Terms & content policy

The deal

HopScotch is a bar-crawl planner built and run by an independent developer. Using it means agreeing to this page and to the privacy policy. If you create an account you are asked to agree explicitly, and the app records that you did.

You need to be of legal drinking age where you are. You are responsible for what you post and for what happens on a crawl you plan.

What you may not post

This applies to everything a person can write or upload: crawl chat, check-in photos, crawl and stop titles, your display name, your username and your bio.

• Harassment, bullying or threats against anyone, including anyone on your own crawl.
• Hate speech — attacking or demeaning people over race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or age.
• Sexual content: pornography, nudity, or sexually explicit text. Anything sexual involving a minor is reported to the authorities, not just removed.
• Violence: gore, threats of violence, or glorifying it.
• Illegal activity, including selling drugs, buying alcohol for minors, or arranging either.
• Other people’s private information, or photos of people who have not agreed to be photographed.
• Spam, scams and impersonation: advertising, phishing, bots, or pretending to be somebody you are not.
• Anything you do not have the right to post, including other people’s copyrighted photos.

There is no interpretation game here. If a reasonable person would call it abusive, it is against these terms.

What happens if you do

Content that breaks the rules above is removed. Depending on what it was and whether it has happened before, the account that posted it can be suspended or deleted outright, and a deleted account takes its crawls with it. Serious cases — anything involving a minor, a credible threat, or a crime — go to the relevant authorities.

We do not owe you a warning first, and we do not discuss one person’s account with another person. A removed chat message stays in the thread as “this message was removed” rather than vanishing, so nobody is left guessing.

Some content is filtered automatically before anyone sees it. Check-in photos in particular are scanned before they go anywhere: nobody on your crawl sees a picture until it has passed, and one that does not pass is deleted rather than hidden. The app tells you which happened.

Automated filtering is imperfect in both directions; a report is how you tell us it got something wrong, and the address below is how you appeal a removal.

Reporting and blocking

Every message, photo and person in the app carries a Report action behind the ⋮ menu or a long press. Reports are reviewed by a person. We never tell the person who was reported who reported them, and we never tell a reporter what happened to the account they reported — that is between us and the account holder.

You can also block anybody. Blocking hides their messages from you everywhere in the app, stops them adding you as a friend, and ends the friendship both ways if you had one. Blocked people are listed in Settings, where you can unblock them; unblocking does not make you friends again.

Reporting and blocking are free and always will be. They are not a paid feature and never sit behind one.

If something needs a person rather than a button, email sdoyle312@gmail.com. Reports of objectionable content are looked at within 24 hours.

Your content stays yours

You keep whatever rights you have in what you post. You give us permission to store it and to show it to the people you posted it to — the members of your crawl, or everyone, for a crawl you made public. That is the whole licence; we do not sell it, license it on, or use it to advertise.

Deleting your account in Settings deletes your crawls, your profile and your place in other people’s crawls. Chat messages delete themselves thirty days after they are sent, whatever else happens.

Age and drinking

HopScotch is for adults of legal drinking age: 21 in the United States, 18 or older elsewhere. It is not for anyone under 13 under any circumstances.

The app plans a route between bars. It does not serve you, drive you, or know how much you have had. Plan a safe way home before the first stop — the app has a designated-driver mode and a ride-home button, and neither of them is a substitute for judgement.

The app is as-is

Bar information comes from Google and Foursquare and is sometimes wrong: a bar may be shut, moved, or not what its listing says. Walking routes are estimates. Check before you go.

HopScotch is provided as-is, without warranties, to the extent the law where you live allows. We are not liable for what happens on a crawl, for what another user posts, or for a night that did not go to plan.

These terms can change. The date at the top says when they last did, and a material change to what is prohibited is asked for again in the app.

Contact

A person reads this address: sdoyle312@gmail.com.

Use it to report content, to appeal a removal or a suspension, to ask for your data, or to tell us this page is wrong about something. Reports of objectionable content are answered within 24 hours; everything else within 30 days.