Published posts are listed in our sitemap and linked from the creator blog index and from the writer's own page. Search engines decide independently when and whether to list a page, and we cannot promise that any particular post will appear in any particular search. A very short post is published and paid for but is not submitted for listing: a page with almost nothing on it does the writer no favours and does the rest of the site harm.

What becomes public

Publishing a post makes your creator name, your profile picture and the text you wrote public on octaverum.com, where anyone — including a search engine — can read them. Your email address, your account details and anything else you have given us are not published and never appear on these pages. If you delete your Octa account, your posts come down with it.

The full detail is in our privacy notice.