The community map

Alongside the public and open data it gathers, Radar carries places that travellers add themselves: the layby that works for a night, the border crossing with the shorter queue, the dump station that is still open, the lane that washed out last week.

Using the community map is free. Adding to it is free too, and needs a free Sensa account. That is deliberate: every place on the map has someone standing behind it, which is what keeps it worth trusting.

Adding a place

There are three ways in, and they all reach the same place.

From the map. Press and hold a spot on a touch screen, or right-click it on a computer. The Save box that appears has a Make public tick: leave it off and the pin is a private saved place, turn it on and it is also offered to the community map.

From a place that is already listed. Open it and choose Update info to send a correction or fill in what is missing.

From the full form. Open Add a place for the longer version, with opening hours, facilities, capacity, height limits, and owner details.

You can add a place anywhere in the world. Set the location by using where you are, searching for it, or dragging the pin. An address and postcode are optional, and the address is filled in from the pin for you.

What you are asked for

A name, a category, and a location are all that is required. After that it depends on what you are adding:

• Stopovers, aires, campsites, car parks, and private hosts: whether overnight is allowed, the cost, how many spaces, any height limit, and the facilities (water, waste, hookup, showers, laundry, and so on).
• Pubs, cafes, restaurants, and supermarkets: opening hours, whether they allow overnight motorhome parking, and details like a beer garden or dog friendly.
• Fuel and LPG: opening hours, pay at pump, motorhome friendly, AdBlue, air and water.
• Reports (see below): a title, where it is, and what travellers should know.

If it is already on the map

As you type, Radar checks whether something is already listed nearby and shows you what it found. If yours is one of them, pick it and your details are added to the existing listing rather than creating a second copy of the same place.

If you run the place

When you are adding to an existing listing, you can tick I represent this place. Tell us how we can check (a phone number on your website, a staff email address, anything that helps), and once confirmed your listing is labelled as owner-verified.

Reports: road conditions and warnings

Not everything worth sharing is a place you would stop at. Radar has three report categories for things that are true right now and may not be true next month:

• Road reports: a washed-out road, a closed pass, a bridge down.
• Warnings: anything travellers should know before they get there.
• Overnight prohibited: a spot where staying the night is no longer allowed.

A report is just a title, a location, a description, and its date, so it takes seconds to file. The date is shown wherever the report is, because a road report is only as good as how recent it is.

Photos

You can add up to three photos when you add a place or send an update.

Location and camera details are removed before a photo is published. A phone photo carries the exact spot it was taken, the device, and the time. Somebody sharing an approximate location for a quiet spot should not have it pinned to the metre by the picture, so Radar strips all of that out rather than passing it on.

Photos are reviewed like everything else. Nothing is visible to anyone until it has been approved, and a photo that is turned down is deleted rather than hidden.

Reviews, and why there are no stars

Radar does not have star ratings. A review is one question: would you stop here again, yes or no, with an optional tip, and it is always shown with its date.

A star average is the thing that quietly rots a travel map. Somewhere rated 4.5 from reports written three years ago looks exactly like somewhere rated 4.5 last week. So Radar shows the recent picture instead, for example "3 of 4 in the last 12 months would stop here again", and prints the date on every review.

To leave one, open a place and choose Leave a tip. If you are adding a place yourself you can leave your own first review at the same time, and it is published with the place.

Keeping listings fresh

Every community listing shows when it was last confirmed, on the map, in the results list, and on its details. Past a year it is flagged in amber as possibly out of date.

Two things keep that honest, and both are one tap:

• Still here: you were there, it is as described. No moderation, it takes effect straight away.
• Report: something is wrong. Pick closed, wrong info, not there, or unsafe. A report goes to a moderator and never changes the map on its own, so nothing can be removed by one person reporting it.

What happens after you submit

Everything you add is reviewed before it goes live. You will get an email when it is approved or turned down, and a rejection includes the moderator's reason where there is one.

You can see everything you have sent, and what happened to each one, in the mySensa portal under Radar, then Community.

Turning those emails off

If you contribute often the replies add up, so you can switch them off. Open Settings, then Community, and untick either:

• Email when submissions are accepted, your place or review going live on the map.
• Email when submissions are rejected, including the reason.

Both start switched on, and the change applies straight away with nothing to save. Every one of these emails carries a link back to the same setting. Turning them off changes nothing else: your submissions are still reviewed as usual, and the mySensa portal still shows what happened to each one.

Free Premium for contributing

Get 10 contributions approved in a calendar month and you get Radar Premium free for the following month.

New places, updates, and reviews all count, one credit each. Confirming a listing and reporting a problem earn nothing, on purpose: those are signals we want you to send freely, without wondering whether they are worth a point.

Your progress towards this month's total is shown in the mySensa portal, under Radar, then Community.

The categories you can add to

Community places use the same categories as everything else in Radar, so what you add appears in the same searches. That includes two groups that only exist because travellers fill them in:

• Overland: border crossings, customs and immigration, checkpoints, consulates and embassies, vehicle insurance, vehicle shipping, vehicle storage, black-water dump stations, showers, and oversized-vehicle parking.
• Community reports: road reports, warnings, and overnight prohibited.

There is also Private hosts (by permission) under Overnight Parking, for the farms, vineyards, and small businesses that let travellers stay by arrangement.