Ethics and independence

Editorial independence

Editorial decisions at OutdoorSCOT are made independently of commercial relationships. Affiliate income, advertising, and partnership opportunities have no influence on which routes we cover, what we say about them, or how we rate gear and accommodation.

We do not accept payment for placement, sponsored content presented as editorial, paid removal of negative coverage, or any other arrangement that would compromise the independence of what we publish. If a route is overrated, a bothy is a poor walk-in for the reward, or a piece of gear is bad value, we will say so regardless of whether we have an affiliate relationship with anyone involved.

Conflicts of interest

Where a potential conflict exists, we declare it on the affected page. This includes:

• Commercial relationships. Pages with affiliate links carry the standard disclosure card; full programme details on /affiliate-disclosure.
• Press trips and product samples. If we accept a press trip, hosted accommodation, or a product sample for review, we say so explicitly on the page and explain what the relationship was. Acceptance does not entail positive coverage.
• Personal relationships. If the editor has a personal connection to a business, landowner, operator or estate that affects coverage, that's disclosed on the page.

We do not publish anonymous content. Every article has a named author and every contributor is identifiable. Review timestamps ("Reviewed YYYY-MM-DD") are set when content is verified or refreshed, not when minor copy edits are made.

Position on AI-generated content

Editorial copy on OutdoorSCOT is written by named human authors. We use AI tools as we use any other tool — for code, for data validation, for structural editing — but the editorial substance (route choices, judgements about difficulty, opinions about estates and operators, accommodation recommendations) is written and reviewed by a person who has done the walk or stayed at the place.

We do not generate hill descriptions, route plans, safety advice or any other editorial copy by feeding place names into a language model and publishing the output. The hill data on this site (heights, grid references, classifications) is drawn from the Database of British and Irish Hills (DoBIH), Ordnance Survey, and direct primary sources — not from synthetic text. Full position on the editorial policy page.

Environmental responsibility

OutdoorSCOT writes about a landscape under pressure. The Scottish hills are visited by more people every year, and our coverage contributes — modestly but really — to that pressure. We try to be honest about the consequences.

• Leave No Trace. Every wild-camping and bothy page that covers an ecologically sensitive area sets out the access rules and Leave No Trace expectations. We do not promote "Instagram spots" that can't handle additional pressure.
• Loch Lomond Camping Management Zones. We follow the byelaw zones and signpost the permit system rather than treating it as an obstacle to route around. Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park needs the zone system to work; pretending it doesn't exist isn't a service to walkers or the park.
• Deer stalking and access. We list stalking-season information on hill and route pages where relevant. The Scottish Outdoor Access Code expects walkers to take reasonable account of land management; we treat that as a feature of access, not a restriction on it.
• Sea-cliff and seabird sites. We avoid publishing approach details for nesting cliff sites during the breeding season, and we follow guidance from NatureScot and the RSPB.
• Public transport first. Where a route is reachable by train, bus or ferry, we say so explicitly. Reducing private-car traffic on single-track Highland roads (and supporting marginal railway lines like the Kyle and West Highland) matters for both the landscape and the communities along the route.

Safety

We do not present serious mountain ground as suitable for everyone. Difficulty and terrain notes are calibrated to Scottish conditions, including winter; routes that require navigation, scrambling, or river-crossing judgement say so. We link to statutory safety sources (Mountain Weather Information Service, Scottish Avalanche Information Service) and do not paraphrase their warnings into less specific language.

We do not publish trip reports as routefinding advice. Trip reports describe one party's experience on one day in particular conditions; the editorial route advice on OutdoorSCOT is built around terrain, season and weather, not anecdote.

Accessibility

We aim for WCAG 2.1 AA compliance across the site: sufficient colour contrast, keyboard navigation, screen-reader-friendly markup, captioned imagery, and descriptive link text. Specific gaps — and they exist — are tracked openly. If you hit an accessibility problem, please email hello@outdoorscot.co.uk and we'll prioritise the fix.

We also try to be honest about the physical accessibility of outdoor places. The Scottish hills are mostly not step-free; we mark routes that genuinely are suitable for adaptive bikes, prams, wheelchair use or limited mobility, and we don't blur the line.

Inclusivity

The Scottish outdoor community has historically been narrower than it should be. We try to write coverage that does not assume the reader is fit, young, male, white, able-bodied, neurotypical, car-owning, or from a hillwalking family. Where specific information helps a less-represented group — solo female walkers, walkers with dogs, walkers using public transport, walkers new to winter — we include it as a first-class concern of the page, not a footnote.

Privacy

We collect the minimum analytics needed to understand which pages are useful: anonymised page-view counts via Google Analytics (no cross-site tracking, no advertising remarketing). We do not sell reader data. The Hill Tracker tool stores your completion data in your browser, not on our servers, unless you opt into the future Supabase cloud-sync feature explicitly.

Corrections and complaints

Errors are corrected promptly on the affected page with a short footer note describing what changed. Material corrections (factual errors, not typos) are also logged in the public corrections register.

If you believe a page on OutdoorSCOT is wrong, misleading or unfair, please email corrections@outdoorscot.co.uk with the URL and what specifically you think is wrong. We aim to respond within three working days. Unresolved complaints are escalated to the IMPRESS regulator (the UK's independent press regulator) under their standards code.

Standards we follow

• UK ASA / CAP Code. All affiliate links carry explicit identification. No native advertising presented as editorial.
• Scottish Outdoor Access Code. Coverage of access rights, wild camping, dogs, bikes and stalking-season conduct follows the SOAC.
• Mountaineering Scotland Hillphones / Be Avalanche Aware. Linked directly on relevant pages; not paraphrased.
• IMPRESS Standards Code. Independent UK press regulator. We follow the standards code on accuracy, defamation, harassment and public interest.