Although we've been working on, and hinting at this for well over a month, we've really tried to keep our new Ethics & Standards Policy and its supplemental Review Score guide quiet as we really wanted to take our time to recreate this incredibly important part of our site. We spent a lot of time consulting around the field and with the SPJ code of ethics as we attempted to draw up the best policies for what we do for our readers. We are, and always have been, dedicated to ethics and the ideals of journalistic integrity.

We take our job as a technology and gaming outlet seriously, even if we aren't accredited and degree-holding journalists, and we want our Ethical Standards and Practices to reflect how much we care about our outlet, our readers, and our industry. Our previous policy was drafted quickly as a younger and less aware organization who had, up until that point, kept our processes in check with a verbal policy. As we grew from 30k pageviews up to 300k, we learned very quickly that what we had in place wasn't clear or good enough for us and once things died down a bit, we got started on this brand new document.

Beyond expanding what was in some areas a very basic policy, we learned some of the realities of dealing with it, and how to incorporate those into our best practices and when to decide to go a different way. We feel that what we learned has enabled us to craft a superior ethics policy that well help us continue to improve and grow.

We have also revised our Review Scoring system, and gone back and retroactively updated all reviews done this month to be in line with it. The idea here is to be clear and transparent in what our scores mean, as well as making sure that the score provides the best value to our readers.

It’s been a great ride so far, and we’d like to thank everyone for being along with us – we wouldn’t be here without you. It’s an honor to be able to share in everything with you and any thoughts or questions you have on the policy – please feel free to comment on them, email us, or join us tomorrow on YouTube for our April Q&A (6:15p EST, direct all pre-show questions to #AskTechRaptor or in the comments below!)