Also called the 5 Ws + How, every great story needs to answer these questions:

1. Who…is/was involved?
2. What…happened?
3. Where…did it happen?
4. When…did it happen?
5. Why…did it happen?
6. How…did it happen?

While these rules were written for traditional journalism and news coverage, they can be applied to almost any story you write for HackerNoon, even if they’re not event based.

For example, if you are writing a guide on How to Redirect AMP URLs in WordPress, you might change those questions slightly like so:

1. Who…is this guide for/relevant to?
2. What…is this guide going to teach?
3. Where…or to what platform/tools is this guide applicable?
4. When…is it best to use this guide and how long will it be relevant?
5. Why…is this guide necessary and why did you write it?
6. How…do you do it?

If your story seems to be missing the answer to one of these crucial questions, we may ask you to add that missing information before publishing.

Editing Protocol Index:

1. Editing Protocol Overview

   1. Second Human Rule

      1. Verified Writers

   2. Time to Review

2. Standards of Quality

   1. Originality Score
   2. 6 Ws Score
   3. Objectivity in ranked listicles
   4. Unranked listicles
   5. Actionable advice

3. Red Flags

   1. Subject Matter

      1. Subject matter saturation

   2. Plagiarism

   3. Sources and Citations

   4. Formatting is bad or broken

   5. Grammar level: gibberish

   6. Story is Too Short

4. Backlink Rules & Guidelines

   1. Backlink Limits

   2. Backlink quality and diversity

      1. Diversity of sources
      2. Internal linking
      3. Changing links

   3. Reposting and Canonical Linking

      1. Canonical links to company domain
      2. Canonical links to blog networks or social networks