Community Values
How we hope people share, comment, review, and contribute.
Narrow & Wide is being built to be useful, calm, and trustworthy. Explore Moor is the personal story behind the project. Together, they may create places where people comment, share notes, submit reviews, contribute cost data, respond to newsletters, or talk with us directly.
These values exist to keep those spaces useful and kind.
We want people to feel welcome here, whether they are dreaming about a narrowboat, already living aboard, selling a boat, running a canal-side business, following Explore Moor, or simply trying to understand what life afloat might involve.
Be useful. Be honest. Be kind. Leave the place better than you found it.
1. How we treat each other
Start with basic kindness
People arrive here from different places.
- Some are experienced boaters.
- Some are complete beginners.
- Some are researching a dream.
- Some are selling a boat.
- Some are trying to work out whether life afloat could actually work for them.
- Some may be tired, stressed, disabled, neurodivergent, caring for others, grieving, rebuilding, or simply overwhelmed by the amount they need to learn.
So the first rule is simple:
Be kind.
That does not mean everyone has to agree. It does not mean every opinion has to be soft or bland. It does mean people should be able to ask questions, share experiences, and learn without being mocked, bullied, patronised, or piled on.
Kindness is not weakness. It is how useful spaces survive.
Assume good faith, but respect boundaries
We want to assume people are here for good reasons.
Ask questions before attacking motives.
Correct mistakes without humiliating people.
Remember that not everyone knows the same terminology, customs, history, or unwritten rules.
At the same time, good faith is not a free pass for harmful behaviour.
Repeated cruelty, harassment, personal attacks, trolling, bigotry, bad-faith arguments, or attempts to derail useful discussion will not be treated as ‘just debate’.
No towpath drama
Narrow & Wide is not here to become a home for towpath drama, pile-ons, gossip, grudges, or personal vendettas.
There will always be disagreements in boating. People disagree about toilets, generators, mooring etiquette, continuous cruising, widebeams, pets, smoke, engines, solar, stoves, marinas, money, and almost everything else.
Disagreement is fine.
Cruelty is not.
Public comments and reviews should focus on useful experience, not personal attacks.
2. How we share information
Share what helps
Useful contributions can take many forms.
A public note might help someone:
- find a decent mooring
- understand whether facilities are working
- know if a pub, café, shop, marina, or yard was genuinely helpful
- avoid a difficult stop
- prepare for a route, lock, bridge, or stretch of canal
- understand what a service actually cost
- learn from a mistake
- feel less lost
The best contributions are honest, specific, fair, and grounded in real experience.
Public sharing should help someone else make a better decision.
Reviews and public notes should be fair
People may eventually share reviews, place notes, directory suggestions, Boat Log entries, and other public contributions.
These should be based on genuine experience.
It is fine to say something went wrong.
It is fine to describe poor service.
It is fine to explain why you would not return.
It is fine to be clear, direct, and honest.
But public content should not be used to harass, shame, threaten, exaggerate, or punish people.
Where possible, explain what happened, when it happened, what the context was, and whether the issue was resolved.
Fair criticism is allowed.
Personal targeting is not.
Private logs are different from public posts
Boat Log will give users private space to record notes, memories, frustrations, costs, repairs, journeys, documents, and whatever else matters to them.
Private means private.
A private log does not need to be polished, diplomatic, balanced, or useful to anyone else.
Public sharing is different.
If you choose to publish something publicly, it needs to meet community standards because it may affect other people, businesses, places, and the usefulness of the wider platform.
Private can be personal. Public should be fair.
Cost data must be honest
Cost tools only work if the data behind them is genuine.
Users must not submit knowingly false, exaggerated, artificially low, artificially high, malicious, or joke expense entries designed to distort future averages, insights, or comparisons.
Boat costs are already complicated enough without people trying to break the numbers.
Real costs can be surprising, high, low, messy, seasonal, or unusual. That's fine.
Fake costs are not.
If someone deliberately manipulates cost data, their account or access may be restricted.
3. How we protect the platform
No spam, scams, or fake activity
Narrow & Wide may include listings, directory entries, enquiries, public notes, reviews, early access forms, comments, and future tools.
These must not be used for:
- spam
- scams
- fake reviews
- fake costs
- misleading listings
- irrelevant promotion
- impersonation
- harassment
- scraping or misuse of user content
- attempts to manipulate visibility, ratings, data, or trust
The platform exists to help people, not to be gamed.
Respect privacy and safety
Do not share someone else’s personal information without permission.
Do not post private addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, exact locations, private messages, or identifying details unless you have the right to share them.
Be especially careful around:
- liveaboards
- vulnerable people
- disabled people
- children and families
- private moorings
- boats used as homes
- people sharing personal stories through Explore Moor or related channels
Curiosity is not a right to someone else’s privacy.
Boats can be homes. Treat people’s privacy accordingly.
Respect difference
The waterways include many different people and many different ways of living.
People may differ by age, disability, class, race, gender, sexuality, faith, family situation, income, boating experience, health, politics, lifestyle, and more.
Narrow & Wide and Explore Moor should not become places where people are mocked, attacked, or pushed out because of who they are.
No racism.
No sexism.
No homophobia.
No transphobia.
No ableism.
No abuse of disabled people, carers, families, liveaboards, beginners, or people with less money.
Strong opinions are allowed.
Dehumanising people is not.
Respect the waterways
The canals and inland waterways are shared spaces.
They are homes, workplaces, habitats, heritage, businesses, escape routes, and fragile environments.
Community contributions should respect:
- wildlife
- local communities
- canal-side businesses
- other boaters
- moorings
- facilities
- locks, bridges, towpaths, and infrastructure
- the fact that many boats are people’s homes
That does not mean pretending everything is perfect. It means being honest without being reckless, cruel, or careless.
4. How we respond and moderate
How we will behave
We want to treat people with kindness and care.
If people are friendly, respectful, curious, or trying in good faith, we will try to respond in the same spirit.
We are real people behind this project. We may not always reply instantly. We may make mistakes. We may need time. But the aim is to be fair, honest, and human.
We will not pretend to be a faceless platform if a human answer is needed.
We will also protect ourselves and the community from behaviour that becomes harmful, abusive, or manipulative.
We will treat people like people. We ask the same in return.
Moderation is care, not punishment
Moderation is not about controlling every opinion.
It is about protecting the purpose of the space.
We may remove, hide, restrict, edit, or decline content if it:
- attacks or harasses people
- contains hate or abuse
- shares private information
- appears fake, misleading, malicious, or manipulative
- promotes scams or spam
- targets businesses unfairly
- distorts cost data or platform insights
- makes the space less safe, useful, or trustworthy
Where appropriate, we may contact users, ask for clarification, or give people a chance to correct something.
But we do not owe a platform to bad-faith behaviour.
Across Narrow & Wide, Explore Moor, and social channels
These values apply wherever people interact with the project, including:
- Narrow & Wide
- Boat Log
- directory submissions
- reviews and public notes
- enquiry forms
- early access lists
- Explore Moor
- Substack or newsletter comments
- YouTube comments
- social media comments and messages
- any future community features
Different platforms may also have their own rules. Substack, YouTube, social networks, and email providers each have their own systems and moderation tools.
But our standard is the same:
If someone is kind, fair, and useful, they are welcome.
If someone is cruel, dishonest, abusive, manipulative, or repeatedly harmful, they are not entitled to stay.
We will get some things wrong
This project will grow over time.
New tools will create new questions.
Public notes may need clearer rules.
Cost insights may need stronger protections.
Reviews may need better checks.
Community expectations may need to be updated.
We will not get everything perfect from day one.
But we will try to listen, improve, correct mistakes, and protect the purpose of the project as it grows.
One simple standard
Before posting, sharing, reviewing, submitting, or commenting, ask:
Is it true?
Is it fair?
Is it useful?
Could it harm someone unnecessarily?
Would I stand by it if the person affected read it?
That does not mean everything has to be cheerful.
Useful honesty is welcome.
Cruelty is not.
“Be useful. Be honest. Be kind. Leave the place better than you found it.”