The handshake.

The "You Made It" promise

This is the foundation. When you list a product on Genesis Local, you are personally attesting: I grew it, I raised it, or I made it.

If you list honey, you kept those bees. If you list bread, you baked it. If you list vegetables, you grew them. Genesis exists to connect people with the person behind the food, goods, or craft, not with a faceless reseller.

Sourcing ingredients is normal. Flour for bread, milk for cheese, feed for livestock, jars for jam, and materials for craftwork do not make the finished product less yours. Passing off someone else's finished product as your own does.

If you carry a few products from neighboring farmers, artisans, growers, bakers, or craftspeople, be transparent about what is yours and what is not. The promise is not perfection. The promise is honesty.

Keep your profile honest

Your profile is public information neighbors use to decide where to go and what to buy. Keep it useful:

• Products: List what you actually grow, raise, bake, make, or transparently carry from someone else.
• Photos: Every new profile needs one real primary photo. Only submit a photo you took or have permission to share, and make sure the owner knows it will appear publicly on Genesis.
• Categories: Choose every category that fits. A farm can also be a ranch; a baker can also be an artisan.
• Location and markets: List where people can actually find you.
• Schedule and availability: Keep hours, market days, seasonal products, and inventory signals as current as you reasonably can.
• Claims: If a starter profile was created from public information, you can claim it, edit it, correct it, or request removal.

Reviews, responses, and community context

Reviews, flags, helpful votes, owner responses, and community notes are the trust layer. They are not verdicts from Genesis.

• Buyers can review. They should describe real experiences and real products.
• Owners can respond. Use responses to clarify, correct, apologize, or add context. Do not harass or retaliate.
• Neighbors can add notes. Community notes are for useful context: corrections, changes, local knowledge, or things a shopper should know.
• Anyone can flag problems. Flags exist for spam, offensive content, inaccurate information, duplicate listings, closed businesses, misleading profiles, or similar issues.
• Helpful votes are signals. They help the community see what information other people found useful.

Do not buy reviews, fake reviews, review yourself, pressure people to leave only positive reviews, or punish someone for honest criticism. Local trust only works if people can speak plainly.

Genesis is not the judge

Genesis is also not a food safety certifier, licensing authority, market manager, payment processor, delivery service, insurance provider, or guarantee of any product or person listed here.

A profile on Genesis Local is not an endorsement. It is a public page with community context around it. You are responsible for your products, permits, labels, safety practices, customer relationships, and compliance with local, state, and federal rules.

How community governance works

Genesis is designed to be hands off by default. The platform does not try to centrally moderate every disagreement. It gives the community tools and makes signals visible.

• A single report does not remove a profile or review. One flag is just one signal.
• Multiple independent reports can mark something as flagged. Flagged content may remain visible with a warning, context, or reduced emphasis.
• Community notes add context instead of hiding information. Corrections and local knowledge are usually better than platform decisions.
• Owner responses stay attached to reviews. If you disagree with a review, respond for future readers instead of asking Genesis to referee it.
• Removal is narrow. Profiles, markets, or reviews may be removed when the owner verifies removal, when community signals cross the relevant threshold, or when legal/safety exceptions apply.

Removal and correction

Genesis supports correction before control:

• Claim and edit: If the profile is yours, use the claim/edit link to fix details, photos, products, markets, story, and contact information.
• Request removal: If you own the listed business and do not want to be listed, request removal from the profile page. Verified owner removal is honored.
• Community removal signals: If a listing appears closed, duplicate, misleading, or fraudulent, community reports can flag it for everyone else.
• Export: You can export profile data using the profile export link.

Legal and safety exceptions

Legal and safety exceptions are narrow. Genesis may act directly when content creates legal risk, safety risk, security risk, spam/abuse risk, or infrastructure risk. Examples include threats, doxxing, malware, obvious spam, unlawful content, impersonation, or attempts to break the service.

Outside those narrow cases, our job is to keep the tools working and the signals visible, not to become the referee.

Your data

By using Genesis, you understand that public profile information, products, categories, market locations, photos, reviews, owner responses, community notes, helpful votes, and flag status may be shown publicly because that visibility is how the platform works.

We try to keep private contact information private. Email addresses used for claims, edit links, verification, and notifications are for operating the service, not for public display.

See our Privacy Policy for more on how information is handled.

Changes to this agreement

Genesis will change as the community and tools evolve. We may update this agreement when the product changes, when community governance improves, or when legal/safety requirements change. The current version will live here.

Acceptance

By creating, claiming, or editing a profile on Genesis Local, you confirm that you understand the "You Made It" promise and the community-governed nature of the platform. If you need a platform that arbitrates buyer/seller disputes or centrally controls reputation, Genesis is not that platform.