Content Guidelines

General Guidelines

GymsNearMe allows users to contribute different kinds of content, including reviews, photos, votes, tips and more. Playing nice isn’t rocket science, but just in case, we’ve put together these general guidelines. Please also read the guidelines below for specific types of content that you might contribute to the site.

  • Inappropriate content: Colourful language and imagery is fine, but there’s no need for threats, harassment, lewdness, hate speech, and other displays of bigotry.
  • Conflicts of interest: Your contributions should be unbiased and objective. For example, you shouldn’t write reviews of your own business or employer, your friends’ or relatives’ business, your peers or competitors in your industry, or businesses in your networking group.
  • Promotional content: Unless you’re using your Gym Owners Account to add content to your business’s profile page, we generally frown upon promotional content. Let’s keep the site useful for consumers and not overrun with commercial noise from every user.
  • Relevance: Please make sure your contributions are relevant and appropriate to the forum. For example, reviews aren’t the place for rants about a business’s employment practices, political ideologies, extraordinary circumstances, or other matters that don’t address the core of the consumer experience.
  • Privacy: Don’t publicise other people’s private information. Please don’t post close-up photos of other gym members without their permission, and please don’t post other people’s full names unless you’re referring to service providers who are commonly identified by or commonly share their own full names.
  • Demanding payment: Beyond simply asking for a refund to remedy a bad experience, you should not use removing or posting your review as a way to extract payment from a business, regardless of whether you’ve been a customer.

Review Guidelines

The best reviews are passionate and personal. They offer a rich narrative, a wealth of detail, and a helpful tip or two for other consumers. Here are some additional thoughts for conscientious reviewers.

  • Personal experience: We want to hear about your firsthand consumer experience, not what you heard from your co-worker or significant other. Try to tell your own story without resorting to broad generalisations and allegations.
  • Accuracy: Make sure your review is factually correct. Feel free to air your opinions, but don’t exaggerate or misrepresent your experience. We don’t take sides when it comes to factual disputes, so we expect you to stand behind your review.
  • Review updates: Review updates should reflect a new experience or interaction with the business. Don’t tell the same old story you’ve already told. If you’d like to add new insight to an old experience, just edit your review instead of creating a new update.

Photo Guidelines

Business photos should be broadly relevant to the business and reflect the typical consumer experience (e.g., what the business looks like, what the business offers, etc.).

Business Owner Guidelines

Business owners should be getting in on the act, too. Some words of wisdom:

  • From the Business: You can use the ‘description’ field when creating or editing your listing to tell people a little something special about your business. Please keep it relevant: don’t use this feature to attack your competitors, reviewers, or GymsNearMe, and don’t use it to seed keywords or post special offers or promotions — we’ll remove them if we see them.
  • Public Comments: Direct messaging is often the best way to resolve a dispute with an unhappy customer, but business owners can also address issues publicly by posting a public comment. As with direct messaging, we ask that business owners upload a clear photo of themselves to help personalise their message. Don’t use public comments to launch personal attacks, advertise, or offer an incentive to change a review.

Photos: Business photos should be broadly relevant to the business and reflect the typical consumer experience (e.g., what the business looks like, what the business offers, etc.). High quality photos are a great way for businesses to promote themselves on GymsNearMe. Be as creative as you can, but please keep it clean. We’re not big fans of imagery showing violence, drug use, nudity, near nudity, or suggestive acts.