Community guidelines

The headlines:

Keep it legal. We’ll delete posts defaming others, posting porn, ticket scalping, plotting illegal activities, or posting other people’s private information, and ban the poster.

Keep it clean. Strong language has no place here. You won’t be able to use profanities and creative alternatives will be deleted.

Keep it relevant. This is a travel website. We can’t support off-topic discussions and will remove them.

Keep it respectful. Thorn Tree is a global community that embraces different cultures, faiths , attitudes and view points. Please be respectful of this.

We remind you that Thorn Tree is designed, suitable and intended for people who are over 16, and should not be used by anyone under this age.

We’ve included some more dos and don’ts below.

General stuff you need to know

These guidelines are designed to ensure the Lonely Planet community is an enjoyable, inspiring and safe one for all our users. They boil down to common sense, basic courtesy and respect (for your hosts and the rest of the community).

If you don’t agree with them, we won’t take it personally, and nor should you when we suggest www.lonelyplanet.com might not be for you.

When we say we, we mean Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd. When we say community we mean all of the places on www.lonelyplanet.com where users hang out and can contribute.

We may update these guidelines and recommend you check back once in a while. We'll also continue to introduce new community features which will fall under these guidelines.

We reserve the right to remove posts that:

• Are considered likely to disrupt, provoke, attack or offend others
• Are racist, sexist, homophobic, sexually explicit, abusive or otherwise objectionable
• Contain swear words or other language likely to offend
• Break the law or condone or encourage unlawful activity. This includes breach of copyright, defamation and contempt of court
• Advertise products or services for profit or gain
• Are seen to impersonate someone else
• Include contact details such as phone numbers, postal or email addresses
• Contain links to other websites which break our editorial guidelines
• Describe or encourage activities which could endanger the safety or well-being of others
• Are considered to be 'spam', that is posts containing the same, or similar, message posted multiple times
• Are considered to be off-topic for the particular message board
• You can find further information here

Reporting abuse

All over our website you’ll see ‘Report Abuse’ buttons that let you notify us of stuff that breaches the rules. This helps you look after the community too. We do ask that you log in to report things – we think it’s the best way to avoid abuse of the abuse function.

Important things to remember:

• Certain areas within www.lonelyplanet.com may have their own guidelines posted (such as the Thorn Tree forum branches). Please read these carefully and respect them.
• You are permitted to create multiple accounts on www.lonelyplanet.com, but they must have separate email addresses associated with them. Lonely Planet reserves the right to discipline and terminate multiple accounts from the same user if the user has infringed our Terms of use or the spirit of these guidelines via any one of their accounts.
• You are responsible for your interactions with other users. We reserve the right, but have no obligation, to monitor disputes between you and other users.
• These guidelines apply to all content you contribute as part of the Lonely Planet community, including your profile.
• Member posted content on www.lonelyplanet.com reflects the opinions and experience of those users, not Lonely Planet.

Community dos and don'ts

DO:

• Be sincere in your contributions. Post with purpose - to inspire, enable or share with fellow travellers.
• Respect that other people have different points of view, travel journeys, styles, budgets, beliefs and confidence levels. Don’t take things personally and get to the ‘must look at pictures of kittens to calm down’ stage.
• Welcome newcomers. We love it when another person catches the travel bug.
• Your homework: Some travel questions are very common. Look around on the web, and on lonelyplanet.com to see if they’re already been answered. Check the Frequently Asked Questions found at the top of many branches and do a search. It can be frustrating for our members if they have to answer the same question repeatedly.
• Be specific: When posting a recommendation, or a question, the more context and specificity you can give, the better for everyone. We can’t read your mind and we don’t want to misunderstand your motives.
• Give feedback, to your fellow travellers, and us, in a helpful and constructive manner.
• Lead by example. Use the report abuse function to alert us to problem content or members.
• Look for the best place to do your thing. If you’re posting on the Thorn Tree Travel Forum, look around to make sure you’re in the right branch to get your question answered.
• Use Common Sense and balance when seeking advice. Make your own inquiries, especially around subjects like health and safety.

DON'T:

• Create content of a discriminatory or derogatory nature.
• Rich debate is wonderful, and you can do it without being offensive, humiliating or intimidating based on: race, colour, ethnicity, nationality or physical characteristics, gender or sexual orientation, religion or non-religious viewpoints (i.e. secular humanism, atheism), political opinion, socio-economic status, age, physical, mental or intellectual disability/impairment and the ways people express themselves. Remember this is a global travel community, with different written cultures.
• Create content which would be reasonably classified as 'adult' and restricted accordingly (such as pornography or graphic violence).
• Defame, harass, flame or hold grudges.
• Post personal details or private information about any other person (or anything contrary to our Privacy policy).
• Impersonate another person, including Lonely Planet staff or authors.
• Advertise or spam, or use the forum to promote a business, product or website, commercial or otherwise. We don’t mind if you include links to your travel blogs or websites in your messages, provided it’s relevant and contextual information, but commercial solicitation, straight up advertising, or contributions designed to promote traffic to another site aren’t acceptable. We do not permit business accounts on lonelyplanet.com or any sort of advertising in profiles, avatars and signatures, as community areas are preserved for individual travellers. Adding value to conversations is the best way to build an audience for your expertise.
• Conduct formal research without telling people. Lonely Planet is open to cooperation with professional researchers, but you need to contact us with details about your needs and interests. Studying our community members without their – and our – permission is not cool.
• Don’t post external surveys or links to surveys on Thorn Tree. We are happy for you to use any information that is already available on our forum provided you contact us first, but as Thorn Tree is a space designed for individuals any research or marketing surveys will be removed.
• Be - or - feed a Troll. Trolls post messages or content deliberately designed to get the blood boiling. Replying to or arguing with a Troll is feeding. The best pest-control is to ignore, and use report abuse to alert us to them.
• Discuss how to commit illegal activity (like buying drugs, avoiding visa restrictions, ticket scalping). It’s OK to talk about the existence of these things, but don’t advise how and where to do them.
• Be a know-it-all. Having a full passport doesn’t mean the rules don’t apply to you. Show off your insights, not your attitude.
• Don't hide behind handles. We respect the right of travellers to be anonymous, which may lead some people to say things they wouldn’t face to face. Don’t be one of those people. If you’re tempted, remember, we can see who you are, even if other members can’t.

Reviews

Travellers

We let you add your own review to all the points of interest we list around the website. We do not permit businesses to create fake reviews and will not allow them to rebut or contact travellers. For fellow travellers to get maximum benefit, remember to make your review constructive, balanced and full of as much context as possible.

Businesses

Travellers might review you on our website, on the Thorn Tree forum or elsewhere. We ask that you embrace the good with the bad, as not everyone will have the experience you plan or hope for. Please don’t try and reply to a traveller review on our website. Resolve issues on your own time, through your own channels. If you think a review constitutes defamation, please use our report abuse function and it will be brought to the attention of our moderation team. Defamation is strictly prohibited by our terms.

Reporting abuse

All over our website you’ll see ‘Report Abuse’ buttons that let you notify us of stuff that breaches the rules. This helps you look after the community too. We do ask that you log in to report things – we think it’s the best way to avoid abuse of the abuse function.

Contacting Us

You can email: community@lonelyplanet.com with feedback, questions or issues, and for all other queries you should use our Contact us form. Our Talk2Us team read every single piece of correspondence and will do their best to help you out, and get your feedback to the right people.