Documentation coordinator reviewing a printed policy binder at a long table in a bright office

About us

About the Paldorin Digital policy team

Paldorin Digital maintains a public documentation library: the policies, style standards, and compliance guidelines that govern how we work and how we write about it. This site is that library.

The library

Small on purpose, findable in one or two clicks

The site is small by design. It contains what an outside reader or an internal writer needs, organized so the right document is one or two clicks from the front page. Everything here is published under the same reading standard.

That standard is the reason the library exists at all. Staff, partners, and readers outside the organization ask similar questions about what our rules say, who owns them, and when they were last reviewed. Instead of answering those questions one email at a time, we publish the answers where anyone can check them and cite them.

What the library holds
Organizational rules, editorial standards, accessibility requirements, and content governance practice.
Who it is written for
People inside the organization who have to follow a rule, and readers outside it who need to verify one.

Keep policy documentation accurate, current, and readable.

That is a narrower job than it sounds, and most of it happens before a document is published.

What we are here to do

Our job is to keep policy documentation accurate, current, and readable. Four commitments carry that work, and each one shows up in how a document is written rather than in how it is announced.

  1. Ownership and review

    Every published document has an owner

    A document carries a named owner, a review date, and a reason to exist. When any of the three goes missing, the document is a candidate for revision or for retirement. Review dates are tracked on a calendar, so a policy cannot quietly outlive the situation it was written for.

  2. One shared style

    The writing follows one standard, not the last drafter

    Sentence-case headings, plain language, active voice, and a predictable page order apply across the library. A reader who has learned how one document behaves should not have to relearn the format on the next page. Where a team's habitual phrasing would conflict with the standard, the standard wins and the team is told why.

  3. Accessibility from the start

    Contrast, structure, and keyboard access are part of the draft

    Accessibility requirements are treated as part of the standard rather than a cleanup task scheduled later, if at all. Heading order, link text, and color contrast are checked while the document is being written, because retrofitting them after publication costs more and usually gets done incompletely.

  4. Plain language

    A rule a reader cannot follow is not finished

    We write for the person who has to apply the rule on a Tuesday afternoon, not for the person who drafted it. Short sentences, defined terms, and worked examples replace the hedging that tends to accumulate as a policy passes through review.

Two colleagues discussing a policy document at a window in a quiet office

Why the library is public

We publish these documents openly because policy that only insiders can check is difficult to trust. Readers cite our pages in contracts, grant reports, and internal procedures, and they can verify what we actually say rather than relying on a summary.

Citable as written

A reader can quote the page itself instead of paraphrasing it secondhand, which keeps the rule and its wording in the same place.

Drift gets noticed

It is harder to let a policy slide when the review date is visible to anyone reading the page, not just to the team that owns it.

One public layer

Publishing is selective. The documents on this site are the ones we are willing to be held to in the open, with our names attached.

How the documentation is organized

The library splits into four working areas, plus three legal pages covering privacy, cookies, and terms of service. Each area has one job, so a reader with a question can usually tell which door to open before clicking.

Policy Handbook

Organizational rules and the standards a policy must meet before it can be published. Start here when you need to know what applies, not just what is preferred.

Open the Policy Handbook

Documentation Style Guide

Editorial and formatting conventions for everything published on the site: headings, capitalization, terminology, lists, and how to phrase an instruction someone can act on.

Open the Style Guide

Accessibility Standards

Section 508 practice and the reasoning behind our plain, high-contrast pages, including what we check during drafting and what we correct when a reader reports a problem.

Open Accessibility Standards

Content Governance

Review, approval, and archiving: who signs off, how often a document comes back for review, and what happens to a page that is superseded.

Open Content Governance
Editor's hands marking a printed policy draft beside a keyboard on a pale desk

The people behind the pages

Documents are written by the teams they govern and owned by named individuals, not by an anonymous editorial desk. Each published page names its current owner, so a reader who disagrees with a rule knows who to talk to rather than which inbox to guess at.

The documentation function coordinates the process, maintains the templates and style standards, and keeps the review calendar. Legal review joins whenever a document touches privacy, contracts, or regulatory obligations. Neither group publishes alone when the other is involved.

  • Named owners. Every document page lists the person accountable for its content and its review date.

  • Shared templates. One set of document templates and one style standard apply across every area of the library.

  • Legal review. Documents that touch privacy, contracts, or regulatory obligations go through legal before publication.

How we work with other teams

Most policies start as a problem someone hit in practice: a rule applied two different ways, a question that keeps coming back through support, a regulation that changed. We draft with the team affected, not for them, because policy written without the people who follow it tends to describe an idealized process rather than the real one. Draft review is where that gap usually shows up, and catching it there is cheaper than catching it in an incident.

Ask what actually happens

We start with the real workflow, including the shortcuts and exceptions nobody documented.

Draft alongside the team

The people who follow the rule write the first version with us, not after us.

Review against the standard

Editorial review checks structure and phrasing; legal review joins when obligations are in play.

Publish with a review date

The page goes live with its owner and a date on which it comes back for review.

Published under one reading standard

Every page on this site follows the same editorial rules: plain language, active voice, sentence-case headings, and structure that supports scanning. The result is a library that reads consistently whether you are in the Policy Handbook or the Cookie Policy. Consistency is not decoration here. A reader who learns how one of our documents behaves should not have to relearn the format on the next page.

Accessibility as an organizational commitment

Our pages meet Section 508 expectations for contrast, structure, and keyboard navigation, and the writing standards are chosen partly for how they perform with assistive technology. This commitment predates any single page on the site and applies to new documents from their first draft. Where we fall short, the Contact page reaches the owner who can correct it.

What we do not publish

Personnel records, client-specific agreements, security procedures, and internal access controls stay in controlled systems with their own permissions. Their absence from this library is deliberate.

What you find here is the public layer of our documentation: the standards we are willing to be held to, in the open, with our names attached. If a document you expected is missing, the Contact page reaches the owner who can tell you whether it exists and where it lives.

Address
1201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 700, Arlington, VA 22209, United States
Hours
Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM (Eastern Time)
Quiet documentation office at the end of the day with closed folders squared on a reading table

Where to go next

Start with the Policy Handbook if you need to know what applies. Use the Style Guide if you are writing. Read Content Governance if you need to know how a document is reviewed, approved, or retired. If a question is not answered anywhere in the library, the policy team is reachable during working hours.

Paldorin Digital Policy Center — published in the open, with owners named.