Membership Guidelines

Your account is for your own personal use only and its security is your responsibility. Please safeguard your login information and use your browser's “save password” and “keep me logged in” features only if no one else accesses your computer. Be aware that if you share your registered email address with others, they can reset your ASW password and access your account.

It's advisable to change all of your passwords periodically.

Please avoid sharing your account with others, even a family member or close friend. Sharing accounts erodes the ethos of trust upon which ASW is built.

Profiles provide a starting point for members to get to know one another and find common ground. While it's acceptable to include a nickname, actual names and surnames must also be included. People are more inclined to interact with and trust those using their real names and factual profile information. By providing more detail in your profile, we will be able to share more relevant content with you, improving your overall experience.

The aim of your profile picture is for you to be identifiable, to contribute towards authentication of your account, and to allow your friends to recognise you. Please ensure that your profile photograph is clear.

By selecting a geographical location, content will be provided to you accordingly; events, Member Privileges, happenings and local members will be surfaced on the website based on your location. Updating your location when you travel will allow relevant city guide and travel advice to be surfaced to you.

ASW is a place to meet people, both online and offline. We ask members to observe real life etiquette when interacting, and members should feel sheltered from unwanted communications. Unless it has been specified that Messages are welcome (either in a post, or on a profile), it's probably safest to assume that Messages from unknown members are unwanted. A sense of decorum should be observed when contacting others. We encourage members to report abusive or inappropriate Messages.

Spam and unrequested commercial messages won't be tolerated and may lead to the termination of a member’s account.

Members can indicate the type of interactions they are interested in (socialising, dating or business). Please respect members’ intentions if they are not open to certain types of interactions. You can manage your own personal settings on your profile page.

You may also block individual members from sending you unwanted messages with the “block” functionality.

Your network should be composed of people with whom you have established an actual relationship. ASW's unique community trust encourages and promotes developing solid friendships by way of the website and events. However, we urge you to be cautious when adding contacts if you are unable to verify their identities.

We encourage you to use the 'Decline' button when you receive unwelcome contact requests. You could also report them to the ASW Webmaster using the 'Report' button. Members are not notified if you decline them or report them.

You may remove members from your contacts by clicking on 'Remove from contacts' in the drop down menu on the member contact card.

In order to preserve the trust in our community, we ask you not to invite anyone to join the site if you're unsure of who they are or what their intentions may be. Rather, we hope you will invite friends and contacts who can contribute positively to the site and to the betterment of the whole community.

We are pleased to offer, in conjunction with our Privilege Partners, special ASW Member Privileges.

Member Privileges are intended for ASW members exclusively. Please do not allow others, even friends and family, to access Privileges. Doing so could imperil our relationships with Privilege Partners, as well as jeopardize your membership with ASW.

Privilege Partners have their own rules and policies. Please ensure that you are familiar with them.

Please read our full Member Privileges Terms here.

ASW hosts a range of events organised exclusively for our members and their guests throughout selected ASW Cities. Some events are free of charge for members who register in advance and arrive within the time frame stated in the event listing, while non-members may be required to pay a fee unless otherwise specified.

You will be informed of events taking place in your nearest ASW City or other cities of interest. However, you may register to attend any event in any ASW City.

Please register to attend an event before any specified deadline to ensure admittance. You may be asked to present your ASW Membership Card with valid photo identification prior to entering the event.

Please read our full Official ASW Events Policies here.

ASW offers several channels for members to meet one another, either through official ASW events, private messages or other initiatives by members. Many lasting friendships have been formed through ASW.

Members are expected to behave in a manner suitable to the contexts of official ASW Events. If problems arise as a result of inappropriate behaviour, our team will note this and it may lead to the termination of a member’s account. The overall satisfaction of our guests is paramount.

Please use common sense and take necessary precautions when meeting members individually. No matter how well you think you know someone you met online, you don't really know each other until you meet in person. First meetings should be in public places.

Enter details of your upcoming trips to ASW Cities in our Trips section. Trips are shared with the whole community. Posting a trip can also be a convenient way of asking other members for travel advice.

Many members create Discussion threads based on upcoming travel plans. Please keep thread posts relevant to the poster's topic.

ASW provides a platform for members to share trusted information and carry out insightful discussions. There are countless opinions about what content is acceptable in member posts. As such, it would be impossible to find the “sweet spot” that will satisfy everyone.

Since we are an international crowd, English is the most commonly spoken second language, and therefore the most inclusive language. For this reason, we ask that all posts visible to the community be made in English.

Please select the most relevant tag for your post. We would like the site to offer interesting, varied content, and therefore we ask you to post your topic only once.

Replies and comments should be relevant, polite and constructive, so please respect the intentions of posters. Offensive or inappropriate content won't be tolerated. (Please see our Terms of Service for further details.)

While harmless spelling mistakes are inevitable and don't require any action from us, we do ask members to write properly. Avoid attempts to draw attention to your post by using unnecessary punctuation, symbols, spacing, excessive capital letters or a misleading title.

Member posts are a fun way to share the world around you with the community. We encourage you to share your travel experiences or any other insightful and colorful content that will allow other members to travel better or experience the world in a new and interesting way.

You can choose to make your posts accessible to the whole ASW community or just to members in your contact lists, if you don’t want people outside your contact list to see your posts. Posts made available to the ASW community may be shown to other members in their newsfeed.

Please be aware that ASW will not tolerate any content that is in bad taste, of a commercial nature, in competition with ASW’s own services or illegal. Posting any of the mentioned content may result in the termination of a member’s account. (Please see our Terms of Service for further details.)

The Jobs section is designed for employers and headhunters to post available positions. Please don't post a listing seeking employment or promoting your skills and services, as this makes navigation of the Jobs section difficult for job seekers and is not the intention of this platform.

Posted job opportunities should be detailed and accurate, including full job descriptions, potential salary rates or ranges and company information.

The Real Estate section is designed for actual property listings, and not for general promotion of real estate business. These listings should also be accurate, including all rental or sales fees and any related commissions.

When jobs or real estate listings are no longer available, please remove them.

Members bring products and services to the table that are of interest to other members, and there have been many success stories. That said, users should exercise reasonable caution when entering into business transactions with others. A few tips when considering entering into deals with members:

• If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
• If a member is eager to move communication outside of ASW, or refuses to communicate through ASW channels (Messages, Discussions), be suspicious. This may indicate that they want to lure you away from a moderated arena, where you can't report abuse.
• Consider their communication skills. If they can't spell key terms properly, it's likely that they are not bona fide professionals in the field they claim.
• If you contact a member and receive a reply from someone else or the name is spelled differently, make sure there's a credible reason for the shift in correspondence.
• If their profile information doesn't add up, chances are it's false. Look for things like unidentifiable or inappropriate profile pictures, misspelled names of academic institutions or inaccurate degrees. Verify professional information.
• Most genuine professionals use profile photographs that are representative of their intentions. Follow your instinct.

• Use your mutual contacts to ask for references for the person with whom you're communicating.
• If the member disappears from the site, but reappears suddenly with a different or slightly different name, report this to the Support Team immediately.
• Be wary of requests for Western Union payments, or for assistance with personal transactions (depositing funds, currency exchanges, shipping transactions). Also be wary of members putting pressure on you to deliver after sending supposed proof of payment. If you don't see the money in your account yet, act sensibly.
• Look out for members who befriend you, then have a sudden personal emergency and request financial assistance with increasing desperation. This is most likely a scam.
• If you are approached by someone requesting a commission fee for having found you a tenant or buyer, be careful, particularly if you have no prior contractual agreement. Commission fees should never be paid until the initial transaction has been completed.
• If members ask you to lend money in advance of a meeting with the promise of reimbursing you, you probably won't ever hear from them again.

The ASW Webmasters are charged with keeping the site a safe and respectful environment, but we are also dependent on members to report abusive behaviour to us. We encourage you to use the 'Report Abuse' button to notify us of personal attacks, hate speech, harassment and other abusive behaviour, as well as anything that is in violation of our Terms of Service.

All members are entitled to have differences of opinion, and it is inevitable that this will occur. Members are expected to be prudent and disagree without offending others.

However, please remember that “to disagree” does not necessarily constitute “abuse.” Abuse reports on a member for being unpopular are neither fair nor welcome.

ASW cannot become involved in personal disagreements. Should personal issues arise outside of the ASW arena that do not violate our Terms of Service, please do not ask the webmasters to intervene.