The Artlance Charter

1. Authorial Independence

Artlance is 100% committed to the independence of writers.
Commissioners are granted no input into a writer's work other than designating the commission subject matter, word count, and deadline.
Commissioners do not take part in editorial oversight or any part of the editorial process.
Artlance serves as a mediation layer between commissioners and writers, protecting the latter from both soft and hard coercion, while ensuring the former receive high-quality fulfillment of their commissions.
Artlance mediates all communication between commissioners and writers.
Writers retain 100% of their intellectual property and primary publication rights.

2. Transparency and Disclosures

All content is commissioned via the Artlance platform so as to establish transparency and integrity for both commissioners and writers.
All Artlance commissioned work carries the standardized disclosure: "Commissioned writing, independent opinion, facilitated by Artlance." This disclosure appears with every Artlance commissioned publication.

3. Writer Payments

Artlance maintains a "floor" rate of $1.00/word for writers. This rate may scale up for writers with broader, established audiences. This floor may be subject to revision upwards as national and regional conditions change, and will be adapted for international circumstances.
Commissioners pay a surcharge of 20% on top of the writer's rate if word count is below 1000 words. Commissioner surcharge is 15% for word counts of 1000 words and above. Surcharges fund Artlance operations, editorial oversight, and a "Treasury" from which Artlance will commission art writers and fund other Artlance related projects.

4. Editorial Oversight

Artlance provides "first-reader" editorial oversight and support: this includes copy cleaning, syntactical and grammatical correction, and fact-checking, but does not extend to questions of content.
Artlance protects every writer's decisions with regard to form, style, and voice, provided the submitted text remains accountable to the scope of the commission and Artlance's standards of engagement (see next section).
Artlance uses AI-assisted tools as part of its editorial process. These tools assist with copy cleaning, syntactical and grammatical correction, fact-checking, and initial Standards of Engagement screening. All final editorial determinations — including approval, revision requests, and kill decisions — are made by a human editor.

5. Standards of Engagement

Writers agree to engage the scope of the commission, whether this be an exhibition, event, presentation, activation, or other cultural production whose critique is the purpose of the commission.
Writing that ignores the commissioned subject, or only engages with that subject at a level deemed inappropriate by Artlance editorial may be rejected.
Artlance reserves the right to make judgements as to whether any commissioned piece of writing meets its standard of engagement.
Writers who fail to meet the standards of engagement may be ineligible for future commissions.
Writers that fail to deliver high-quality, publishable content or to meet deadlines and so prevent Artlance from fulfilling commissions will lose access to the Artlance.

6. Discovery & SEO Integrity

Artlance utilizes digests and rel="canonical" tags to drive traffic and search authority back to the author's personal platforms (Substack, Medium, Ghost, etc.).

7. Conflict of Interest

Artlance requires writers to disclose any material conflict of interest related to a commission before claiming it. Material conflicts include financial relationships, employment, governance relationships, family ties, or other personal connections to the commissioning organization or its principals.
Writers who have a material conflict of interest may not claim the relevant commission. Artlance reserves the right to determine whether a disclosed relationship constitutes a disqualifying conflict.
The following conflicts are absolute and may not be waived: writers may not claim commissions that would entail writing about a current or recent (within six months) romantic partner; writers may not claim commissions that would entail writing about family members; and writers may not claim commissions from any commissioner that has paid them for other work — writing or otherwise — within the preceding three months.
All Artlance commissioned work must be published without a paywall. Writers may not use an Artlance commissioned piece to solicit, induce, or gate subscriptions, memberships, donations, or other individual-platform funding. The commissioned piece must be freely and publicly accessible to all readers.
Writers publish on their own independent platforms (personal websites, Substack, Ghost, newsletter platforms, social media with extended captions, etc.). Publication on collective critical projects is also acceptable, provided those projects do not sell subscriptions or advertising.
Artlance's structural separation of commissioners from writers, combined with mandatory disclosure, open-access publication, and conflict-of-interest obligations, ensures that no party can leverage commissioned work for undisclosed private benefit.