The Articled Approved Organization Badge

What the Articled Approved Organization Badge Means

As written, the mark identifies two facts and two facts only. A named person in the organization signed off on not publishing anything fabricated, and the organization agreed to random sampling of the published work. Both statements are time stamped on the directory entry that the badge references. Any detail that a reader may be interested in beyond those two facts is a conclusion that the mark does not support.

This matters because Trust Seals have peculiar liability issues. Specifically, Trust Seals decline over time as they’re interpreted more and more broadly. A Trust Seal that begins as a narrow claim is ultimately read as a broad claim and is interpreted to mean whatever the user believes it to mean. The way to slow this down is, in part, to create a list of the things the badge does not say, and to republish it. Thus, the Trust Seal is not a rating, a review, or an audit in a sense that a professional auditor would understand.

This is not proof. There is no way to sample data to show that there has never been a generated sentence that has been posted on a large site. Nor would anybody of sound mind make such a claim. What the badge provides is a promise, signed and dated, published to the public, and a way to inquire about a particular article. That is a small thing. An over-claimed trust mark is worse than no mark at all.

• That the writing is accurate, fair, well-researched or worth reading.
• That every sentence ever published by the organization was checked.
• That Articled endorses the organization’s views, products or business.
• That images, video, audio or code on the site are human-made.
• That the organization passed a financial, security or accreditation review.
• That a detector would clear any given article you happen to open.

Who Can Display the Articled Approved Organization Badge

Keys to badges are awarded to the legal entity listed in the directory, and are applicable to the properties listed. A badge on a subsidiary site cannot be placed by a parent company, nor can a subsidiary place a badge to its parent.� Badges may be displayed by both entities where one company runs both brands under a single commitment. If they are different companies, an application must be made by each, as the destination for the badge should be the directory listing of the company whose site was accessed during the click-through.

Agencies are able to display the mark on client deliverables only under the terms and conditions of their respective commitments. For most agencies, commitments include deliverables for all clients. This means, in practice, that agency clients are able to be told the writing was produced under the standard, but a client’s own site is not allowed to show the badge in relation to the agency’s listing. The client is a different organization, and has not agreed to anything.

Rights run out with the listing. Whether a badge is withdrawn, lapses, or is forcibly removed, it comes down within five working days. No one sends a legal letter first. In practice, former members remove it the same afternoon, while the ones who forget are contacted by a reader before they are contacted by us.

• On the footer or about page of a site the commitment covers.
• On an editorial standards page, sitting next to the policy text.
• In a pitch deck or proposal, with the directory URL written out.
• In print, where the URL appears as text beside the mark.
• In a job advert for writers, where it does real work.

Rules for Using the Articled Approved Organization Badge

There is one rule that supersedes all the others: a badge must link to your entry in your directory. An image that is not linked can be easily copied in about 4 seconds. The badge is used to validate a claim, and so if a badge lacks a link, it is misuse, even if the organization is legitimate. In formats that do not allow a link, place the URL in text to the side of the image.

The mark should come exactly as it is. It should not be recolored, redrawn, stretched, cropped, or set on a background that obstructs legibility of the wordmark. It should not also contain any words. Using phrases such as “certified,” “audited,” “accredited,” “guaranteed,” and “fully verified” along with the mark represents a process that was not done, and thus makes a false representation of the claim. Should you need different wording for a client then please reach out, and we may write it with you.

We send requests to remove the badge, and do so occasionally. Most of the time the reason why doesn’t even involve fraud. It’s usually something we call ‘drift’. A listing lapses, a link breaks on a site because that site was rebuilt, or an agency’s client copies the footer verbatim. Emails fix almost all of this. The cases where emails don’t work are the end of a Listing, and usually those are the first things our readers see.

Articled Approved Organization Badge FAQs