Community Guidelines

Why these exist

Most platforms connect you to an activity. Hume connects you to a person who turned what they know, do and love into something you can book. You choose Katya because of Katya. You book Marchello's night because of Marchello.

That changes the social contract. An Experience Creator isn't a faceless supplier — they're putting their taste, their city, their friends and sometimes their home in front of strangers. An Explorer isn't buying a ticket — they're being let into someone's world, often alongside four or five people they've never met.

So these Guidelines do two jobs at once: they keep Explorers safe with people they don't know, and they keep Experience Creators safe from the particular risks of being the product. Both matter. Neither gets traded away for growth.

Who can be here

• You must be 18 or older to have a Hume account, book an Experience, or run one. Experiences that involve alcohol are 19+, because that's the legal drinking age in Ontario.
• One account per person. Real first name, a current photo that clearly shows your face, and contact details that actually reach you.
• You book for yourself. If you want to bring someone, book their spot too — the Experience Creator is planning for a specific number of people, and an unannounced guest changes the Experience for everyone.
• Don't create an account to get around a removal. If we've removed you, that decision follows you.

Showing up

Hume Experiences are small. A no-show isn't an empty seat in a theatre — it's a noticeable hole in a group of six, and it's money out of a real person's pocket.

• Cancel as early as you can. Plans change and we're not going to punish honesty. Cancel through Hume, not by going quiet.
• Refunds and late cancellations are covered on the Cancellations & Refunds page. The short version: the earlier you tell us, the more of your money comes back.
• Repeated late cancellations or no-shows will cost you access. We look at patterns, not one bad week.
• Experience Creators cancel too — rarely, and for real reasons. Cancelling on Explorers at short notice, more than once, without a genuine reason, is a reason we stop working with a Creator.
• Be on time. Many Experiences start by moving somewhere. If you're fifteen minutes late, the group may be gone.

The person is the Experience — and still a person

This is the section that makes Hume different from a tour marketplace, so read it properly.

Because you chose an Experience Creator for who they are, it's easy to arrive feeling like you already know them. You've watched their video. You've read their profile. They haven't met you at all.

• Curiosity is the point; interrogation isn't. Ask about the thing they brought you into. Don't push for details about their home address, income, relationship status, family or immigration story because their profile made you feel close to them.
• An Experience Creator can set a boundary without losing the booking. "I don't talk about that" is a complete sentence. It isn't bad service, and it isn't grounds for a bad review.
• Don't look for them elsewhere. No tracking down personal social accounts, workplaces, home addresses or family members from what you learned on Hume.
• An Experience ends when it ends. Continuing to contact someone after they've stopped replying is harassment, whichever direction it runs.
• The same applies between Explorers. The other people in the group did not sign up to be pursued afterwards.

Attraction, flirting and the line

People meet people. We're not going to pretend nobody on Hume will ever be attracted to anybody. But Hume is not a dating app, and an Experience Creator being paid to run an Experience is not on a date with you.

• Booking someone's Experience is not an approach. Booking repeatedly to get closer to a Creator who hasn't reciprocated is not flattering — it's pressure, and it's a removal.
• One clear signal is enough. If someone declines, changes the subject, or doesn't reciprocate, that's the answer. Asking again — later that night, or at the next Experience — isn't persistence.
• Never sexual comments, sexual content, or unwanted touching. Not as a joke, not as a compliment, not "just being warm."
• Don't comment on anyone's body or appearance uninvited — not the Experience Creator, not another Explorer, not in a message, not in a review, not at the table. A compliment nobody asked for is still a comment about someone's body, and "it was meant nicely" isn't a defence. This is the single most common thing people tell us made an Experience uncomfortable.
• Creators: the same rules run toward Explorers, and the power difference makes it worse, not better. You set the pace of the group, you know the room, and people paid to be there. Pursuing an Explorer during an Experience you're running is a removal.
• Nobody is required to be flirtatious to earn income here, and no Explorer is entitled to it because they paid. If an Experience is being sold on that, it doesn't belong on Hume.

Privacy, photos and filming

Hume runs on short-form video, and most Experiences produce photos. That's part of what makes discovery work — and it's also the fastest way to make someone regret coming.

• Ask before you film or photograph anyone. Every time. Being in a public place is not consent.
• An Experience Creator will say at the start what they're filming and what it's for, even when the page already said it. Anyone who'd rather not be in it says so, and stays out of frame — no explanation needed, no awkwardness, no worse Experience.
• Being filmed once isn't permission for everything after. A different kind of edit, a paid ad, or handing footage to someone else needs asking again.
• People who aren't in the group — passers-by, café staff, someone at the next table — don't become identifiable in your footage without being asked.
• The footage is never the priority. If getting the shot would put someone at risk or push past a boundary, the shot doesn't happen.
• Don't post other people's faces to your own social accounts without their agreement. Ask in the moment; a nod is not a release.
• Never share what someone told you in confidence during an Experience, including screenshots of messages.
• Creators: the video you submit to Hume must only feature people who agreed to be in it. Music, clips and images you don't have the rights to will be taken down.
• Don't share anyone's contact details, address or location with people outside the Experience.

How Hume itself handles your information is a separate question, answered in the Privacy Policy.

If you're an Explorer

• Read what you're booking. Walking distance, terrain, noise, food, duration, group size — it's on the Experience page, and Creators plan around what you told them.
• Tell the Creator what they need to know before the day: allergies, mobility, anything that affects whether the plan works for you. You never have to explain why — see the Accessibility page.
• Follow the Creator's lead on safety — where to cross, what not to touch, when to leave. They know the place.
• You can leave at any time, for any reason, without justifying it.
• Be decent to venue staff. Experience Creators bring groups back to the same places for years. How you treat a bartender is how you treat their relationship.
• Tipping is never expected. If you want to, that's between you and the Creator. Nobody should imply otherwise.
• Reviews are about the Experience, not the Creator's appearance, accent, body or personal life.

If you're an Experience Creator

Explorers booked you. That comes with a standard.

• Be the person on the profile. Real experience, real skill, real story. Inventing credentials, borrowing someone else's work, or using photos that aren't yours ends your account.
• Run what you listed. Same idea, same length, same rough group size, same city. If something has to change, tell everyone before they arrive and offer them a way out.
• Be specific up front about walking, stairs, standing, weather exposure, loud rooms, animals, food, and anything an Explorer would want to know before paying. The Accessibility page covers how to describe a space honestly and when you can decline a request.
• Label your filming — required, optional, or none — and never take unregistered guests at the meeting point.
• Be there first. Know the meeting point, have a wet-weather plan, and have a way to reach everyone.
• You're in charge of the group's tone. If an Explorer is making someone uncomfortable, deal with it — separate them, ask them to leave, end the Experience if you have to. You will never be penalised by Hume for ending an Experience to keep people safe, and we'd rather you did it early. Tell us afterwards.
• Your boundaries stand. You decide what you share about your life and who gets your personal contact details.
• Don't run an Experience impaired. You can drink with a group where it fits, but you're responsible for the people who came.
• Sort your own permissions. Venue permission, any permit or licence your Experience actually needs, and your own insurance. The Terms of Use set this out.

Money stays honest

• Book and pay through Hume. Taking a booking off-platform to avoid fees leaves Explorers with no cancellation protection, no record and no route to report a problem. It's the fastest way to lose a Creator account.
• The price is the price. No surprise costs at the meeting point. If Explorers pay for their own drinks, food or tickets, say so on the Experience page with a realistic number.
• Hume is not a sales floor. Don't use an Experience to pitch your other business, recruit for an MLM, raise money, sell a course, or collect leads.
• Never ask anyone on Hume for money beyond the price of an Experience. No loans, no emergencies, no crypto, no investment opportunities, no "pay me another way and I'll do it cheaper." This is how people get hurt on platforms that introduce strangers, and we treat it as fraud. The Safety page has more on spotting it.
• No fake demand. No fake bookings, fake reviews, review trading, or accounts run by friends to inflate a Creator.
• Be straight about what's sponsored. If a venue is paying you or comping the group, say so.

Claims about what you can do for people

Experience Creators sell themselves, which makes honesty about credentials a safety rule and not just a marketing one.

• Only claim qualifications you hold. Don't call yourself a therapist, coach, trainer, nutritionist, guide or instructor in a regulated sense unless you are one. Say what you actually do — "I've been DJing in this city for nine years" is more convincing than a borrowed title anyway.
• Don't promise health outcomes. An Experience can be restorative, energising, or good for you in the ordinary sense. It can't treat, heal, cure, detox, balance, or fix anything, and it can't be offered as an alternative to seeing a doctor.
• Regulated services stay off Hume. Anything that requires a licence in Ontario — therapy, medical or psychological advice, physiotherapy, legal or financial advice, dispensing anything — isn't a Hume Experience, whatever it's called on the page.
• No health or safety misinformation, and nothing that tells people to skip real medical care.
• Be specific about physical demands and food. Overstating what someone can handle, or understating what's in a dish, is how a good Experience becomes an incident.

If you're not sure which side of this an Experience falls on, ask us before you list it. We've never minded that question.

Alcohol, food and anything risky

• Alcohol only in licensed venues, served by that venue. Experience Creators don't pour, supply, or resell alcohol — in Ontario that requires a licence or permit, and Hume Experiences don't have one.
• Experiences involving alcohol are 19+ and must say so clearly on the Experience page.
• Never pressure anyone to drink, and never order for someone who has stopped.
• Illegal drugs are out, at any Experience, in any form, including offering them to someone else.
• Food: Creators can take a group to eat. Creators shouldn't be cooking and selling food from a home kitchen without the permits Toronto Public Health requires. Always ask the group about allergies before anyone eats.
• Physical Experiences — cycling, swimming, climbing, anything with real physical risk — need an honest fitness description on the page, and may need extra paperwork or insurance before Hume will list them. Ask us first.

Venues, homes and other people's spaces

• Follow the house rules wherever the Experience goes, and leave the place better than the group found it.
• Private residences: if an Experience happens in someone's home — a Creator's studio, kitchen or apartment — it has to be stated plainly on the Experience page before anyone books, with the neighbourhood and what the space is like. Explorers should never find out at the meeting point.
• Explorers are never required to go somewhere private that wasn't described in advance. If the plan changes to somewhere you're not comfortable, you can leave.
• If a venue is unsafe, hostile or discriminatory, tell us. Reporting a venue never counts against your account.
• Damage caused by an Explorer is that Explorer's responsibility.

Discrimination

Hume operates in Ontario, and the Ontario Human Rights Code is the floor, not the ceiling. Nobody is refused a booking, treated worse in a group, or singled out because of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital or family status, or disability.

• That covers slurs, "jokes," demeaning comments about identity, and deliberately freezing someone out of a group.
• An Experience Creator may not decline an Explorer on any of those grounds. Declining someone for genuine, stated capacity or safety reasons is different, and should be explained.
• An Experience can absolutely be built around a culture, a language or a community. Building one to exclude people isn't the same thing, and won't be listed.
• Consequences run from a conversation to permanent removal, depending on what happened.

Talking about hard things

People open up at these things. Grief, burnout, being new in a city and finding it hard — that's part of why Hume exists, and it's welcome.

What isn't: encouraging or instructing anyone in self-harm, suicide, or disordered eating. If someone at an Experience seems to be in danger, call 911 — not us first. If you're worried about someone afterwards, tell us and we'll do what we can.

Experience Creators are not counsellors, and nothing here asks them to be. Looking after someone means getting them real help, not carrying it alone.

The lines we don't adjust

These end an account immediately and permanently, with no warning ladder, and we report to the police where a crime may have been committed:

• Violence, or a credible threat of it.
• Any sexual contact without consent, and any sexual conduct involving a minor.
• Tampering with anyone's drink or food.
• Sharing intimate images of someone without their consent, or threatening to.
• Publishing someone's private information — address, workplace, phone number, immigration status — to expose or intimidate them.
• Blackmail or extortion of any kind.
• Theft, or knowingly damaging someone's property.
• Stalking someone, on or off Hume, or using Hume to locate them.
• Fraud — fake identity, stolen payment details, invented Experiences.
• Offering or soliciting sexual services through Hume.
• Coming back after removal under a new account.

Child safety is handled separately and in detail on the Safety page. Hume is an adults-only service and we have zero tolerance here.

Reviews

When you review a person rather than a product, the ordinary rules of reviewing aren't enough.

• Only review an Experience you actually attended. Reviews can't be bought, traded, or written by friends.
• Review the Experience, not the person's body, accent, age or private life. "The walk was longer than described" is a review. Anything about how a Creator looks is not.
• Never use a review as leverage. Threatening a bad review to get a refund, a discount, or anything else is extortion, and it ends an account.
• Experience Creators don't pressure Explorers for a review, or retaliate against one. Reply to it if you want — publicly, once, calmly.
• We don't remove a review for being negative. We do remove reviews that are fake, retaliatory, discriminatory, or about something other than the Experience.
• A safety problem belongs in a report, not a review. Reviews are public and slow; reports are private and fast. Do both if you want, but do the report first.

Reporting something

Email withhume@gmail.com with "Report" in the subject line. Tell us what happened, when, and who was there. Screenshots and photos help.

• We read every report, and we aim to reply within 24 hours. A real person on the Hume team reads it — nothing here is automated.
• Reports are confidential. We don't tell the person you reported who reported them. Sometimes acting on a report makes it obvious anyway, and we'll be honest with you about that before we act.
• You can report after the fact. There's no window. If something sat wrong with you a week later, tell us then.
• Not everything is a violation. An Experience that didn't land, a Creator you didn't click with, a quiet group — that's feedback, and we want it, but it isn't a report.
• Deliberately false reports to damage a Creator or an Explorer are themselves a violation.
• If you're in immediate danger, call 911 first. Tell us afterwards.

How we enforce this

We're small enough that a person, not a system, makes these calls. Here's the ladder:

1. A conversation. Most first problems are a misunderstanding or a bad night, and end here.
2. A formal warning, recorded on the account, sometimes with a condition attached — sitting out a type of Experience, or a pause on booking.
3. Suspension, while we look into something or while a pattern settles.
4. Permanent removal. Bookings cancelled, profile taken down, no new accounts.

Where something on the "lines we don't adjust" list happens, we skip straight to removal. We weigh how serious it was, whether it was aimed at a person, whether it's happened before, and how the person responded when we raised it.

We may also remove an Experience, hide a profile, or hold a payment while we sort something out.

These Guidelines don't stop at the edge of the platform. If someone behaves this way toward a person they met through Hume — by text afterwards, on Instagram, or in person weeks later — it's still our business, and we'll act on it. Meeting someone here doesn't make what you do next invisible to us.

Appeals

If we've got it wrong, tell us. Email withhume@gmail.com with "Appeal" in the subject within 30 days, and say what you think we missed. Wherever we can, someone other than the person who made the original decision will look at it. We'll give you an answer, and we'll give you the reason.

We won't reconsider removals for the violations under the lines we don't adjust.