Policy Publication and Version Control

This standard governs how the Company's policies are published and versioned. Policies are live records in the publishing system, not documents attached to messages: a policy is published from the admin portal, the site presents the current published version on every request, and every version is kept with its publisher, its time of publication, and its change notes. The version history is evidence, and this standard treats it that way.

Roles and duties

• The Managing Member approves every material change to a policy before publication and decides whether a change requires notice to sellers or customers before it takes effect.
• The Legal function reviews each change for consistency with the governing document above it: the Terms of Use for site policies, and the Selling Terms of Service for seller policies: and confirms the change notes describe the change accurately.
• The Policy Publisher (the administrator who publishes) prepares the text away from the live record, publishes it, reads the rendered page immediately after publication, and records the publication in the publication log.

The publication route

Policies are edited at /admin/policies/editor and published from the admin portal. The public index at /policies lists every published policy as a card: title, an excerpt taken from the first paragraph of the body, in the order set at publication: linking to /policies/[slug]. The public pages read the current published record on every request: a newly published policy is visible immediately, with no rebuild and no deployment.

Policies are presented at /policies, their own home. They are not cataloged in the Help Center; the two systems link to each other and are not mixed.

The slug rule

The address of a policy is derived from its title: lower case, with runs of non-alphanumeric characters collapsed to hyphens: for example, "CANCELLATIONS" becomes cancellations. The same derivation is used by the index and by the detail page, so the two always agree. It follows that renaming a policy renames its address, and the former address no longer resolves.

1. Before any rename, search for incoming references to the current address: in messages, in the Terms of Use, in other policies, and in correspondence with regulators.
2. Prefer editing a policy's body over retitling it.
3. If a rename is unavoidable, record the former and new addresses in the publication log and update every internal reference in the same publication.

Keep titles distinct enough that they produce distinct addresses. Two titles that reduce to the same address collide, and the detail lookup finds the first match.

Procedure: publishing a version

1. Prepare the complete revised text away from the live record.
2. Obtain the Managing Member's approval for any material change, and the Legal function's consistency check against the governing document.
3. Write the change notes before publishing. Notes must state what changed in terms a later reader can act on: "the refund window changed from 14 to 30 days," not a general remark. Empty change notes on a material change become an unanswerable question in a later appeal.
4. Set the order deliberately. Group related policies together, and place the highest-traffic policies: cancellations, refunds, privacy, terms: first.
5. Publish, then open the public page and read it as rendered. Correct any error by publishing a corrected version at once; do not leave a known error live.
6. Give notice of material changes as the governing document requires. Publication without notice is for corrections that change no obligation.
7. Record the publication: title, version, publisher, time, and change notes: in the publication log.

The version history

The version history at /admin/policies/versions keeps every published version of every policy: version number, change notes, publisher, and time, for site policies and marketplace policies alike. It exists to answer three questions

• In an enforcement appeal: what did the rule say on the date of the conduct in question?
• In a regulatory inquiry: when did this policy take effect?
• In the Company's own record: what changed, and when did the change publish: which is also the evidence behind any requirement that sellers re-accept changed terms.

Policy versions are never removed or pruned. They are kept in the permanent class under Record Retention.

Standby text

The policy pages carry standby text so that a legal link never fails outright. If no Privacy Policy is published, the page presents general standby copy covering cookie categories, consent mechanics, data holdings, and the Company contact block, until a Privacy Policy is published from the admin portal, at which point the published policy takes precedence. A separate choices page takes its approved copy from the published copy set, and a legal document with no published version presents a notice directing readers to support@aapawz.com.

Standby text is a safety measure, not a substitute for a policy. It is general and does not describe the Platform's actual practices in full: marketplace sellers, telehealth, and franchises among them. The Legal function keeps a list of every place standby text is still being presented; each entry on that list is a policy the Company has not yet published in its own words. A notice that a document is being prepared is an honest statement for a short period; left in place indefinitely, it becomes a statement of a different kind.

Removing a policy

Removing a policy record removes its public page. Removal does not erase the version history, but the public link dies, and any document or enforcement action that referred to the policy loses its target. Supersede a policy with a new version in preference to removing it. Removal requires the Managing Member's approval and a note in the publication log stating what replaced the policy, or that nothing did.

The first paragraph

The index excerpt is the first paragraph of the body. Write the first paragraph of every policy as its summary; for most visitors it is the only part they read.

Records created and where they are kept

This standard creates each published policy version, its change notes, the publication log, the list of places where standby text is presented, and rename records. Versions are kept in the policy store and its version history, permanently; the publication log and the standby-text list are kept by the Legal function with the corporate records under Record Retention.

Escalation

A conflict between a policy and the document that governs it, a change that a governing document relies on, a rename that would break an external reference, and any question about whether a change is material are escalated to the Legal function at legal@aapawz.com before publication. Operational publication questions go to support@aapawz.com.

Review cadence

The Legal function reviews the published policy set, the standby-text list, and the publication log quarterly, and reviews this standard once a year.