Editorial Policy

The Ashland Current is a community resource for the Chequamegon Bay area of northern Wisconsin. We provide news, opinion, reviews, photos, videos, podcasts, and web-based applications that relate to our local community.

The Ashland Current exists to share and exchange appropriate information. To do this, we offer three categories of editorial content, plus aggregated content that is neither developed by Ashland Current nor the Ashland Current user community.

  1. Original content
  2. Community-generated content
  3. Sponsored content

We've broken down our editorial policy for each of these categories below, so it's easier to understand. Our community-generated content policies also apply to site interactions, such as posting comments.

1. Original content

Original content is developed by the owners, employees, contractors, and/or interns of the Ashland Current. We make every possible effort to ensure professional quality content, whether written, audio, or visual. Our policy as a company is to maintain political non-partisanship. However, we may publish the opinions of owners, employees, contractors, and/or interns that are political in nature, though these opinions in no way reflect the opinion of the Ashland Current as a whole.

The Ashland Current owns all copyrights for all original Ashland Current content. We have licensed this Ashland Current content through the Creative Commons system using a Share Alike license.

2. Community-generated content

Community-generated content is developed by the users of the Ashland Current. There are different types of community-generated content, such as written, photographic, video, and audio material submissions. All types of content, including comments about any site content, must adhere to the standards shown below.

Users may submit written, photographic, video, and audio materials at any time to the Ashland Current for publication. However, all submitted content is subject to review by the Ashland Current editors and its publication is not guaranteed.

Images submitted from the Web must be attributed and include a link from where they originated, unless the image is in the public domain.

We do not accept direct submissions of videos. They must be posted on YouTube, Vimeo, or a similar site, and then embedded in a a separate submission to the Ashland Current.

Commenting on and interacting with published material on the Ashland Current is encouraged. Posts will be deleted, however, if they include content that is:

  • false, misleading, or confusing
  • bullying, antagonizing, obscene, or otherwise defamatory
  • in violation of any local, state, or federal law
  • excessively advertorial or blatantly self-promotive
  • overly repetitive
  • an article copied and pasted from another website, as this may violate the copyrights of other businesses or individuals

If you find it necessary or useful to promote either yourself, your business, or your product through the Ashland Current, then you might consider our advertising opportunities, as well as our sponsored content section.

Along with posting comments to the site, we encourage our users to write longer, in-depth articles. For the most part, we are interested in articles in the range of 400 to 800 words, though longer submissions may be considered, depending on their quality. If you would like to submit an article longer than 800 words, please contact us beforehand with a summary of what you would like to write about.

We recommend that you proofread and edit your work before submitting it to the Ashland Current. Please consider this style guide before completing your submission:

  • Check for misspelled words
  • Write numbers one to nine as words and numbers 10 and above as numerals
  • To emphasize text, please use italics rather than underlining
  • Our preferred date format is month/day/year, e.g. November 7, 2014
  • Write “10 to 15” rather than “10-15”
  • Capitalize only the first word of your headline
  • Make sure your style and tone is clear and concise

By submitting content to the Ashland Current you are confirming that you are the work's original creator and that you own the copyright to the submission. If your content is published, the Ashland Current reserves the right to remove your submission at any time, and the Ashland Current reserves the right to republish the content in the event the Ashland Current encounters technical issues, such as a server malfunction, and the site as a whole must be republished.

3. Sponsored Content

The Ashland Current publishes sponsored content, which is advertising content presented in an editorial way. All sponsored content is distinguished from original or community-generated content in that it is special advertising content either developed by the advertiser or by Ashland Current to support the advertiser's needs.

All sponsored content pages are visually set apart as such and are clearly labeled. It is important to note that the inclusion of sponsored content does not mean the Ashland Current endorses the advertised product or business. Also, if any business opts to promote their sponsored content published by the Ashland Current, then the Ashland Current name should not be used in a way that suggests the Ashland Current endorses the advertiser.

For more information about Ashland Current sponsored content, please see our advertising policy, or contact us.