Review Moderation and Audit Trail

When to Report a Review

Most negative reviews are legitimate feedback. Reporting is reserved for reviews that are actually improper. Use it for:

• Spam — irrelevant content, promotional links, copy-pasted text unrelated to your business.
• Offensive — language that violates community standards: slurs, harassment, threats, explicit content.
• Fake — reviews from people who did not rent from you, from competitors, or with fabricated details.

Do not report a review simply because it is negative or you disagree with it. Moderation is for integrity, not for hiding honest criticism.

Reporting a Review

1. Open the review.
2. Click Report in the actions menu.
3. Choose a reason: Spam, Offensive, Fake, or Other.
4. Add a short explanation — what specifically makes the review improper.
5. Click Submit Report.

The review immediately enters the moderation queue. It remains visible to the public unless and until you act on it — the queue is a workflow tool, not automatic censorship.

The Moderation Queue

Open Reviews > Moderation to see all reported reviews. Each entry shows:

• The review.
• Who reported it and when.
• The reason and explanation.
• The associated booking, if any — including whether the reviewer actually rented.
• Any prior moderation history on the same customer.

Keep

The review stands as submitted. The report is closed with your note. Use Keep when, on reflection, the review is legitimate criticism even if unpleasant.

Remove

The review is hidden from the public trailer page and removed from aggregate ratings. The customer receives an email explaining the removal and citing the policy reason. Use Remove only for clear violations.

Request Edit

The review remains public for now, and the customer is emailed a request to update it with specific guidance. If they edit, the updated version becomes the public review. If they do not respond within 14 days, the request closes and you can revisit with Keep or Remove.

The Audit Trail

Every action on a review is logged in its audit history. Open the review detail and click Audit Trail to see:

• When the review was posted.
• Every response edit (author, timestamp, before/after).
• Every pin and unpin.
• Every report, with reason and reporter.
• Every moderation decision, with actor, timestamp, and note.
• Every customer-facing email sent relating to the review.

The audit trail is immutable — records cannot be deleted, only added. This is intentional: the integrity of your review data depends on a verifiable history.

Who Can Moderate

By default, only Owners and Admins can act on the moderation queue. Managers can report reviews but not resolve them. You can adjust these permissions under Settings > Team > Roles.

Working With Customers After Removal

If you remove a review, there is a nonzero chance the customer will write again or escalate. Best practice:

• Respond privately first when possible — email or phone the customer.
• Be factual — explain what policy the review violated.
• Offer a path to reinstate if you used Request Edit, make it easy.

Most situations de-escalate quickly with a phone call. A removed review followed by an unanswered email can turn small grievances into big ones.

Tips

• Do not over-moderate. Public review platforms that over-moderate become less credible. Aim to Remove only when you would feel comfortable explaining the removal to any customer.
• Document unusual decisions. The note field on Keep / Remove / Request Edit is for future-you and future-teammates — describe the judgment call.
• Audit the queue monthly. Even in a quiet month, spend a few minutes making sure nothing is stuck pending.