Governance

Editorial independence

ARO retains its own brand and editorial direction even though it is built under Doulab (the visible brand of Santiago Arias Consulting, the legal entity). Editorial decisions about coverage, partnerships, and program relationships are made by the ARO team. They are explicitly walled off from any consulting work the parent conducts for clients, including any clients that may be active in adjacent industries (radio manufacturers, outdoor brands, regulators).

If we ever take a sponsor or grant, the funder will be named here and the conditions will be public. Sponsors will not get coverage influence and cannot be the deciding voice on whether an entity, country, or program appears or disappears from the registry.

Contributor council (Phase 2C)

Editorial review for country pages, story content, and verification confirmations will be done by a contributor council with named human reviewers, not anonymous moderators. Each reviewer has a public profile (callsign, country, language, areas of expertise) and signs the artifacts they reviewed.

Recruiting starts in Phase 2C. Initial composition target: at least one reviewer per Tier-1 country at MVP launch, plus a LATAM editorial council subset (per founder decision in P2-21).

Conflict-of-interest disclosure

Reviewers and the ARO team disclose any relationships that could affect editorial decisions: paid program admin roles, manufacturer relationships, regulator employment, ownership stake in commercial activation services. Disclosures are public on reviewer profiles. Recusal is required for any decision where the disclosed relationship applies.

Takedown and correction procedure (Phase 2C)

Anyone (operator, program admin, landowner, regulator) can request that an entity be corrected or removed. The procedure will be:

1. Public-template request submitted to a documented address.
2. 48-hour acknowledgement.
3. Triage by a reviewer who has no disclosed conflict on the entity.
4. Decision within 14 days, with reasons published.
5. Appeal route to a different reviewer.

The legal templates that drive this go through a flat-fee lawyer review (~$500-1.5k, Switzerland) before publishing. That is a Phase 2C blocker per the founder decision in P2-21. Until the templates are reviewed, removals are handled informally and any requester can email the team directly via the address on /about.

What we will not do

• Claim to be "the authoritative" source. We are the most complete cross-program view; the official program records always win when they disagree with us. Every entity page links back to the program that owns the record (see why we are building this).
• Replace POTA, SOTA, WWFF, GMA, or IOTA. We drive traffic to them. The SOTLAS-model framing is locked: we link to the source, add cross-program awareness on top.
• Sell user data. The privacy policy on /privacy is the binding statement. Submissions (Phase 2C) will use opt-in with clear retention windows.
• Take editorial direction from sponsors. Sponsors are named, optional, and have no coverage vote.
• Run a "verified operator" tier that is paid. Verification states are based on evidence (program record, operator confirmation), never payment.

Where this page goes next

As each governance structure stands up, the corresponding section here gets concrete: named reviewers, the published takedown templates, the disclosed conflicts, the sponsor list (if any). This page should be a falsifiable statement of the project's operating posture, not a marketing claim.

Sources: governance transparency commitment (added in cycle 2). Founder decisions from the structured discovery phase. See /privacy for data-side commitments.