The feed is opinions. The map is something riders make decisions on, so the standard is higher. A pin is a promise that something is actually there.
The Map Deserves Extra Respect
Report what is real, right now
Drop a marker for something happening, not something you heard about last Tuesday. Old and fake pins both do the same damage: they teach riders to stop trusting the map, and a map nobody trusts is just a wallpaper.
Markers age out on their own for this reason. If the thing you pinned has ended, remove the pin rather than waiting for it to expire.
What a pin may and may not claim
Fine
Something you can see from where you are standing, now.
A hazard riders need to route around — glass, a closed path, a flooded underpass.
A rideout you are actually hosting, at a place and time you will be at.
Not allowed
A police pin where there are no police. This is the single most damaging thing you can do to the map.
Pins dropped for the joke, for the numbers, or to send riders somewhere.
Anything pinned to a private home, a school, or an individual person's location.
Markers used to organise or signal anything on the Safety and People list.
Fake markers are removed and count as a strike. A pattern of them removes map posting for good, and the account with it.
See something fake? Report it
The report tools exist so the community can clean its own map. If a marker is bogus, flag it instead of adding a fake one back. Two wrongs make a worse map.
Hosting a Rideout
Putting a rideout on the map means strangers may plan their day around it. That is a small responsibility and it is worth taking seriously.
Be there, or cancel it. If it is off, take the pin down. Riders standing in a car park for a host who never came do not come back.
Say the pace and the distance. A new rider on a 20 mph Class 2 needs to know before they commit, not at the first junction.
Say what the route is like. Road, trail, hills, traffic, anything that decides whether a bike or a rider is suited to it.
Say who it is for. Open to all, experienced only, under-18s welcome or not.
You are a host, not an organiser of a race. Do not plan rides around breaking traffic law, and do not post rides whose selling point is outrunning anyone.
Use private rideouts for private plans
Friends-only meetup, or a sensitive spot? Keep it private. Public pins are for open rides where new riders are genuinely welcome to roll up.
Location and your safety
A public rideout pin is a place and a time you have told the internet you will be. Set the meeting point somewhere public. Do not set it at your house, your workplace, or where you keep your bikes — a map of expensive e-bikes is useful to more people than riders.
Riding Itself
We are not going to lecture anyone about how to ride. Two things only, because they affect other people:
Do not recruit riders into danger. Posts or rideouts whose point is running reds, weaving traffic, riding at pedestrians or treating a public road like a stunt reel are removed. Ride how you like; do not organise other people into the ER.
Do not use the map to avoid enforcement of anything but traffic. Police markers exist so riders can make sensible decisions on a route. Using them to coordinate around a crime is not that, and it is handled as the crime it is.
