10 Entries
Lexicon
Short editorial entries on the words we use specifically: curated, periodical, issue, editorial integrity, and the others. Mini-essays, not dictionary definitions.
Affiliate-free
A publication that does not maintain affiliate accounts and does not earn commission on reader purchases. The term is meaningful only when paired with structural arrangements that prevent re-introducing the conflict through other means.
Curated
A small selection of items chosen by an editor with a defensible criterion, presented as a complete recommendation rather than as a comprehensive index. The word has been overused; the practice has not.
Curation vs aggregation
The structural distinction between editorial selection (curation) and algorithmic or comprehensive collection (aggregation). Curation excludes; aggregation includes. Both are useful; conflating them is not.
Editorial integrity
The principle that the editorial decisions of a publication — what to recommend, what to exclude, what order to present them in — are made on the basis of editorial judgment alone, separated structurally from any commercial considerations.
Editorial standard
The set of practices a publication holds itself to in producing and presenting its work — the floor below which content is not published. Different publications have different standards; transparent publications publish theirs.
Issue
A single, dated, sequentially-numbered installment of a periodical, containing one editorial argument or one curated piece of work, preserved in the publication's permanent record.
Long tail
The structural distribution in consumer markets in which the dominant share of attention goes to a small number of well-known items, while a larger number of less-known items collectively account for the rest. Curation operates against the long tail; aggregation surfaces it.
Periodical
A publication issued at regular intervals, with sequentially numbered issues, an editorial line that persists across them, and a date of publication that is part of the editorial record.
Pick fatigue
The reader-side exhaustion produced by exposure to too many recommendations across too many publications, leading to a paradoxical decrease in the quality of consumer decisions despite the increase in available editorial input.
Reviewed by
The editorial practice of having a piece read and approved by a credentialed person other than the writer before publication. The 'reviewed by' line in an article header documents this practice and identifies the person who did the work.