How The ECO Files works

ECO Reflections conversations

Isaiah Bakshi hosts every ECO Reflections conversation. He handles the invitation, the scheduling, the recording and the editing. Guests are storytellers, cultural scholars, elders and community keepers.

What we ask of a guest

• Come ready to tell your own stories or the stories you have been trusted to carry. You do not need notes or a script.
• About 30 to 60 minutes for the conversation, recorded on your phone or laptop from home.
• Your permission to publish the edited episode. Isaiah shares the plan for the episode with you before it is released.
• Tell Isaiah up front about anything that should not be shared: a name, a place, a ceremony, a teaching. It stays out.

Constraints

• Episodes are edited for length and clarity. Your meaning is never changed.
• The conversation follows the same content standards as the Library, set out below.
• Guests are not paid and do not pay. There is no advertising in any episode.
• Sacred or restricted knowledge is never recorded without the permission of the community it belongs to.

Becoming a TheECOFiles Author

TheECOFiles Authors write books of stories that every ECO member can find in the ECO Library, browsing by subject, title and theme. Tribal networks may choose not to show the Library to their members.

How it works

• Ask. Send a request from the author form. We read every request and reply by email.
• Get access. If we invite you, you receive an author account. It is for writing only. Authors do not see members, their families or their networks, and cannot message members.
• Write in short pieces. A book is built one short segment at a time, so you can write in bursts and come back later.
• Finish the book. Add a cover with a title and image, a foreword, a dedication, and a back cover with a few lines about you. You may add up to 25 images, each 2 MB or smaller.
• Submit for review. Every book is read by the ECO team before it reaches a shelf. We approve it, ask for specific changes, or explain why we cannot publish it.
• On the shelf. Approved books appear read-only, credited to you. You see how many times your book has been read, never who read it. You may withdraw a book at any time.

What we ask of an author

• The work is yours, or you have the right to publish it. Quotes, photographs and recordings are credited.
• Living people who are named or pictured have agreed, or are described in a way they would recognize as fair.
• Facts are presented as facts, and memory as memory. Where accounts differ, say so.
• Community protocols are respected. Knowledge that a community keeps restricted stays restricted.

What keeps a book off the shelf

ECO is built on positive energy and storytelling. Stories may be sad, painful or angry. Loss, war, Partition, removal, discrimination and hardship are part of many family histories, and we welcome them told honestly. What we will not publish is writing that sets out to wound. A book, an episode or any part of either is declined if it:

• Uses inflammatory language meant to provoke anger or hostility toward a person or group.
• Shames, ridicules or humiliates a person, a family or a community.
• Uses slurs or derogatory terms, except where the term is quoted or described as part of the history being told and is needed for editorial emphasis. Even then it is used sparingly, never aimed at the reader, and the text makes clear it is being recorded, not endorsed.
• Attacks people for their race, ethnicity, caste, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age.
• Promotes or glorifies violence, or includes graphic violence beyond what the story needs.
• Contains sexual content.
• Exposes private details of a living person without their agreement, including health, addresses, legal matters or finances.
• Presents rumor or accusation about identifiable people as fact.
• Shares sacred, ceremonial or restricted knowledge without the permission of the community it belongs to.
• Is political campaigning, advertising, fundraising for outside causes, or sales material.
• Copies another person’s work without permission, or presents machine-generated text as a personal memory.

When a book needs changes, we tell the author exactly which passage and why, and the author can revise and resubmit. Our decision on what reaches the Library is final.

Ready to share your stories?

Ask to become an author Listen to ECO Reflections