How we check reviews
Reviews on Sivamo help travelers choose an organizer. Here is who can write them, what we publish and how we handle reports. These rules are part of the Terms of use, the Terms for organizers and the Content rules.
This text is a draft. It may change before it is final.
Who can write a review
Only people who went. We check it against our bookings, not with a box to tick:
- an account with a seat on the departure that was paid, confirmed or completed; a cancelled or expired booking doesn't count;
- from the day after the trip ends, for 90 days;
- one review per seat; the author can edit it for 30 days and delete it any time.
Under each review we write Verified traveler and the month of the trip. The author chooses to show their first name and the initial of their last name, with their country if they want, or to post as A traveler.
What we publish
- every review, good or bad, goes up at once, unless the automatic check below holds it;
- the organizer's rating is the average of all published reviews, with one decimal, and shows from 3 reviews;
- reviews with stars only count in the rating; the list shows the reviews with text, newest first;
- we don't change what the author wrote.
What we never do
- we don't pay for reviews and we don't reward them: no discounts, credits or prizes;
- organizers can't delete, hide or edit a review and can't choose which ones show; they can reply once, publicly, and report a review;
- organizers may not offer anything in return for a review or invite only happy travelers to write one; if they do, we can hide the reviews concerned and restrict their account;
- the rating doesn't change the order in which we show trips; you can filter by it.
The automatic check
Before a review goes up, a program looks for contact details (email addresses, phone numbers, web addresses) and for serious insults or threats. It doesn't look at the rating and doesn't judge criticism.
If it finds something, the review stays hidden and goes to our team. The author sees We're checking your review and can edit the text: if the check passes, the review goes up at once. Otherwise our team decides: it publishes the review, or hides it and emails the author the reason.
Reports
Anyone, the organizer included, can report a review with Report this review. Our team hides a review only for one of these reasons:
- illegal or abusive content;
- someone's personal data;
- spam or advertising;
- it isn't about the trip.
We don't hide a review because it is negative. When we hide one, we email the author our reason and how to contest the decision, as in the Content rules. A hidden review no longer counts in the rating.
Your review and your data
A published review shows the name you chose, the trip and the month you went. When you delete your account, your reviews are deleted and the organizer's rating is recalculated. Your reviews and the replies to them are in Download my data. More in the Privacy policy.