Commercial Content Routing Rules

## Purpose

Use these rules when an AI workflow directory receives a submission that might
be commercial, sponsored, affiliate-backed, vendor-authored, vendor-claimed, or
promotional. The goal is to keep ordinary editorial content review separate from
commercial placement and to make disclosure decisions before copy quality is
debated.

These rules do not decide whether a product is good. They decide which review
path a submission belongs in and what evidence must exist before it can appear
in a public directory.

## Classification Rules

Classify the submission before editing prose.

1. **Editorial.** A contributor independently documents a tool, workflow, rule,
   guide, or directory entry without payment, affiliate benefit, vendor control,
   or claimed ownership.
2. **Vendor-authored.** The author works for, owns, maintains, represents, or is
   formally connected to the listed product or service.
3. **Claimed.** A vendor or maintainer asks to own or correct an existing entry.
4. **Sponsored.** Placement, ordering, copy, links, or visibility are connected
   to payment, campaign value, or a commercial arrangement.
5. **Affiliate or referral.** A URL, coupon, invite code, tracking parameter, or
   account-specific link can create attribution, compensation, credits, or lead
   tracking.
6. **Thin promotion.** The submission mostly repeats sales copy, superlatives,
   launch language, pricing promises, or unsupported competitive claims.

When the classification is unclear, route the submission to maintainer review.
Do not merge it as ordinary editorial content while the relationship is unknown.

## Routing Rules

- Route sponsored, affiliate, referral, claimed, and vendor-authored submissions
  out of the free contributor queue.
- Keep commercial review maintainer-owned. Contributors can supply evidence, but
  they should not decide paid placement, sponsorship labels, or affiliate terms.
- Reject affiliate and referral URLs in ordinary contributor PRs.
- Replace tracking URLs with canonical documentation, repository, package, or
  product URLs before editorial review continues.
- Require disclosure text when the submitter has a vendor, sponsor, affiliate,
  or ownership relationship.
- Do not accept a commercial submission that lacks public source evidence for
  the claims it wants the directory to repeat.

## Editorial Quality Rules

Ordinary editorial content should describe verifiable utility rather than sell.

Accept content that:

- cites canonical docs, repos, packages, policies, or product pages;
- explains concrete use cases, prerequisites, limits, safety notes, and privacy
  notes;
- distinguishes open-source project code from hosted, paid, enterprise, or
  managed offerings;
- states commercial status plainly without making the entry sound endorsed;
- removes tracking parameters, marketing campaign fragments, and unverifiable
  rankings.

Request changes or reject content that:

- says a product is best, leading, official, trusted, secure, fastest, or most
  popular without source-backed evidence;
- imports landing-page copy without adding directory-specific context;
- hides paid plans, hosted services, enterprise upsells, or vendor control when
  they affect user expectations;
- uses affiliate links, invite links, coupon links, UTM-heavy links, or short
  links as source URLs;
- asks the directory to publish private roadmap, sales, customer, or pricing
  claims that users cannot verify.

## Disclosure Rules

Commercial status should be visible to reviewers and users.

- Say when a listing is editorial and has no paid placement or affiliate link.
- Say when a product has open-source code plus hosted, commercial, enterprise,
  marketplace, or paid support offerings.
- Say when a submission is vendor-authored, vendor-claimed, sponsored, or
  affiliate-backed.
- Use sponsored or affiliate link attributes when a published outbound link is
  commercial in that way.
- Keep disclosure close to the listing rather than hiding it only in PR comments
  or internal notes.

Disclosure does not rescue thin content. A sponsored or vendor-authored entry
still needs source evidence, safety notes, privacy notes, and directory-specific
editorial value.

## Reviewer Checklist

- [ ] {"task": "Relationship classified", "description": "The submitter relationship is editorial, vendor-authored, claimed, sponsored, affiliate, referral, or unknown"}
- [ ] {"task": "Correct route", "description": "Commercial or unclear submissions are routed to maintainer-owned review, not merged through the ordinary contributor queue"}
- [ ] {"task": "Canonical links", "description": "Source URLs are canonical and do not contain affiliate, referral, coupon, short-link, or campaign tracking parameters"}
- [ ] {"task": "Disclosure present", "description": "Paid placement, sponsorship, affiliate status, vendor authorship, or commercial ownership is disclosed where relevant"}
- [ ] {"task": "Claims verified", "description": "Feature, pricing, license, security, popularity, benchmark, and compatibility claims have public source evidence"}
- [ ] {"task": "Editorial value", "description": "The entry explains use case, prerequisites, limits, safety, and privacy instead of repeating promotional copy"}

## Do Not Merge When

- the author relationship is unknown and may be commercial;
- the PR contains affiliate, referral, coupon, invite, short-link, or tracking
  URLs in contributor content;
- a vendor-authored entry is presented as independent editorial review;
- sponsored placement is requested without maintainer-owned commercial review;
- public claims depend on private emails, sales decks, or unverified launch
  language;
- generated text turns source facts into endorsements, rankings, or unsupported
  comparative claims.

## Troubleshooting

- **The tool is useful but the PR is promotional:** reroute it first, then ask
  for source-backed, neutral copy.
- **The contributor says there is no sponsorship:** ask them to remove tracking
  URLs and state whether they have a vendor, affiliate, or ownership
  relationship.
- **A vendor submits corrections to an existing entry:** separate factual fixes
  from placement, ordering, or promotional requests.
- **A link looks canonical but includes parameters:** remove UTM, referral,
  coupon, invite, and partner parameters before using it as a source.
- **A claim is plausible but unsourced:** keep the neutral fact that can be
  verified and drop the unsupported superlative.

## Duplicate Check

Checked existing rules, guides, collections, tools, MCP entries, statuslines,
submission validators, and recent PRs for commercial routing rules, sponsored
directory submissions, affiliate link rejection, vendor-authored content,
promotional copy review, and disclosure policy.

Existing entries often include per-listing disclosure text such as "no paid
placement or affiliate link is used," and the submission pipeline rejects
affiliate/referral URLs. This rules entry is distinct because it gives portable
do/don't behavior for deciding whether a directory submission belongs in
ordinary editorial review, maintainer-owned commercial review, or rejection.

## References

- Google Search Central spam policies: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies
- Google Search Central guide to helpful, reliable, people-first content: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content
- Google Search Central guide to qualifying outbound links: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/qualify-outbound-links
- ASA guidance on recognizing ads: https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/recognising-ads-social-media.html
- ASA CAP Code Section 2 on recognition of marketing communications: https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/02.html
- ASA CAP Code Section 3 on misleading advertising: https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/03.html
- Schema.org sponsor property: https://schema.org/sponsor