Community guidelines

What’s welcome

Questions and answers about ships, ports, AIS and ADS-B receivers, trade and Voydar itself. Stay on topic, be specific, and say how you know what you know.

• Sightings and your own photos of ships and ports
• Help with building and running a receiver
• Questions about a vessel, a port call, a route or a record on Voydar
• Industry knowledge, with the source or your experience behind it
• Disagreement, as long as it is about the facts and not the person

What’s not allowed

We remove these, and repeated or serious breaches end in suspension:

• Spam, advertising, link-dropping and posts made by bots or for search rankings
• Harassment, hate, threats, and pile-ons against a person or group
• Doxxing: revealing who someone is or where they live or work against their wishes
• Personal data about other people (see below)
• Rumour or misinformation presented as fact, such as an accident, arrest or sanction you cannot back up. Say clearly when something is unconfirmed
• Illegal content, or help with illegal activity such as evading sanctions, smuggling or interfering with AIS
• Material that infringes someone’s copyright, including photos you did not take
• Impersonating a person, a company or Voydar staff

Personal data and exact locations

Don’t post other people’s names, phone numbers, emails or addresses, the exact location of someone’s home or receiver station, or the precise live position of a private boat. Approximate areas are fine (“a station near Rotterdam”). If you see a post that does this, report it and we will remove the details.

Photos and copyright

Post only photos and text you created or have the right to share, and credit the source when you quote. Copyright owners can report a post or send a notice under our copyright policy, and we remove infringing material.

Corrections go through review

Posts never change Voydar’s records. If a record is wrong, report the post with “A record on Voydar is wrong” and the data team checks it against sources.

Not for emergencies

Nobody watches the forum around the clock, and nothing here is navigation or safety advice. At sea, call the coast guard on VHF channel 16 or your local emergency number.

How moderation works

One small team runs the community, with automated checks doing the first pass:

• New members start with limits: no outside links and fewer posts a day, lifted as you take part.
• Posts that look like spam are held. You see “Waiting for review” rather than a silent removal, and a moderator approves or removes them.
• Anyone signed in can report a post. A moderator reviews every report, and the author is never told who reported it.
• Moderators can hide or remove posts. They may edit a post only to take out personal data or a link, never to change what it says.
• Moderators can limit or suspend accounts for serious or repeated breaches. Spam accounts are closed.
• When we hide or remove your post or suspend your account, we tell you which rule it broke.

Appeals

If you think we got a decision wrong, email privacy@voydar.com within 30 days with a link to the post or your handle. A person reviews every appeal and replies.

Age

You must be 16 or older to post. You confirm this when you choose your public handle.

If you delete your account

Your profile, handle and subscriptions are deleted. Your posts stay, shown as by a “deleted user” and no longer linked to you, so discussions other people replied to still make sense. You can delete individual posts before you go, and if a post you leave behind contains your own personal data, email privacy@voydar.com and we will remove it.