Last updated: August 2, 2026
This Editorial Policy applies to the New Zealand edition of Referendum.social available at https://nz.referendum.social.
Referendum.social is an independent public polling platform focused on opinions, issues and current events relevant to people in New Zealand. The platform allows users to create polls, vote, discuss results and compare different points of view.
Our role is to provide the platform, maintain the quality of its content and protect the integrity of public discussion. Referendum.social does not tell users which position they should support and does not treat ordinary online poll results as official or legally binding expressions of public opinion.
All polls on Referendum.social are created through the regular user-facing publishing system.
Registered users can create their own polls. Members of the Referendum.social team and site administrators may also create polls, particularly about current events, public policy, politics, society and other topics relevant to people in New Zealand.
Administrators create polls through ordinary user accounts rather than through a separate hidden editorial publishing system.
Polls created by administrators are subject to the same general editorial and moderation principles as polls created by other users.
Polls are normally published immediately after they are submitted. They do not usually require approval before becoming publicly visible.
Because content may appear without advance review, moderation can take place after publication. A poll may be reviewed following a user report, an internal quality check or the discovery of a possible error or policy violation.
Immediate publication does not mean that every poll has been reviewed, approved or endorsed by Referendum.social.
Poll questions should be written in a way that allows users to express their genuine opinions without being pushed towards a preferred answer.
Polls may address political, social, cultural or emotionally sensitive subjects. The fact that a topic is controversial is not, by itself, a reason to remove it.
However, the wording should not deliberately mislead participants, hide essential context or present one political or social position as the official view of Referendum.social.
Where appropriate, administrators may revise a poll to make it:
Referendum.social does not endorse political parties, candidates, government policies or ideological positions through the wording of its polls.
A poll may be edited after publication.
Administrators may update the poll title, question wording, answer options, description, tags, category or other related information.
These changes may be made to improve:
For example, a narrowly phrased question asking whether users support a particular policy may be rewritten as a broader question asking for their opinion about that policy.
Such an edit can make the poll easier to understand without changing its central subject.
Edits should preserve the essential topic and meaning of the poll. They should not be used to make existing votes appear to answer an entirely different question.
Where a proposed change would substantially alter the subject of a poll or make previous results misleading, the more appropriate action may be to remove the poll or create a new one.
Answer options may be reviewed and edited when they are unclear, duplicated, misleading, irrelevant or inconsistent with the question.
The purpose of such editing is to make the available choices understandable and reasonably balanced. It is not intended to favour a particular result.
Referendum.social cannot guarantee that every user-created poll includes every possible viewpoint. Some questions may intentionally offer a limited set of choices.
Users may use the comments section to explain opinions that are not fully represented by the available answers.
Tags and categories help users and search systems understand the subject of a poll.
Administrators may add, remove or replace tags after publication when the original tags are inaccurate, too broad, duplicated or unrelated to the poll.
Polls may also be moved to a more appropriate topic or category.
These changes affect how a poll is organised and discovered. They do not change the votes already submitted.
Referendum.social may edit, restrict or remove content that violates site policies, applicable law or the rights of other users.
Reasons for moderation may include:
This list is not exhaustive. Content may also be removed when keeping it online would create a serious risk to users, the platform or third parties.
Depending on the circumstances, moderators may edit a specific part of the content instead of removing the entire poll. For example, an inappropriate tag may be replaced while the underlying question remains available.
Questions, answer options, descriptions and comments created by users represent the views or choices of their authors.
They do not represent the official position of Referendum.social.
The presence of a poll on the website does not mean that Referendum.social agrees with its premise, wording, political position or conclusions.
The platform may host different or opposing views on the same issue.
Poll results show how participating users voted.
Unless a particular page explicitly states otherwise, Referendum.social polls are not official referendums, official election polls or statistically representative studies of the entire New Zealand population.
Available demographic or geographic filters can help users examine responses from different groups. These tools provide additional context but should not automatically be interpreted as representing every New Zealander within the selected group.
Results should normally be described as the opinions of participating users at the time of voting.
More information about how votes are counted and how results should be interpreted is available on the Poll Methodology page.
The word “referendum” on Referendum.social refers to an online public poll or community vote.
Polls hosted on the platform are not legally binding referendums. They are not administered by the New Zealand Government, the New Zealand Electoral Commission or local electoral authorities and do not form part of an official electoral process unless a page explicitly states otherwise.
Referendum.social is independent of the New Zealand Government, the New Zealand Electoral Commission, local authorities, political parties, candidates, political campaigns, lobbying organisations and media organisations.
No government body, political party or public official controls the questions users may ask or the results displayed by the platform.
Referendum.social may cover political figures, elections, government decisions and public controversies, but such coverage does not constitute support for or opposition to any person, organisation or position.
Users who believe that a poll was edited, restricted or removed incorrectly may contact Referendum.social through the Contact Us page.
Appeals should identify the relevant poll and explain why the user believes the decision should be reconsidered.
Referendum.social may restore the content, make additional edits or uphold the original moderation decision after review.
Users may also report inaccurate wording, inappropriate answer options, incorrect tags or other editorial issues through the same contact process.
This Editorial Policy should be read together with the following pages:
Referendum.social may update this Editorial Policy as the platform develops new features, changes its moderation procedures or responds to operational and legal requirements.
The latest version published on this page applies to the New Zealand edition of Referendum.social.
