AGIT Story Guidelines

Asians & Gingers in Tech (AGIT) is a feature series published by HOIBOY AI LTD (UK Companies House 17211412), the company behind hoiboy.uk. When you send us your story through the “Get featured” form, these guidelines are the deal between you and us. The consent box on the form is where you agree to them, so please read this first.

The short version: tell your own true story, be kind about the people in it, keep your old employer’s secrets, and you get the final say before anything goes public.

1. Tell your own true story

Write about your own experience, in your own words. It should be true to the best of your knowledge. Don’t invent events, don’t exaggerate to make a better story, and don’t tell someone else’s story as if it were yours.

We publish these features to celebrate quiet, heads-down people doing brilliant work. That only works if the stories are real.

2. Be kind about the people in it

Your story will probably mention other people: colleagues, managers, companies. Be fair and be kind.

  • Name people only when it’s positive. If you’re crediting a mentor, a teammate, or a manager who backed you, name them by all means (see the permission point below).
  • For anything critical or negative, don’t name them. Use a role instead (“a manager”, “a client”, “the vendor”) or leave them out. We will not publish a named allegation about an identifiable person.
  • Get permission for anyone you name. By submitting, you confirm you have that person’s permission to be named, or you’re happy for us to anonymise them to a role. If you’re not sure, leave the name out and we’ll use a role.

Before a feature goes live we surface every named person for a final check, so nobody is named without a clear yes.

3. Keep your old job’s secrets

Don’t share anything confidential from a current or former employer or client: things covered by an NDA, trade secrets, unreleased products, customer data, security details, internal figures. If it isn’t already public and you wouldn’t say it on a stage, don’t put it in your story.

You can absolutely talk about what you built and what you learned. Just keep it at the level of your own experience, not your employer’s confidential material.

4. How we edit: form, not facts

We edit every feature before it’s published, with AI assistance, but only for form, never for facts.

  • We do: fix grammar and spelling, tidy structure and flow, trim length, and remove the em dashes our site doesn’t use.
  • We do not: change what happened, add claims you didn’t make, sharpen an opinion into an accusation, or put words in your mouth.

Your feature should still sound like you, not like us. If a clarity edit would change your meaning, we don’t make it. We ask you instead.

5. You approve before it goes public

Nothing goes live until you’ve seen the exact final wording and said yes.

When your feature is ready, we email the final version to the address you gave us. You read it, and it only publishes once you reply to approve it. No approval, no publish. If you want a change, tell us and we’ll revise and send it again.

6. What you’re confirming when you submit

When you tick the consent box and send your story, you’re confirming that:

  • the story is your own true experience, and it’s yours to share;
  • you have permission to name anyone you’ve named, or you accept that we’ll anonymise them;
  • your story doesn’t disclose anyone’s confidential or NDA-protected information;
  • your story doesn’t defame anyone or infringe anyone’s rights;
  • you’ll have the chance to approve the exact final wording by email before it goes live.

If something you tell us turns out not to be true and it causes us a real, direct loss, you agree to cover that loss. This is limited to losses that genuinely flow from a broken promise above. It isn’t a blanket sign-over.

7. Who’s responsible for what

You’re responsible for the truth of your story and for the promises in section 6. We’re responsible for editing only the form and not the facts, for getting your approval before we publish, and for taking a feature down quickly if you ask.

Nothing in these guidelines limits any responsibility that the law does not allow to be limited. That includes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, and for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation. These guidelines are the fair deal between us, not a way for either side to sign away responsibility that the law keeps in place.

8. Changed your mind? Take it down

A published feature stays up only as long as you want it to. Email [email protected] and ask us to take it down, and we will, promptly. You don’t need to give a reason.

The same address is the way to reach us about anything here, including if you spot something in a live feature that needs fixing.

For how we handle your personal data and your photo, see the Privacy Notice.

About our editing

The short note below is what we show readers on a published feature, so they know how it was made:

This feature was written by the person it’s about and edited for clarity with AI assistance. We tidy grammar, structure, and length; we don’t change the facts, the claims, or the meaning. The author approved the exact wording before it went live.