Editorial Standards

These standards govern every article published on melbz.com.au. They are reviewed every three months by the editor-in-chief and updated when our process changes. The “Last reviewed” date at the foot of this page is authoritative.

1. Voice and writing standard

We name the reader. We name the decision. We answer it.

A MELBZ article does not say “Fitzroy has a vibrant café scene.” It says “If you’re a remote worker who needs a fast Wi-Fi café in Fitzroy that doesn’t run a grinder every six minutes, here are the four that work.”

Every article must:

• Name an audience. Renter, parent, hospitality shift worker, recent arrival, retiree downsizer, dog owner, etc. Generic “Melburnians” is not an audience.
• Name a decision. Where to live, where to eat tonight, which school zone, which gym, which weekend trip. Vague “things to do” is not a decision.
• Be specific. Named venues, real prices, real opening hours, real travel times. No “vibrant,” “hidden gem,” “must-visit,” “buzzing,” “iconic,” or other placeholder language.
• Take a position. We rank, we recommend, we say what’s overrated. We do not produce listicles where every entry is “great” — that’s not useful.
• Use first-hand voice when possible. “We visited on a Tuesday at 11:40pm” beats “this venue stays open late.”

We avoid the AI-style prose that has flooded local guides since 2023: passive constructions, hedged opinions, repetitive “nestled in,” “boasts,” “offers a unique experience” patterns. If a sentence reads like it could appear on any other suburb’s page, it gets rewritten.

2. Sourcing standard

Every factual claim in a MELBZ article must be traceable to a primary source.

Required sourcing:

• Demographic and economic data (population, median rent, median age, income) — sourced from ABS Census, .id community profiles, or Domain quarterly reports. Cite the dataset and the retrieval date inline.
• Public transport claims (timetables, routes, fares, travel times) — sourced from PTV (ptv.vic.gov.au) or Metro Trains official. Retrieval date noted.
• Council data (school zones, planning zones, services) — sourced from the relevant local government area’s official site, or the Department of Education for school zones.
• Venue data (opening hours, addresses, prices, contact) — sourced from the venue’s own website or verified social media at the time of writing. Retrieval date noted.
• Historical claims — sourced from Trove (NLA), council heritage registers, Victorian Heritage Database, or named books with author and page.

Linking conventions:

• External links to primary sources use a standard <a> tag with rel="noopener".
• Affiliate links (rare) carry rel="sponsored".
• User-generated content (rare) carries rel="ugc".
• Links to council, government, or academic sources are preferred over secondary press references when both are available.

What does not count as sourcing:

• Other listicles, ChatGPT outputs, generic blog posts, or content farms.
• “According to locals” without a named local.
• Unsourced statistical claims of the “Melbourne is the second-most X city” kind.

If we can’t source a claim, we cut the claim.

3. Fact-checking process

Every article passes a verification step before publish:

1. Existence check. Every venue, school, transport service, or business named is confirmed to exist via at least one primary source (own website, official register, Google Maps with recent reviews). We do not publish articles about fabricated places. The 2024–2025 wave of AI-generated guides recommending non-existent cafés is the exact failure mode we exist to avoid.
2. Recency check. Any data point older than 12 months is either re-verified or labelled with the year of the original source.
3. Address and contact check. Addresses are cross-referenced against Google Maps. Phone numbers and websites are checked at the time of writing.
4. Claim review. Subjective claims (“the best,” “the busiest”) are reviewed by the editor for whether they are defensible. If we say “the busiest tram stop in Brunswick at 8am,” we have either observed it or sourced it.

Articles failing any check go back to the writer. They do not publish.

4. Accuracy target

We target zero factual errors at publish.

We accept that errors will sometimes occur — venues close, fares change, school zones redraw. When an error is identified, our commitment is in Corrections: a public, dated correction note appended to the article and logged on the corrections page.

We do not silently edit articles to remove errors. The original wording, the correction, and the date of correction stay visible.

5. Use of AI in our pipeline

MELBZ uses AI tools at specific points and not at others. Full disclosure is on AI Disclosure. The summary:

• AI is used for: image candidate retrieval, draft research summarisation, structured data assembly, alt-text generation suggestions.
• AI is not used for: the published voice of an article, opinions and rankings, fact verification, original observation, or final editorial judgement.

Every article is read end-to-end by a named human editor before publish. Articles that fail the voice/originality bar are rewritten or rejected.

6. Conflict of interest

• Writers disclose any personal relationship (family, romantic, business) with a venue, suburb, or organisation they cover. The editor reassigns the piece if the conflict is material.
• Writers do not accept gifted meals, comped accommodation, free products, or paid press trips. If a venue insists on comping, we pay the bill or we do not publish the piece.
• The editor does not own equity in any venue, real-estate platform, or Melbourne lifestyle business covered on MELBZ.
• Sponsored content, if it ever runs, will be visually distinct, labelled “Sponsored” inline and in the byline, and will not appear in editorial rankings.

7. Image standards

• Hero images on every article are at least 1200px wide where possible, with descriptive alt text that names what is in the image and where it was taken.
• Images are either licensed (Unsplash, Pexels with attribution where required), original (taken by our team), or contributor-supplied with the contributor named.
• We do not pass off stock photos as on-the-ground reporting. If a hero image is a generic representation rather than a photo of the specific subject, the caption says so.
• Photo credit appears in the caption with a link to the source where applicable.

8. Corrections

See the full Corrections page. Summary: spot an error, email [email protected]. We respond inside two business days, fix where warranted, and log the correction publicly.

9. Review cycle

These standards are reviewed every quarter (March, June, September, December). The next review is due 2026-07-25.

When standards change, the change is dated and described at the bottom of this page.

Last reviewed: 2026-04-25 by the Melbourne Zones Editorial Board. Next review: 2026-07-25.