Who publishes this site
The Newsroom
Ridgeburn Press · Editorial standards and accountability
What we publish, how a page gets here, what each of the eight evidence classifications means — and what a reader reaction is, which is never evidence.
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Evidence classifications
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Corrections issued to date
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Editorial review stages
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Standing right of response
Established fact
What a primary document shows on its face — a deposited plan, a record of title, a registered instrument. Cited, and checkable by you.
Applicant claim
What the application itself states. Reported as the applicant's own figure, attributed as such, and never restated as a finding.
Expert opinion
The signed judgement of a named expert in a named discipline, published with the instruction they were given.
Modelling and estimate
A calculated projection carrying its assumptions with it. Around 3,000 daily vehicle movements is an estimate, not a count, and it is labelled that way.
Unanswered question
Something the record does not answer. Named as unanswered and left that way, rather than filled in with a plausible guess.
Allegation requiring investigation
Raised, not adopted. Carried only as "Unverified — under investigation" until a document supports it — or dropped.
Ridgeburn Press exists to show what a 1,200-dwelling development at Arrow Junction would do to this place — the traffic, the wastewater and nitrogen loading, the night sky, the landscape — by putting the documents and the figures where anyone can read them, and letting readers reach their own conclusion.
We are not neutral about the proposal. We are disciplined about the evidence, and the discipline is the whole point. A case built on sourced documents survives scrutiny. A case built on assertion hands the other side one easy correction and loses everything standing next to it.
What we hold ourselves to
- No adverse claim about a named person or company without a source link. Not a softened version of one, not an implication. The claim waits for the document.
- Documents, not motives. Ridgeburn Limited, Morven Ferry Limited, the Queenstown Lakes District Council, and any Minister or councillor appearing in the record, appear here in official-capacity, process-descriptive terms only. We do not assert, infer or imply why anyone did anything.
- Six ways of knowing, never blurred. An established fact, an applicant claim, an expert opinion, a modelled estimate, an unanswered question and an allegation requiring investigation are six different things, and none of them is allowed to stand in for another. The eight classifications that carry them are set out at How We Classify Evidence.
- Where the record is silent, we say so. An unanswered question is published as an unanswered question. It is not converted into a suggestion.
- What we get wrong is published. Corrections are issued on the page that carried the error and listed in the register at Corrections and Right of Response.
Why there are no names on the cards below
Six editorial roles are set out on this page and none of them carries a name yet. That is deliberate. A newsroom that invents a masthead has already failed the standard it is asking of everyone else, and an invented byline is exactly the kind of small untruth that discredits a sourced figure three pages away. Each role is named when the person filling it has agreed to be named publicly. Until then the accountability is described rather than dressed up. [Awaiting client evidence]
About reader reactions, and what they are not
Where a published item carries the seven-point reaction scale, a reader can register how they feel about what they have just read, from strong agreement through to strong opposition. It is one tap, it is anonymous, and it is a measure of feeling.
Public sentiment is not evidence. A reaction count records how readers feel about a proposition. It does not make the proposition true, and it is never cited on this site as though it did.
No expert instruction, no submission and no page on this site rests on a reaction count. Where sentiment is reported it is reported as sentiment, alongside the evidence and never in place of it. Comments are open on the 10 Questions Ridgeburn Must Answer once those questions are published, and nowhere else at launch — a discussion attached to every article is a moderation problem we would rather not pretend to have solved.
How a page gets here
The eight steps below are not a description of good intentions. Steps four to seven are the publishing platform's own states: an item is a draft until it is submitted, it goes from submitted into legal review, and only from there does it become published. The stage an item is at is recorded against the item itself, not remembered by whoever wrote it.
Anyone named on this site — Ridgeburn Limited, the Queenstown Lakes District Council, or any individual — may respond in full, and the response is published unedited. Here is how.
A single checkable statement is written down — what is claimed, by whom, and about what. Anything that cannot be reduced to a proposition somebody could disprove does not become a page.
Investigative articles
Long-form work built on the documentary record: what a document says, what it does not say, and what follows from it. The bulk of what this site is for.
Expert summaries
A commissioned report, published in full, with a plain-language summary of what it concluded and what it could not determine. The expert is named; so is their instruction.
Explainers
How a fast-track referral works, how wastewater treatment and land disposal work, what sky glow is. No position taken — the position is argued elsewhere, on the evidence.
Interviews
Published with the speaker identified and their words carried accurately. What an interviewee asserts is their statement, and is classified as one, not as a finding of ours.
Opinion, clearly labelled
Argument, marked as argument, kept visibly apart from the record. An opinion piece on this site may persuade you; it may never be cited here as though it established something.
Development and council updates
Procedural reporting on the application and the decisions around it: what was lodged, what was notified, what stage the process has reached. Descriptive, and strictly official-capacity.
Editor
[Name to be published]
Accountable for everything published here, including the mistakes. Decides what becomes a page, signs off publication, and carries any complaint about the site as a whole.
Evidence Editor
[Name to be published]
Accountable for the classification on every item and for the register behind it. Holds the line between an established fact, an applicant claim, an expert opinion and a modelled estimate.
Legal Review
[Name to be published]
Accountable for the review stage no item skips. Reads for adverse statements about named people or companies that are not carried by a source, and returns anything that fails rather than softening it.
Expert Liaison
[Name to be published]
Accountable for how the thirteen disciplines are instructed: that each brief is written to find what is there, that no instruction asks for a conclusion, and that fees and instructions are published with the report.
Corrections Officer
[Name to be published]
Accountable for the correction register and the standing right of response. Receives every request, publishes responses unedited, and records what changed and when.
Community Moderator
[Name to be published]
Accountable for the comment thread on the 10 Questions and for the reaction data. Removes unsourced allegations about named people, and keeps sentiment out of the evidence record.
The seven-point reaction scale
Anonymous · One tap
Where an item carries it, you can register one of seven reactions — from strong agreement through to strong opposition — without signing in or writing anything. It takes one tap and it is not attached to your name.
It is never evidence
Sentiment, not proof
A reaction count measures how readers feel about a proposition. It does not make it true. No page here, and no expert instruction paid for by the fund, rests on a reaction count — where sentiment is reported it is reported as sentiment.
Where comments are open
The 10 Questions only
Comments run on the 10 Questions Ridgeburn Must Answer, once those questions are published, and nowhere else at launch. Unsourced allegations about named people are removed — the same rule we apply to ourselves.
How to request a correction
Open to anyone named
Tell us the page, the sentence and what is wrong with it. Ridgeburn Limited, the Queenstown Lakes District Council and any person named here may respond in full, and the response is published unedited.
Our standing principle
We publish documents, figures and unanswered questions — not motives. Where the record is silent, we say so.
Ridgeburn Press editorial standard
Expert evidence fund
Evidence costs money
This newsroom can read a document for nothing. It cannot model traffic, test a wastewater assumption or assess sky glow for nothing. Thirteen expert disciplines, seven milestones and a $500,000 target are set out in full on the support page, along with how the money is accounted for.
$100,000 raised of $500,00020%
[Awaiting client evidence] — contributions are handled on the support page, where the milestone ladder and the accountability commitments are published. The payment platform is still to be confirmed; no money is taken through this website.
Your reaction
How did this land with you?
A yes/no can't carry how you feel — pick the face that does. Every reaction is counted — we'll check it's you with a quick email code.
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