Community guidelines

1. The short version

• Be kind. Treat people the way you would if you were standing next to them, because soon you might be.
• Meet in public places, and tell someone you trust where you are going.
• No means no. So does no reply.
• Be yourself: one account, your own name or a nickname, and 18 or over.
• No selling, no spam, no asking for money.
• If someone makes you uncomfortable, block them. If they break these rules, report them.

2. Adults only

Join Our World is for people aged 18 and over. Before you join a plan, post, check in or chat, we ask you to confirm that you are. If we learn that someone is under 18, we close their account.

If you think someone is under 18, report them and choose “Looks under 18”.

3. Meeting safely

We do not check who people are, run background checks or attend plans. Hosts and guests are other members, not our staff. These habits matter every time, however well a chat went.

• Meet in a public place where other people are around: a café, the venue of the event, a park at a busy time. Not a home, a hotel room or a parked car.
• Tell a friend where you are going, who you are meeting and when you expect to be back. Send them the link to the plan.
• Get there and back on your own. Do not depend on someone you have just met for a lift, and keep enough battery and money to leave when you want to.
• Keep personal details to yourself until you trust someone: your home address, where you work, your phone number, bank details or ID.
• Watch your drink and your belongings, and stay clear-headed enough to make your own decisions.
• Leave whenever you want. You do not owe anyone an explanation, a second meeting or your contact details.
• Never send money or gift cards to someone you met here, whatever the story.

Sharing your profile, turning on your microphone or camera, and agreeing a place to meet are always your own choice. Nobody on Join Our World can switch them on for you.

If you are in danger, call your local emergency number first (112 in Nigeria). When you are safe, report the person in the app so that we can act.

4. Respect

These are not allowed anywhere on Join Our World:

• Harassment, bullying, threats, intimidation, or pursuing someone who has made clear they are not interested.
• Hate or discrimination because of someone’s ethnic group, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age or appearance.
• Sexual content, sexual advances that were not invited, or asking for sexual pictures. Join Our World is not a dating or hook-up service.
• Contacting someone outside the app after they declined, left or blocked you.
• Sharing someone else’s private details, photos, messages or whereabouts without their agreement, or recording a chat or a room without the agreement of everyone in it.

A chat request that is declined, or left unanswered, is an answer. Do not ask again through a friend, another account or another app.

5. Be who you say you are

• One account per person. Do not make a new account to get around a block, a pause or a ban.
• Use your own first name or a nickname. Do not pretend to be another person, a business, a venue or a member of our team.
• Check in as “here” only when you are at the place. Do not pass door codes to people who are not there.
• Do not post plans you do not mean to hold, or take places on plans you do not mean to attend. If you cannot make it, give your place up in the app.

6. If you host a plan or a room

• Describe the plan honestly: what it is, where, when, how long, and anything people need to bring or pay for at the venue.
• Choose a public meeting point. The exact meeting point is shown only to people with a place, and it should still be somewhere public.
• Turn up, or cancel in the app as early as you can so that everyone is told.
• Decide requests fairly. You may say no, but never for one of the reasons listed under Respect.
• Look after the group: step in when someone is being made uncomfortable, remove people who break these rules, and report them.
• In audio and live rooms you are responsible for what is said and shown on stage. Hosting live needs a moderator’s approval, and that approval can be withdrawn.

7. What Join Our World is not for

• Selling goods or services, advertising, recruiting, fundraising, betting, or any scheme that asks members for money.
• Spam: the same message to many people, or plans and rooms posted only to promote something.
• Anything illegal where the plan takes place, including dealing drugs or weapons, and events that put people at risk.
• Nudity, pornography or sexual services.
• Violence, or content that encourages violence or self-harm.
• Collecting other members’ details, scraping, or running automated accounts.

8. Blocking and reporting

You can block or report someone from their card in a people list, from a message, from a chat’s menu, in a room and on a plan page.

• Block when you do not want someone to reach you. They will not see you in people lists, cannot send you a chat request and cannot enter a room you host. Any private chat between you closes, and in group chats you stop seeing each other’s messages. If one of you hosts a plan the other has a place on, that place is given up. It works both ways and they are not told. You can undo a block under Privacy and safety; what it closed stays closed.
• Report when someone has broken these rules. A moderator reads your report. If you report from a message, that message and up to four earlier messages from the same person in that chat are attached. The person is not told who reported them.

We read every report. During the pilot the moderators are a small team, so it can take a day or more, and we may not be able to tell you what we decided. Reporting someone in bad faith to get them into trouble is itself against these rules.

9. What happens when rules are broken

A moderator looks at what happened and chooses one of these:

• No action, when we find the rules were not broken.
• A warning, sent to the person’s inbox.
• A pause of 7 days. The person is signed out, the plans they host are cancelled and their places on other plans are given up.
• A permanent ban.
• Taking away permission to host live rooms.

Serious harm, threats, anything involving a minor, and attempts to get around a block or a ban lead straight to a ban. Where someone’s life or safety is at risk, or where the law requires it, we may pass information to the police or another authority.

If you think we got a decision wrong, write to safety@joinourworld.com from the e-mail address of your account and tell us why. We will look at it again.

10. Talk to us

Questions about these guidelines, or something we should know about: safety@joinourworld.com.