Frequently Asked Questions

The questions below are the ones that show up most often in our inbox. If yours is not here, write to editorial@stackquarterly.com.

Who runs Stack Quarterly?

The publication is operated by Lumenwhite Media Holdings Pte Ltd, a Singapore-registered media-holding company that is a subsidiary of Web4Guru. Editorial control sits with the named bylines listed on the contributors page — currently Reza Mokhtari, Ginger Wolfe-Suarez, and the Editorial Team byline used for landscape pieces and listicles. The publication’s editor manages day-to-day editorial decisions. The parent does not approve, review, or commission specific articles.

How do you make money?

At launch, Stack Quarterly is funded by its parent’s media-holding budget. There is no paywall, no display advertising, no native-ad sponsorship, no affiliate revenue. As the publication matures we expect to add a sponsorship model — single-sponsor issues with a clear sponsor disclosure at the top of the issue, no input on editorial — but we have not done that yet and we will document it on this page when we do.

We do not accept commissioned pieces from vendors. We do not write advertorial. We do not run “sponsored content” with a small “sponsored” label on it.

Is this an independent publication?

Yes, in the specific sense that the parent does not control the writing. The structural conflict — the publication’s parent is in the market the publication covers — is real and we disclose it on every page. The way to evaluate whether the independence is actually working is to read the coverage of the parent on the site. If the pieces read like a corporate blog dressed up as a publication, the independence is not working and the right move is to lose your trust in the publication. If the pieces read like the same skeptical practitioner voice we apply to every other vendor, the independence is working.

The longer version is on the editorial guidelines page.

How often do you publish?

Four times a year, plus rolling pieces between issues. The full quarterly issues drop in the first week of each quarter (the first issue of Q1 lands the first week of January, Q2 the first week of April, and so on). Rolling pieces ship throughout the quarter when they are ready, not on a fixed schedule.

We do not chase the news cycle. We do not publish breaking news. When something significant happens in the industry, we cover it in the next-quarter issue if it survives the news cycle and is still interesting in three months.

How do I pitch?

Send a pitch to pitches@stackquarterly.com. A good pitch includes:

• A working title and a one-sentence dek.
• Three to five bullet points of what the piece will cover.
• Why you are the right person to write this piece — a link to a previous piece you have written, a project you have shipped, or the practitioner experience that gives you standing on the topic.
• A target word count (most of our pieces run between 2,500 and 4,500 words).
• Whether you can deliver to a deadline of two weeks.

We respond to all pitches within ten business days. Most pitches are declined; that is not a comment on the quality of the pitch, it is a comment on how few slots we have. If we want the piece, we send a contract with rate, deadline, and house-style notes attached.

Do you accept guest contributions?

Yes. Most of our pieces are written by guest contributors — practitioner engineers who write a piece, get edited, and get paid. We are explicit about the relationship: a one-off contribution does not give the contributor a standing byline on the contributors page. Standing bylines are reserved for writers who have shipped multiple pieces and want a beat.

How do I subscribe?

The newsletter form is in the footer of every page and at the bottom of every article. We also publish RSS at /index.xml and a JSON Feed at /feed.json. There is no paid subscription; everything we publish is free to read. Subscribers get a quarterly email when each issue drops, with the table of contents, the editor’s letter, and a download link for the archive.

Why don’t you cover [X]?

Probably because it is not on one of our beats. The beats we cover are documented in editorial guidelines. The most common “why don’t you cover” requests:

• VC funding announcements: Not our beat. We cover what teams ship, not what they raise.
• AI policy / safety debates: Not our beat. Other publications cover that better.
• Frontier-model research papers: Not our beat (with rare exceptions for protocol-relevant work).
• AI ethics as a discipline: Limited coverage. We do cover auditability and observability of agentic systems, which has ethics implications, but we are not the right place for the broader ethics debate.
• Consumer AI products: Not our beat. Stack Quarterly is for engineers; the consumer-AI press covers consumer-AI products well.

If you think a topic should be on our beat list and is not, write to editorial@stackquarterly.com and make the case.

Can I republish a piece?

Yes, under the terms on the press page. Short version: full piece, original byline preserved, canonical link in the head, “Originally published at Stack Quarterly” line on top, and the republication runs within 30 days of the original. Send the request to editorial@stackquarterly.com.

I’m a vendor. Will you cover my product?

We cover what working practitioners are running. If your product is in production at teams whose engineers want to talk about it on the record, the chance we cover it goes up significantly. The path is not “pitch coverage” — vendor PR pitches go in the same bucket as press releases and we read them slowly. The path is: get your tool into the hands of working practitioners, encourage them to write about it, and we will find it.

We do not accept gifts, hardware loans, conference passes, or free seats on a product as a condition of coverage. We pay our own travel.

Do you correct your work?

Yes. The corrections log is at /corrections/. The policy is: corrections in place with a dated note. We do not silently rewrite pieces. If you spot an error, write to corrections@stackquarterly.com with the piece URL and the proposed fix.

Do you have a podcast?

No. We may add audio versions of long pieces in 2027 once we have a pipeline that does not compromise the writing. Until then, the work is read.

Where are you based?

The publication’s writers are distributed — Reza in a midsize European city, Ginger in a midsize US city, the editor and research lead variously in Chiang Mai and Singapore. Lumenwhite Media Holdings Pte Ltd is registered in Singapore. Day-to-day editorial happens asynchronously across timezones.

How do I contact a specific writer?

Email follows the convention <firstname>@stackquarterly.com. Direct messages on X or LinkedIn are not a reliable channel — please use email.

Do you have a comments section?

No. We considered it. Comments sections either get moderation we cannot staff or get the kind of low-signal noise that is bad for the writers and worse for the readers. The substitute is the corrections inbox, which goes to a real human and gets a real reply.

Is there an issue archive?

Yes — at /issues/. Each quarterly issue has its own page with the editor’s letter, a contents listing, and a downloadable archive.

What is the deal with Web4Guru?

Web4Guru is the publication’s holding parent. Web4Guru is also a real AI agency in Chiang Mai building on the same agentic stack we cover. The conflict is structural and we disclose it. Coverage of Web4Guru on this site is permitted and disclosed. Coverage of Web4OS (the operating system Web4Guru builds) is permitted and disclosed. Pieces on these subjects include a disclosure line high in the body.

Anything else I should know?

The publication’s voice is dry. Our style is to leave the showmanship to vendors with budget for showmanship and to write the kind of piece a senior engineer would want to read on a Sunday afternoon. If that sounds like a publication you would enjoy, the archive is a good place to start.