Content Guidelines

Folks navigate to Travel Stronger to connect with local businesses. While we don’t expect everyone to hold the same opinions, we do expect everyone on the site to treat each other with respect and civility. These guidelines are here to set the tone for discourse, if you have any questions or comments please reach out to us immediately.

1. Purpose & Tone

The goal: encourage honest, respectful, relevant contributions from users, while preventing abuse, bias, or spam.

All users (reviewers, business owners, visitors) should abide by these guidelines. Violations may lead to content removal or account restrictions.

2. General Principles

• First-hand experience only
  Reviews and comments must come from direct experience. Don’t post about something you heard, read, or that someone else experienced.
• Relevance
  Keep content focused on the business, product, or service experience. Avoid off-topic commentary (politics, broad social commentary, non-relevant subjects).
• Honesty & integrity
  Don’t misrepresent facts. Don’t post false or exaggerated claims. Disclose any material relationships (e.g. you are a former employee) if posting is allowed at all in such cases.
• No conflicts of interest
  
  • Don’t post reviews of your own business, your employer, or direct competitors.
  • Don’t have others write reviews for you or offer incentives in exchange for favorable reviews.
• Respect & civility
  Use civil language. Threats, harassment, hate speech, or slurs are not permitted.
• Privacy & personal data
  
  • Don’t expose someone’s private information (full name, address, phone, email) unless that information is already public or belongs to the business.
  • Don’t upload images or videos of people in private settings without consent, especially close-ups of other customers.
• Intellectual property & originality
  
  • Don’t copy/paste reviews or content from elsewhere.
  • Only upload photos, videos, or texts you own or have permission to use.
  • Don’t falsely claim others’ materials as your own.
• No promotional or promotional spam content
  
  • Reviews, comments, or posts should not be used as advertising platforms.
  • Business owners may use “official” business accounts or profiles to add content in allowed channels, but must not use general user areas for overt self-promotion (e.g. “come to my shop,” “use my service”).

3. Specific Content Types & Guidelines

• Must reflect a full consumer experience — e.g. service quality, timeliness, communication, value, condition, cleanliness, etc.
• Avoid focusing solely on pricing or policy details unless they directly affected your experience.
• No “review contract” (i.e. “I’ll post only if you fix this”).
• Avoid excessive capitalization, punctuation spamming, or “ALL CAPS” styles.
• You may edit your review later, but repeated drastic changes (e.g. flip-flopping) may be flagged.

• Should support or illustrate the review or business (e.g. what you received, the space, product condition).
• Do not include unrelated imagery, memes, or offensive visuals.
• Avoid watermarked or heavily altered images.
• Avoid including bystanders without consent.

• Tips should be short, helpful pointers (e.g. “come early to beat the queue,” “ask for spicy version”).
• Replies to reviews (by business or users) must be professional, respectful, and on-topic.
• Business replies must not offer discounts in exchange for review changes, nor pressure the reviewer to delete or edit.

• Information must be fact-based and accurate: business name, hours, address, services offered.
• The “about,” “info,” or “owner info” fields may include narrative content, but must not include solicitations for reviews or promotional content beyond the business’s legitimate offering.
• Avoid exaggeration or false claims (e.g. “#1 in city” without basis).

4. Moderation & Removal

• Content may be removed or suppressed if it clearly violates the guidelines.
• Moderators will review allegation, context, evidence, and may seek clarifications.
• Removal is not guaranteed—some disputes are fact-based and may be allowed if they don’t clearly violate (i.e. we don’t take sides if both parties claim a different version unless there's proof).
• Repeated or severe violations may lead to account warnings, suspension, or bans.

5. Solicitation & Incentives

• Business owners, staff, or affiliates must not ask customers or friends to write reviews.
• Offering discounts, freebies, or rewards in exchange for reviews is prohibited.
• Systematic review solicitation (e.g. email campaigns asking people to post reviews) may trigger penalties.

6. Legal & Safety Considerations

• Defamation: if a user’s content contains false claims harming a business’s reputation, the review will be taken down and further action against the account may be take (account warning, suspension, or ban).
• Disclaimers: the site is a platform and does not guarantee truth or quality of reviews.