Guidelines
Honest ratings, from people who ate there
Anyone who signs in with Google can rate a spot. These are the rules for those Diners’ ratings, the rules the crew follows, and how we handle a rating that breaks them. They’re short on purpose.
Diners’ ratings
Four rules for rating a spot
- Your own visit. Rate a place you ate at yourself: dine-in, takeout or delivery. Not a place a friend told you about, and not one you’re only planning to try.
- Your own words. Write it yourself. Don’t paste in a review written by AI, and don’t copy someone else’s.
- No ties to the restaurant. Don’t rate a place you own, work at or used to work at, or one owned or staffed by your family or friends. The same goes for its competitors: no rating a rival of your own place or your employer’s.
- Leave staff faces out. Photos are for the food and the room. Please don’t post photos that show the faces of the people working there.
Good or bad, say what you ate and whether you’d go back. A specific dish helps the next person more than a general verdict.
Moderation
What we remove
- Spam. Ads, promotions, links to sell something, or the same rating posted again and again.
- Abuse. Threats, harassment or personal attacks, on staff, owners or other diners.
- Hate. Anything that attacks people for who they are.
- Private information. Phone numbers, home addresses or other personal details about anyone.
- Conflicts of interest. Ratings from owners, staff, their family and friends, or competitors.
- Places you didn’t visit. Ratings that aren’t based on your own meal there.
A removed rating no longer counts toward the Diners’ score.
Moderation
What we never remove
- A rating for being negative. An honest bad review stays up, the same as an honest good one.
- A rating because a restaurant asked us to take it down. Restaurants can’t pay to have a rating hidden, moved or removed, and asking doesn’t work either.
Reporting
How reporting works
If a rating breaks these rules, use the Report link next to it. You’ll need to be signed in. Pick the reason that fits and add a note if it helps.
A person on the crew reads each report and checks the rating against these guidelines. If it breaks them, we take it down. If it doesn’t, it stays, even if the restaurant or the reporter disagrees with it. Disagreeing with a rating isn’t a reason to remove it.
The crew
The crew’s rules
- We pay our own bill, every time. Every meal we review is paid for in full by the crew member who ate it.
- We never accept free meals or special treatment. No invitations, no tasting dinners, nothing on the house. If something is ever comped anyway, like a dessert sent out without asking, the review says so.
- Nobody can pay for placement. Not for a better score, a spot on the map, or a place on a list, guide or ranking. Sorting is by score, distance or date, never by money.
- No conflicts. We don’t review places owned by our family, our friends or our employers. If one of us has any other tie to a spot, like knowing the chef or having worked there, the review says so.
More on the promise and the crew on the About page.
The law
A note on Canada’s Competition Act
Canada’s Competition Act doesn’t allow false or misleading representations, and the Competition Bureau has said that includes fake reviews and reviews that hide a connection to the business. So fake or misleading reviews aren’t allowed here, from anyone: diners, the crew or restaurants.
The crew’s ties are covered above. If one of us has any other material connection to a spot, such as having worked there or being given something for free, the review discloses it.