Save Your Culture: Content Charter

Draft 1, 2026-10-02. This is the rulebook every page, contributor and editor follows.

1. Why this site exists

Every culture is an answer. A place asks its people questions: how to stay cool, how to keep grain through the rains, how to bear grief, how to raise a child, how to share scarce water. A culture is the answer that place worked out over many lifetimes.

When the world becomes one culture, we lose answers we may need. A field of one crop fails to one disease; a mixed field survives. People are the same.

Save your culture by understanding others. The site never says "mine is better". It says "here is what we learned, and why".

2. Who it serves

3. Voice

• Plain words. Write so a twelve-year-old and a grandmother both understand.
• No modern jargon: not "sustainability" but "keeps the land good for the next ones"; not "wellbeing" but "a calm mind".
• Short sentences. One idea per paragraph.
• Local names first, in their own script where possible, with a plain meaning.
• Describe, never preach. Let the reader draw the lesson.
• Every piece ends with a question that turns the reader to their own life ("Ask your eldest relative…").

4. The shape of knowledge

Seven roots (how we look at a culture)

1. Land and Water
2. Work and Livelihood
3. Speech and Story
4. Dress, Food and Body
5. Belief and Prayer
6. Family, Children and Elders
7. Living with the Earth

Five questions (asked of every root and practice)

1. What is it?
2. Why did it begin?
3. What does it give us today?
4. What is lost if we let it go?
5. How can anyone practise it now?

Content types

• Practice: one thing people do, and how to do it today.
• Belief and prayer: what is done, what it means in the believers' words, what it does for the person, the community and the land.
• Why question: "Why do…?" answered simply.
• Same need, different answers: the flagship comparison format.
• Saying or word: a proverb, or a word with no translation.
• Voice: a short first-hand account.
• Guide: practices gathered for one situation.
• Journey: how an idea, food or word travelled between peoples.

Place page sections

The seven roots, plus:

• How to talk
• What is precious here
• Doing it right
• What is being damaged
• How a visitor can help
• Official rules
• What people here are standing up for
• Right now

5. Tags

6. Trust: every statement says what kind it is

Community knowledge and official rules are never mixed in one sentence.

7. Belief and prayer

• Never rank one faith above another. Comparisons place traditions side by side as equals.
• Never mock, and never try to prove or disprove a belief.
• No "science proves…" claims. Describe what people experience.
• When a tradition holds more than one view, show more than one.
• Each entry covers: what is done; what it means in their words; what it does for the person; for the community; what it protects in nature.
• Belief contributions get stricter review before publishing.

8. Remedies

• Every remedy carries: "This is what people do and why they believe it helps. It is not a replacement for a doctor."
• No medical claims. No doses for children, pregnant women or the very old unless reviewed.
• Each remedy lists who should not use it, if known.
• Remedies are not marked Reviewed until a qualified person has checked them.

9. Harmful customs

Not every tradition is kind. The site records ways that heal, nourish and protect. Where a custom excludes or harms people (by caste, gender or otherwise), we do not praise it. If we describe it at all, we do so honestly and with the voices of those affected.

10. Current issues and protests

• Only issues that touch culture, land, water, language or livelihood. We are not a news site; we link to news.
• Both sides in their own words, each sourced.
• Two layers: Standing up for (background, reviewed every 90 days) and Right now (alerts, reviewed every 14 days, hidden automatically after its review date).
• Sourced or not published. Official statements and credible press. No forwarded rumours.
• Editor-reviewed only. Contributors may suggest; editors publish.
• Protect people. No names or faces of ordinary protesters. Public leaders and organisations may be named for what they said publicly.
• No calls to action for a side.

11. Visitors

• Community advice ("people here ask…") and official rules ("the law requires…") are shown separately.
• Every official rule links to its source with a "last checked" date and a line: check the source before you travel.
• We never print a fee or permit rule we cannot link to an official page.
• Name genuine crafts (GI-tagged where they exist) so visitors can buy real work.
• Be honest when tourism itself is part of the harm.

12. Respect and ownership

• Contributors are credited as they choose, or stay anonymous.
• Contributors may mark knowledge "share respectfully" or "not for commercial use".
• Some knowledge is not meant to be public. If a community asks us to remove something, we remove it.
• Content is free to read and share with credit. Open data is offered under a share-alike licence.

13. Never published

• Content that runs another people, faith, caste or language down, however it is phrased.
• Claims that one culture is purer, older or higher than another.
• Unsourced claims about current events.
• Medical claims.
• Personal details of private people.

14. Legal (to confirm with a lawyer before accepting public contributions)

• Grievance officer, takedown process and terms for contributors under India's IT Rules.
• Privacy notice for contributor data.

15. Review cadence