Who put that pin there? How events get on Vibespot

Every vibe on the Vibespot map got there one of two ways: a person posted it, or we imported it from a public listing and put the source's name on it. The byline on the card tells you which.

A local map is only worth opening if you can trust what's on it. Here's how each path works, and what to do when a listing is wrong.

A person posts it

Anyone can post a vibe. On the web, you need a free account and a verified phone number.

Posting takes six short steps: title, description, when, where, customize and preview. You don't have to write the first two yourself.

• Paste a link. Give it the address of the event's own page, and Vibespot reads the page and drafts the vibe.
• Say it out loud. Record up to a minute about what's happening, where and when, and it drafts from that.

Either way, the draft can come back with a title, a description, the date and times, up to five tags, an icon, the admission, and the name of the place, already typed into the venue search. Whatever it couldn't find, you fill in.

Here is the part we care about most: the AI drafts, and you publish. You pick the venue. You check the times, which are the venue's local time, and the step tells you when your own clock is somewhere else. You see a preview card, and nothing reaches the map until you press Create Event.

It also fails out loud. Some pages block us, and some events are already over. When that happens you get a plain "Could not read that page," and you fill the vibe in yourself. That beats publishing a confident guess.

We import it, and credit it

A map with three pins on it helps nobody, and most organizers haven't heard of us yet. So we also bring in public event listings. That's how a town's map can be useful on day one, before anyone there has posted.

An import isn't a copy and paste. Each listing is linked to a place on the map, and it has to be approved before it's published.

Then it's credited. A person's vibe says "Created by." An imported one says "Published by" and names who it came from: a venue, an organization, or the site that listed it. When the listing was found somewhere else, the card adds a Source line with that source's name and, where we have it, a link back to the original.

A listing should tell you who is vouching for it.

Imports aren't a claim that we know an event better than the people putting it on.

Tags are just hashtags

A vibe has no separate tags field. Its tags are the hashtags in its description, and nothing else. When you pick tags while posting, Vibespot adds them to the end of your description for you.

Tap a tag and it opens a page with every vibe carrying it in the area and dates on your map. That's why spelling matters: one spelling means one page instead of three half-empty ones. We're moving every tag to a single form, lowercase letters and digits only, so #Live_Music and #livemusic will lead to the same page.

When the details are wrong

Sometimes they will be. A source can post a start time and never update it. A market can move a block over. A weekly series can get read as a single date. Imports make mistakes, and so do people.

If a vibe looks wrong, tell us. Sign in, open the vibe's menu and choose Report Vibe.

• Canceled or not happening: pick "Fake, canceled, or nonexistent event."
• Wrong time, place or price: pick "Other" and write what's right in the details box.

You can also email support@vibespot.com. A report isn't an accusation. It's how we find out.

If it's your own vibe, you can edit the description, the icon and the photos. The title, place, time and admission stay as published. If one of those is wrong, use Create from this vibe to post a corrected copy, then archive the old one. The copy keeps the title, description, tags, icon and place, so the fix is quick.

What's missing is the gentle path. The report menu is built mostly for spam, abuse and harm, and most wrong listings are nobody's fault. Suggest-an-edit is on the way for exactly this: a way to say "it starts at 7, not 6" without filing a complaint. It isn't live yet, and we won't put a date on it here. Until then, "Other" with a note does the job.

If it's your event

If you run a venue or put on events and find yours already on the map, that's the import doing its job, credited to where we found it. If something in it is wrong, report it or write to us.

If you'd rather post your programming yourself, you can, with a free account. Venue accounts can keep more vibes live at once, which is what makes a weekly series practical: trivia every Tuesday can be set up as a repeating vibe instead of posted by hand each week. Tell us what you do on the venues and organizers page, or write to partners@vibespot.com.

Our rules for what belongs on the map are in the community guidelines. The short version: be accurate, and tell us when we aren't.

Then open the map, or start with Dana Point, and see who put what where.