People Review Guidelines

Two kinds of people reviews

Direct Experience is for a real interaction, service, professional relationship or other firsthand experience. Public Assessment is for an opinion about a person's publicly observable work, leadership, policies, content or professional/public conduct.

Who may be added?

Adults with a legitimate public or professional presence may be listed. Do not add minors or create profiles mainly to target a private individual in a personal dispute.

What reviews must not contain

No home addresses, private phone numbers, private email addresses, financial/account data, intimate images or other doxxing. No threats, targeted harassment, impersonation or knowingly false statements. Serious factual allegations may be reviewed more closely and can require supporting information.

Profile photos

Uploaded profile photos must be Public Domain or CC0 unless the uploader owns the copyright and dedicates the uploaded copy to CC0. ORP may also use Wikimedia Commons images whose machine-readable metadata identifies a reusable Public Domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA license. Required source and attribution information is retained. ORP re-encodes, crops and resizes chosen images rather than relying on permanent hotlinks. When two language apps have an exact confirmed People counterpart—normally backed by the same Wikidata identity—ORP may reuse an eligible Public Domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA portrait by copying it into the destination app’s own local storage together with source, license and attribution. Name similarity alone never authorizes cross-language photo sharing.

Replies to People reviews

Another user may reply to a published People review using a private email address. The reply is not published until the email is confirmed. ORP can automatically clear ordinary replies after safety screening and route suspicious replies to an administrator. Published reply authors can manage their replies through Manage Your Participation, and the original reviewer is notified when a reply is published.

Representing a person profile

The person or an authorized representative may request secure profile access. Representation allows appropriate profile-response and reporting tools; it does not create a business account and does not provide Business Center, webmaster analytics, hosted-site, API or business-publishing tools.

Serious factual allegations

Public Assessments containing serious allegations such as major crime, fraud, violence, abuse, corruption or serious professional misconduct may require a credible public source and are held for human moderation even after email confirmation. A cited source does not mean ORP endorses the allegation; it gives moderators and readers context for evaluating a factual claim.

Identity, privacy and safety reports

Use the People Safety report on a profile for mistaken identity, a wrong photo, a private person, a minor, exposed sensitive personal information, impersonation, harassment or threats. These are treated separately from ordinary disagreement with a review. Learn more at People Safety & Transparency.

Coordinated activity and anti-brigading

Unusual submission bursts, repeated protected network/device signals and matching review text can cause a People review to be held for human moderation. These technical signals are risk indicators only and do not automatically establish that a reviewer or campaign acted improperly.

Source context

ORP may classify a cited source by general type to help readers understand what kind of material was supplied. The label is descriptive; it is not an ORP credibility score and does not mean ORP has independently verified every statement in the source.

Edited reviews and revision history

Material edits can return a review to moderation. ORP preserves an internal copy of the prior review state for accountability, while the public page may simply indicate that the review was edited.

Following a People profile

Visitors may privately follow a People profile by email. A confirmation link is required before notifications begin. Followers are notified when a new review or public assessment is published and can unsubscribe from the email link at any time. Following a person is not an endorsement of that person or any review about them.

Contributor context

Published People reviews may show neutral contribution history such as “First ORP contribution” or the contributor’s number of published ORP reviews. This gives readers context without revealing the reviewer’s private email or other private identity data.

Books and authorship discovery 📚

A People profile may include books ORP has linked to that person through public bibliographic sources. These records document authorship/publication history and may remain useful even when a title is no longer sold by a retailer. Book covers and external Open Library or Amazon destinations are discovery aids, not endorsements. If a book is linked to the wrong person, use the profile correction/safety workflow so the identity relationship can be reviewed.

People and Business are separate

A People profile represents an individual adult with a legitimate public/professional presence. A Business profile represents a company, organization, service or website. Do not create a person as a business merely to obtain business tools, and do not create a business as a person.

Attribution

People reviews are submitted by users. They express the reviewer's experience or opinion and are not written or endorsed by Open Review Platform. The person or an authorized representative may respond and report content for moderation.