Guidelines

What to write

• What you saw, heard and felt, in your own words, in the order it happened.
• When it happened, as closely as you remember. A year or a decade is fine.
• What you did, who else was there (as “my wife”, “a friend”), and whether it happened before.
• Anything you recorded or noticed afterward: marks, moved objects, sounds.

What to leave out

• Names of other people. Say “my neighbor” or “the previous owner”. If you do name someone, we remove it from the public version.
• Children’s names and ages. You can say “my daughter” or “a little girl”. If you name a child or give an age, we remove it from the public version.
• Phone numbers and email addresses.
• Anything you can’t say is true. Write what you experienced, not what you assume.

What we remove for you

You never have to worry that a slip will hold your report. We publish it right away and replace these in the public version. Your original words stay sealed with your report and private to you.

• A child’s name, or a child’s age under 18, becomes “[name removed]” or “[age removed]”.
• A name after “named” or “called”, and titled private people like “Mrs. Alvarez”, become “[name removed]”, everywhere that name appears in your report.
• Where someone else lives (“lives at the corner of Oak and Main”) becomes “[location removed]”.
• On a block-level report, addresses, phone numbers and emails are removed too.
• Your own username, and the names of places like cities, are never touched.

What still waits for a person

Most reports publish right away. A few wait for a person to read them first, and you’re told why.

• Photos or video on a block-level report: so no home’s exterior or anyone’s face is published by accident.
• A report that is very close to one already filed, or that has very little we can check.

Waiting isn’t a judgment. Your report is sealed with a timestamp the moment you file it, and you’ll be notified when there’s a decision.

Filing on someone’s behalf

Some people told their story and have since passed away, or can’t file it themselves. If you are keeping it for them, choose “Someone told me their story” at the start of the report.

• You are the byline. They are never named: describe them as “my grandmother” or “a neighbor”. A name in that description is removed, and for someone who is still living it isn’t accepted at all.
• Two confirmations are required: that you are relaying their account as accurately as you can without adding to it, and that you are sharing it respectfully (or, if they are living, that they agreed).
• These reports are labelled second-hand. They earn no witness or first-person credit, and count a little less on the heat map unless someone else independently reported the same place.
• An exact address can only be published by a current owner, resident or manager. Family of someone who lived there files at block level.
• If you are the person described, or a family member who did not agree to this, use “Report a problem” on the report or the takedown form. A moderator looks at these first, and a report filed without consent comes down.

Your original words

What you wrote is sealed exactly as you wrote it, and stays private to you. Someday, readers may be able to pay for the first-hand original of reports whose authors allow it — never a child’s name, never the address of a block-level report, and only if you turn it on in My reports. That isn’t available yet.

Exact address or block level

If you own, live at or manage the place, you can publish its exact address with your username. Everyone else files a block-level report: it shows the block, never the address, and addresses in the text are removed automatically. Owners can later claim an address and choose what it shows.

Accounts, not proof

Every report is a first-person account. The record shows what people say happened, when it was filed, and how checkable it is. It doesn’t claim any of it is proven.

Questions or a problem?

If a report should come down, or you think a decision was wrong, tell us and we’ll look at it.

Contact us