The short version
- Be kind, and keep it about the question, not the person.
- Describe what happened, not who did it. Don’t name, shame or criticise people or businesses, or describe them closely enough to identify them. “Our letting agent kept the whole deposit” is fine; naming the agent isn’t.
- No personal details. Nobody’s contact details, address, workplace or health, including your own.
- No advertising. Don’t sell, recruit, ask for money, or offer to help someone privately. If you work in a related field, say so, and don’t promote your business.
- Experience, not advice. Share what happened to you. Don’t tell people what they legally must do about visas, tax or law: point them to the official source.
- Stay on topic: moving to, or living in, Canada from the UK.
- If you meet up, meet in a public place. Never send money to anyone you met here.
Who can post
Ask a Local is in beta and open to a small invited group first. You need a free account, an invite code and a handle. You must be 18 or over. Anyone can read approved posts.
How we moderate
- Every question and answer is read by a moderator before it appears. It usually appears within 2 hours, 8am–10pm UK time; posts sent overnight appear the next morning.
- Before a moderator sees it, an automatic check looks for names, contact details and wording that might break these rules. An AI service (Anthropic’s Claude) reads the text of your post to do this: see our privacy policy. The check never publishes or rejects anything on its own.
- Moderators can approve a post, make a small edit to keep it within the rules, or decline it. We’ll email you either way, with the reason.
- Breaking the rules can mean a strike. A second strike pauses your posting for 7 days; a third ends it. Strikes expire after 12 months.
- Think we got it wrong? Reply to our email within 14 days and a different moderator will look again.
Reporting a post
Signed-in members can press Report on any post. A post reported by two people, or reported once for naming someone or for a threat, is hidden straight away until a moderator decides. If someone may be in danger, call 911 in Canada or 999 in the UK first.
If a post is about you
You don’t need an account. Press Is this about you? on the post and tell us what’s wrong. We hide the post straight away while a moderator looks at it, aim to decide within 2 working days, and tell you what we decided. You can also contact us.
Your posts and your data
You can edit a post for 24 hours, and delete it at any time. Deleting your account deletes your posts. Our privacy policy explains what we keep and why.