ForeverTrail - Community Guidelines
DRAFT - not yet reviewed by an attorney. This document is written in plain language on purpose, but it works alongside our Terms of Service, which is the binding legal agreement. Have a lawyer review both before publishing either.
ForeverTrail exists so people can give someone they've lost a place on the map - a real story, tied to a real spot that mattered. That only works if it stays a kind, honest, and respectful place. These guidelines explain what that looks like in practice.
The short version
Post like the person's family might read it - because they might. Be honest about who you are to the person you're remembering. Don't use ForeverTrail to hurt, harass, mislead, or spam anyone.
Who can join
ForeverTrail accounts are for adults 18 and older. Everyone confirms this once, when they sign up or the first time they sign in. Memories and memorials for children who have died are welcome - this rule is about who posts, not about who is remembered. If you believe an account belongs to someone under 18, email privacy@forevertrail.com and we'll look into it.
What belongs on ForeverTrail
- A real memory, about a real person who has died, tied to a real place that meant something.
- Your own honest connection to that person - a memorial's creator states their relationship to the deceased as part of submitting it, and that should be true.
- Photos you have the right to share.
- Comments that add something - a shared memory, a kind word, a correction offered gently.
What doesn't belong on ForeverTrail
- Memorials for people who are still living, or fabricated/joke memorials. ForeverTrail's review process exists specifically to catch this - creating a memorial requires a link to a real, published obituary.
- Content posted to harass, defame, or embarrass the deceased, their family, or anyone else.
- Hate speech, threats, or content that attacks someone based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or similar characteristics.
- Sexually explicit or graphic violent content.
- Spam, advertising, or content unrelated to remembering the person the memorial is for.
- Soliciting. ForeverTrail is a place to remember, not to sell. Don't use a memory, a comment, a memorial, your profile, or your username to offer or advertise services or products (for example funeral, burial, legal, financial, insurance, real-estate, grief-counseling, psychic or medium, or memorial-product services), to ask people to hire or buy from you, or to contact families to drum up business. If we find an account soliciting, we will delete it and remove what it posted.
- Fundraising appeals. Don't post requests for money or donations, or links to fundraising or crowdfunding pages, in a memory, a comment, a memorial, or your profile. Any fundraising on ForeverTrail will only happen through features ForeverTrail provides for it. Fundraising posts are removed.
- Exposing where someone lives. Don't post the street address of a private home, or pin a memory on someone's house to show where they live. A memory at a family home is welcome - ForeverTrail shows it near the spot, not on the house itself. If you see a memory that shows a private home, report it and tick "It shows a private home", and a moderator can blur its location.
- Impersonating another person, including claiming a relationship to the deceased that isn't true.
- Accounts for anyone under 18, including an account an adult sets up for a child to use. Accounts that belong to someone under 18 are deleted.
- Photos you don't have the right to share, or photos of people (living or deceased) posted without appropriate care for their dignity and privacy.
- Someone else's private information you don't have the right to share (an address, a phone number, financial information, and similar).
How moderation actually works on ForeverTrail
- Private memories follow the same rules. A memory marked "Only me" is just for you, but it still has to follow these guidelines and our Terms.
- Every new memorial is reviewed by a moderator before it goes live - we check that the obituary link is real. This is a basic authenticity check, not a background check, and it doesn't happen for individual memories or comments, which appear immediately once posted.
- Anyone can report a memory, a comment, or an entire memorial - look for the report flag next to it. You don't need an account to report something.
- A moderator reviews reports and can remove the memory, comment, or memorial, or dismiss the report if it doesn't violate these guidelines. A moderator can also remove content directly at any time, even if nobody has reported it.
- If your content is removed, we'll generally let you know by email (unless you've turned off moderator notices in your email settings). We try to be fair, but we don't promise a formal appeals process - if you think a removal was a mistake, you're welcome to reach out to privacy@forevertrail.com and explain.
- Repeated or serious violations can lead to account suspension or termination, at our discretion. Soliciting is the exception: an account caught soliciting is deleted, without a warning first. An account that belongs to someone under 18 is deleted too.
A note on grief and disagreement
Families don't always agree on how someone should be remembered, and memory itself is imperfect - two people can genuinely recall the same person differently without either one being dishonest. Disagreement about tone, detail, or emphasis isn't automatically a guidelines violation, and our moderators won't take sides in a genuine difference of memory. What we can do is limited to the same tools described above: leave contested content up if it doesn't violate these guidelines, or remove it if it does. We can't mediate a family dispute, arbitrate whose account of events is correct, or facilitate a conversation between the people involved - if that's needed, it has to happen between you directly, outside ForeverTrail.
Questions
If something on ForeverTrail concerns you, or you're not sure whether something you want to post fits here, reach out: privacy@forevertrail.com