COMMUNITY
Community Guidelines & Moderation Policy
GroovyShelves is a community for record collectors. These Guidelines explain the standards that apply to user-created content and how moderation decisions are handled. They should be read together with the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Disagreement, criticism and negative opinions are allowed. Moderation is aimed at harmful, unlawful or abusive conduct rather than ordinary differences of taste or opinion.
1. Where these Guidelines apply
These Guidelines apply to content and conduct within GroovyShelves, including profile names and profile text, profile images, album reviews, reports, and other user-created or user-submitted material. They also apply to attempts to misuse community features such as follows, likes or reporting tools.
2. Illegal content
Do not use GroovyShelves to publish, request, promote or facilitate content or conduct that is illegal under applicable law. This includes, where applicable, content involving sexual abuse or exploitation of children, credible threats of violence, unlawful sale or promotion of prohibited goods, fraud, unlawful disclosure of personal information, or material that unlawfully infringes another person’s rights.
If content appears to involve an immediate danger to a person, contact the appropriate emergency or law-enforcement service rather than relying only on a GroovyShelves report.
3. Harassment, threats and targeted abuse
Do not threaten, stalk, intimidate or repeatedly target another person with abusive conduct. Do not encourage others to harass a person or use GroovyShelves to coordinate targeted abuse.
Strong criticism of music, collecting choices, reviews or public statements is not by itself harassment. Context, repetition, severity and whether conduct targets a person rather than an idea or opinion may be considered when a report is reviewed.
4. Hateful or dehumanising content
Do not attack, dehumanise, threaten or promote exclusion or violence against people based on characteristics protected by applicable law, such as race or ethnicity, nationality, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.
Good-faith discussion of music, history, artwork or controversial material can be allowed when the context does not itself promote hatred or abuse.
5. Privacy and personal information
Do not publish another person’s private or sensitive information without a lawful basis or appropriate permission. This includes information such as private contact details, precise home addresses, login credentials, private communications or other information that could expose someone to harm or unwanted contact.
Do not use GroovyShelves to dox, track or facilitate the targeting of another person.
6. Impersonation and deceptive identity
Do not impersonate another person, collector, organisation or service in a way that is likely to mislead others. Parody, commentary and fan references may be allowed where they are not presented deceptively.
7. Spam, scams and manipulation
Do not use GroovyShelves for spam, phishing, scams, malware, deceptive promotions or coordinated manipulation of community features. Do not artificially inflate reviews, likes, follows, ratings or other signals through fake accounts, automation or organised abuse.
Commercial or promotional content may be restricted where it is repetitive, misleading, unrelated to the service or primarily intended to exploit other members.
8. Intellectual property
Respect copyright, trademark and other intellectual-property rights. Do not upload or publish material when you do not have the right to do so. A reference to an artist, record, label or trademark is not automatically an infringement; reports are assessed in context and under applicable law.
9. Reviews and community contributions
Reviews can be positive, negative, humorous or critical. They should represent genuine contributions rather than spam, harassment, impersonation or coordinated manipulation. GroovyShelves does not remove a review merely because another member, artist or collector disagrees with it.
Do not deliberately misrepresent another member’s statements or use review text primarily to attack an identifiable person rather than discuss the album or relevant collecting experience.
10. Misuse of reports and platform features
Reports should be submitted in good faith. Do not repeatedly submit knowingly false reports, use reporting as a form of harassment, or attempt to overwhelm GroovyShelves’s moderation process.
Security testing, scraping, automation or other technical activity must not interfere with GroovyShelves, other users or access controls. Responsible security concerns can be sent to groovyshelves@proton.me.
11. How to report content
Signed-in members can use the Report action currently available on another member’s profile or review. Reports can identify issues such as spam, harassment, hateful content, impersonation, privacy concerns, suspected illegal content or another concern. Reports are not shown to the person being reported.
Anyone can use the public Report illegal content form without a GroovyShelves account. The form asks for the exact GroovyShelves URL, enough detail to identify the content, an explanation of why it is believed to be illegal, the notifier’s contact details where required, and a good-faith declaration. For notices concerning suspected child sexual abuse or exploitation, the form supports the identity exception set out in Article 16 of the Digital Services Act where that framework applies, and it does not accept file uploads. Where an electronic contact address is provided, GroovyShelves queues an acknowledgement of receipt and later communicates the recorded decision by email.
If the public form is unavailable, contact groovyshelves@proton.me.
12. How moderation decisions are made
GroovyShelves currently reviews content reports manually. GroovyShelves does not currently use an automated system to make final decisions to remove a reported review or restrict account access.
The public illegal-content notice workflow records the decision, legal or policy basis, redress information and required email communication. It does not itself automatically delete content or change an account; where an operational action is required, it must be carried out through the available moderation or account controls.
When reviewing content, we may consider the content itself, surrounding context, severity, repetition, the apparent intent and impact of the conduct, relevant account history, applicable law, these Guidelines and the Terms of Service. We aim to apply restrictions proportionately and to take freedom of expression and other relevant rights into account.
A report does not automatically mean that content will be removed. A report can be closed without action when the content does not violate these rules or when there is not enough information to justify a restriction.
13. Possible moderation actions
Depending on the circumstances, GroovyShelves may take one or more of the following actions:
- take no action and close the report;
- contact the member or request clarification or a voluntary change where appropriate;
- remove a reported album review through the moderation tools;
- temporarily ban an account from signing in; or
- apply an indefinite account ban for serious or repeated violations.
Where a less restrictive measure is reasonably sufficient, GroovyShelves may prefer it over a broader restriction. Serious illegal conduct, credible threats, exploitation, security abuse or repeated violations can justify immediate or stronger action. An account ban can later be lifted through the moderation tools when appropriate.
14. Reasons and review of a moderation decision
When GroovyShelves removes or restricts a member’s content or account because of that content, the moderation process records the action, the main reason, the rule or legal basis relied upon and available review information. Where the affected account can be identified, GroovyShelves queues a separate decision email without disclosing the notifier’s identity, except where communication would be unlawful or would create a material safety or security risk.
If you believe a moderation decision affecting your own content or account was incorrect, contact groovyshelves@proton.me and identify the account or content and the decision you want reviewed. Reviews are handled without charge and will be reconsidered on the information available, including any additional context you provide.
15. Reports, evidence and privacy
GroovyShelves stores information needed to investigate and document reports, including the reporter, reason, optional details, target references, moderation status and a limited snapshot of reported content where needed. Retention and data-protection details are described in the Privacy Policy.
We do not normally disclose the identity of a reporter to the reported member. Information may nevertheless be disclosed where required by law, necessary to address a legal claim, or otherwise permitted under applicable data-protection law.
16. Law-enforcement and legal requests
GroovyShelves may preserve or disclose information where required by a valid legal obligation or binding order. Requests from authorities are assessed according to applicable law and should be directed to groovyshelves@proton.me.
17. Changes to these Guidelines
These Guidelines are versioned. They may be updated as GroovyShelves introduces new community features, moderation tools or legal processes. Material changes will be reflected by a new version and effective date.
18. Contact
Questions about these Guidelines or GroovyShelves moderation can be sent to Jeff Sundin at groovyshelves@proton.me. GroovyShelves’s legal contact information, including the contact points provided for Digital Services Act communications where that framework applies, is described on the Legal & DSA Contact page.
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