The premiere Fediverse destination for music lovers who nod knowingly at each other from across the room when that song comes on.

About the Club

Liner notes are the printed text and graphical content often added to the packaging of musical recordings. Sometimes they contain little more than the list of songs and the people involved with recording them. Other times they contain fantastic inside looks at the recording process for an album, the song lyrics, critical reviews of the recording, mixed media explorations of the music's themes and content, and more.

Liner Notes Club is a Mastodon instance dedicated to providing fans of music with a place to socialize and share their love of making and listening to music.

If you are looking for a Mastodon instance without a strong local theme, we recommend exploring other options using the tools at https://instances.social/.

The Administration Team

The Club is owned and operated by:

• @djsundog

The Moderation Team

The Club's moderators are:

• @djsundog
• @dustin
• @evilchili

Moderators also share administration duties, though final authority rests with the Administation Team; refer to section 5.3 Accountability for details.

To contact the Administration team with questions or concerns, please use the contact email address listed on https://linernotes.club or message the Moderation Team directly on Mastodon.

Terms of Use

PLEASE READ THIS TERMS OF USE AGREEMENT (THE "TERMS OF USE") CAREFULLY BEFORE REGISTERING OR PARTICIPATING IN LINER NOTES CLUB ("THE CLUB") AT ENTRY-POINT URL https://linernotes.club. BY USING THE CLUB, YOU SIGNIFY AND ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE READ THE TERMS OF USE AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY AND COMPLY WITH THE TERMS OF USE. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF USE, PLEASE DO NOT ACCESS THE CLUB.

Governing Law

Liner Notes Club is located in Georgia, United States of America. You agree that these Terms will be governed by the laws of the State of Georgia, excluding its conflicts of law provisions.

Age Restrictions

Registration and participation on the Club is restricted to those individuals over 18 years of age, emancipated minors, or those who possess legal parental or guardian consent, and are fully able and competent to enter into the terms, conditions, obligations, affirmations, representations and warranties herein. By registering or participating in services or functions of the Club, you hereby represent that you are over 18 years of age, an emancipated minor or in possession of consent by a legal parent or guardian and have the authority to enter into the terms herein. In any case, you affirm that you are over the age of 13 as the Club is not intended for children under 13, per the requirement of COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Proteciton Act). If you are under 13 years of age, do not use the Club. In addition, those who wish to register and participate must meet the minimum requirements laid out in the Terms of Use (this document) herein. If you do not qualify or do not agree to these terms, you may not use the Club.

Right of Modification

We reserve the right to change or modify the Terms of Use, including the Code of Conduct and Server Rules, at our sole discretion at any time. Any change or modification to the Terms of Use will be effective immediately upon posting by us. For any material changes to the Terms, we will take reasonable steps to notify you of such changes. In all cases, your continued use of the Club after publication of such modifications, with or without notification, constitutes acceptance of these modified Terms of Use.

Code of Conduct

Music is universal. Music unites across all cultural, linguistic, and ideological differences; we are one nation under a groove. What moves you? What gets your body twitching, your head nodding, your jaw hanging open in disbelief? What inspires you to create? We created the Club to celebrate the joy of experiencing music in whatever form your experience takes.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, if you love music, you are welcome here. Please help us ensure that everyone is welcome, by following these guidelines. This is not an exhaustive list of what we can and cannot do on linernotes.club. Take it in the spirit in which it is intended -- a guide to make it easier for everyone to participate in this community.

This code of conduct applies to all users of the Club, including its administrators and moderators. Violation of this Code may result in suspension from the Club. Additionally, violation of this code outside the Club may result in user suspensions, instance silencing or blocking (defederation).

1. General Guidelines

• Be welcoming. We strive to be a community that welcomes people of all backgrounds and identities. This includes, but is not limited to members of any race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, colour, immigration status, social and economic class, educational level, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, size, family status, religion, neurodiversity, and physical ability.
• Be respectful. Not all of us will agree all the time, but disagreement is no excuse for poor behavior and poor manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to turn into a personal attack. Members of the Club should be respectful of each other and of other users in the Fediverse.
• Choose your words with care. Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down others or belittle their experiences.
• Make it easy for others to moderate their experience. Liberally use Content Warnings, hashtags, and unlisted/"Followers Only" posts so others can choose whether to engage with your content.
• De-escalate. In general, if someone asks you to stop, then stop. Avoid microaggressions such as "not all men," white/man/cis-splaining, knowingly using the wrong pronouns to address someone, posting about particular individuals without naming them ("subtooting"), and so on. If you make a mistake, apologize.
• No Gate-Keeping. We love all kinds of music in the Club, including much that you may not love. Accept and celebrate that we love it.
• Be friendly. Don't be a dick.

2. Content Guidelines

2.1 Examples of On-Topic Content

As the Club is a thematic instance, we distinguish between on-topic and off-topic content. Examples of on-topic content include (but are not limited to):

• Album reviews
• What you are listening to right now (see #NowPlaying)
• Five records to introduce yourself (see #MyFiveRecords)
• Discovering new music (see #CrateDigging, #BandcampFriday)
• Song lyrics that are meaningful or interesting to you
• Photography, clips, and media from live concerts
• Cool album art
• How Stevie Wonder's Superstition is the greatest groove ever recorded

2.2 Posting Off-Topic Content

Off-topic content include anything not directly related to music, musical production, consumption, listening, or playing. Off-topic tooting on the Club is permitted, provided you adhere to the following guidelines:

• The majority of your toots are on-topic
• Off-topic toots are a combination of Unlisted/"Followers-Only", marked with a Content Warning, and/or tagged with an appropriate hashtag so folks can easily ignore, mute, or filter them.

2.3 Sensitive Content

Apply a Content Warning to any toot depicting or discussing content that may be upsetting or triggering to others. Examples of sensitive content include but are not limited to:

• Violence
• Blood / gore
• Nudity
• Sexually-explicit material
• Abuse

2.4 Prohibited Content

The advocation for or promotion of the following topics is expressly prohibited on the Club:

• Advertising (except promoting your own original works)
• Spam
• Racism
• Sexism
• Ableism
• Fatmisia
• Transphobia
• Homophobia
• Xenophobia
• Violent nationalism
• National Socialism, Holocaust denial, or Nazi symbolism
• Discrimination against any group, including but not limited to gender and sexual minorities, those who are neurodivergent, physically disabled, or mentally ill
• Sexual depictions of minors
• Content that defames, harasses or threatens others
• Content that infringes or misappropriates another’s intellectual property rights, including, but not limited to, copyrights, trademarks, or trade secrets
• Content that otherwise harms other users in the Fediverse
• Content that interferes with or disrupts any user, host, or network, for example by sending a virus, overloading, flooding, or spamming the Club or other users or hosts
• Content that plants malware or otherwise uses the Club to distribute malware

Users are permitted to discuss depictions of these topics as they appear in media, provided they are treated as Sensitive Content; see section 2.3.

Content Warnings are not expected on posts made by historically or socially marginalised people about their own marginalisation.

2.5 Accesibility

In addition to the liberal use of Content Warnings for Off-Topic Content and Sensitive Content (see sections 2.2 and 2.3), we have the following accessibility requirements:

• Images and videos must be captioned with a description suitable for users with limited vision.
• Hashtags composed of multiple words must be composed with CamelCase, to make them accessible to assistive technologies such as screen readers.

3. Platform Restrictions

3.1 Cross-Posting From Other Social Media Platforms

Cross-posting from other social media platforms to the Club is not permitted.

3.2 Bots

Bots are permitted under the following requirements:

• Bots must be pre-approved by the Club Moderation Team
• Bots are restricted to on-topic content only; see section 2.1
• All toots by bots must be tagged with #bot to permit easy muting/filtering

3.3 External Use

3.3.1 Crawling, Indexing, and Archiving

Crawling https://linernotes.club to gather information about posts, post metadata, media, or other content hosted on the Club is prohibited for any purpose, including but not limited to analysis, creating databases, search indexes, or archives.

3.3.2 Federation

Federating with the Club is not guaranteed. Links between federated instances are temporary and may change or disappear at any time. The Administrators of the Club and their delegates determine which instances the Club will federate with and which are silenced, blocked, or suspended.

4. Copyright

Public toots are derived works that are protected by copyright.

All original content is copyrighted by the author and cannot be distributed or used without prior permission by the author. Do not repost or disseminate our users' original content anywhere without their express permission.

5. Moderation

The Club's administrators and their delegates will summarily and with prejudice suspend or terminate users who violate the Club's Terms of Service, and silence or block (defederate from) instances enabling those users. You may comport yourself however you wish; we are not required to provide you a platform to do so.

If you believe someone is violating Code of Conduct, we ask that you submit a report when you block the user or instance. Provide as much detail as is necessary for the Club's Moderation Team to have the context required to fully investigate the issue.

If you are reporting a user on an instance other than Liner Notes Club, please be sure to forward the report to the user's instance also.

5.1 Our Responsibilities

The Administrators and Moderation Team will endeavour to:

• Lead by example, abiding by the Terms of Use.
• Keep the atmosphere of the Club as welcoming and enjoyable as possible.
• Keep the Club online and functional for as long as possible.
• Clarify the standards of acceptable behaviour.
• Enforcing the Terms of Use with appropriate corrective actions when users are found to be in violation.

We will not act on complaints regarding:

• Good-faith criticism such as "This is sexist," "That comes off as tone deaf," "This comment offends me," and so on. Instead of reporting this kind of feedback, engage with it, apologize, or agree to disagree and move on.
• Swearing or profanity. Use filters or mute/block users whose language you don't enjoy.
• Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as "leave me alone," "go away," or "I’m not discussing this with you".

5.2 Corrective Actions

The following are some examples of corrective actions the Moderation Team may enact in specific situations. These are examples only and meant to illustrate our general approach to moderation. Each incident of reported unacceptable behaviour will be handled on its own merits.

If you are a Club member and violate our Terms of Use, we will:

• suspend your account;
• inform you via email of the suspension and the reasons for it; and
• explain what you need to do to be reinstated, such as apologize to affected parties or agree not to continue posting Prohibited Content.

If you are a user of a federated instance and harass one of our members, we will:

• suspend your account; and
• inform your instance's Moderation Team.

If another instance fails to actively moderate the posting of Prohibited Content via weak moderation, we will:

• silence the instance

If another instance explicitly or implicitly enables the posting of Prohibited Content or enables harassment, trolling, doxxing, and so on, we will:

• block (defederate from) the instance

5.3 Accountability

5.3.1 Moderation Decisions

Moderated servers -- that is, instances that are silenced or blocked by us -- will be posted to https://linernotes.club/about.

Changes to the moderated servers list will be posted using the #LinerNotesAdmin hashtag by one of the Moderation Team.

5.3.2 Appeals

If you believe the Moderation Team has made an error in judgement or the corrective action(s) we have taken are inappropriate, please contact us. The Moderation Team acts in good faith and strives to always act fairly, but we will make mistakes and when we do we will embrace those mistakes and learn from them.

In the event of a dispute, the Administrators may override the Moderation Team; their judgment is final.

5.3.3 Requests for Clarification

If you require clarification of these Terms of Use, or are unsure how to handle a potential violation of these Terms, please message the Moderation Team directly on Mastodon.

5.3.4 Changes to the Terms of Use

The Administrators and Moderation Team will occasionally update these Terms of Use as necessary. Minor updates such as edits for clarity or changes in Moderation Team membership will be posted using the #LinerNotesAdmin hashtag by one of the Administators. Significant changes to policy, such as changes to the Code of Conduct, will be drafted and made available for review and feedback by Club users for at least 5 days.

Document Status

Revision History

The Liner Notes Club Terms of Use was last updated November, 2022.

Summary of changes:

• First revision.

Sources

Inspiration for this Code of Conduct was found in The Django Project, Mastodon.ART and many others. Portions of the Terms of Use were adapted from Coursera's policies and aus.social's Terms of Use.

1. Abide by the Liner Notes Club Terms of Use.
2. Do not break the Code of Conduct.
3. Do not break the laws of the state of Georgia or the United States.