Shale terms of use
Entwurf / Draft — not legally reviewed. This text is a first draft and has not been checked legally. It applies only once the operator has had it checked and published it. The operator fills in the parts in square brackets.
Version: [date]. The German version says the same; where they differ, the German version applies.
§1 Who Shale is
Shale is an app with a server where communities and tools (modules) come together. It is operated by [operator name], [address], reachable at [e-mail address]. "Shale", "we" and "us" mean the operator.
§2 Accounts
- You sign in with your e-mail address and a code. Keep your e-mail address and your devices safe; what happens through your account happens in your name.
- Your username and profile picture are visible to people you share an organisation or a conversation with.
- Minimum age: 16. Anyone younger may not use Shale.
- You can export your data at any time and delete your account in the settings.
§3 Spaces: personal, creator, organisation
- Personal space: your own modules, your library and your inbox. It is private.
- Creator space: a space for one person, with a public web card.
- Organisation: a shared space with members and roles. Whoever manages an organisation is responsible for its content, modules and members.
What a space shows publicly (public modules, collections, a module's web page, profile and web card) is the space's own decision.
§4 Modules and their providers
- Modules come from providers. A provider is responsible for its module: for what it does, what it asks of you and what it publishes.
- Before you add a module, Shale shows what it may do. Shale checks and labels providers but does not vouch for other people's modules.
- Whoever uses a module in their organisation is responsible for the content the organisation shows with it.
§5 Public content and reporting
- Public is what people who are not members see: public modules and their web pages (status, links, channel posts), public polls and forms with their public results, public collections, an organisation's public face, modules in the catalog and their posts. Any profile you can see (name, picture, profile cards) can be reported too.
- Every public content can be reported ("Report"). A report names one of the reasons in §6. Whoever is reported never learns who reported.
- A chat message is checked by the module's operators first. In a public module you can then hand the report to Shale.
- Report honestly. Misusing reports breaks §6.8.
§6 What is not allowed
These rules apply to everything you publish in Shale or show to others. Each rule has a number so decisions can name it.
§6.1 Illegal content (illegal)
Nothing that applicable law forbids and that none of the following rules covers more precisely.
§6.2 Hate (hate)
No degrading or inciting against people because of origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability or similar traits.
§6.3 Harassment (harassment)
No bullying, no threatening individuals, no repeatedly pressing people against their will.
§6.4 Violence (violence)
No threats, no calls for violence, no glorifying violence.
§6.5 Sexual content (sexual)
No sexual content anywhere on Shale: not in public places, not in spaces and not in private chats or direct messages, consent or not. Report it (§5); it is removed.
§6.6 Child safety (child_safety)
Nothing that sexualises, exploits or endangers children. We remove such content at once and report it where the law requires.
§6.7 Self-harm (self_harm)
No instructions for or encouragement of self-harm or suicide.
§6.8 Spam (spam)
No mass advertising, no misleading links, no artificially inflating reach, no misuse of reports.
§6.9 Fraud (fraud)
No fraud, no phishing, no deceiving people to get money or data.
§6.10 Impersonation (impersonation)
Do not pretend to be another person, organisation or Shale.
§6.11 Privacy (privacy)
Do not publish other people's private data (addresses, phone numbers, documents, private pictures) without their consent.
§6.12 Intellectual property (intellectual_property)
Do not publish anything others hold copyright or trademark rights in unless you may.
§6.13 Other (other)
Anything else that harms people or misuses Shale. A report with this reason must describe what is wrong.
§7 How Shale moderates
Shale checks reports of public content under these terms and decides:
- No violation: the report is closed.
- Remove: a module or collection turns private and may not become public again while Shale holds it (a hold). A catalog module is taken off the catalog. A catalog post is retracted. A chat message is replaced by "removed by moderation". A poll or form ends and only the module's operators see it. A profile loses its display name and picture, and its profile cards are switched off.
- Suspend the organisation: every public module and collection of the organisation turns private, and the organisation may make nothing public while the hold stands.
- Lift: Shale can lift a hold after another review. The content stays private until the organisation makes it public again.
Every decision names the rule it applied (for example "§6.8 Spam") and is logged.
§8 What reporters and affected parties learn
- Whoever reports sees in "My reports" the state of the report (open, action taken, no violation found), who checks it and, when Shale acted, the rule it applied. The reporter does not learn what exactly happened to the reported content.
- Whoever is affected sees the effect: the content is no longer public, and making it public again is refused with a note about the hold. For a catalog module the rule applied is on the release. When Shale removes content or suspends an organisation, whoever is affected also gets an e-mail at their sign-in address with the decision, the rule applied, Shale's reasons and how to object (§9): the author of a removed chat message or the person whose profile it is, otherwise the managers of the space the content belongs to. It never names whoever reported.
§9 Appeals
There is no appeal in the app yet. Until there is, you can appeal a decision at [e-mail address for appeals]; Shale then reviews it again and may lift a hold.
§10 Data
How Shale handles your data is in the privacy policy: in the app under Settings → About → Privacy policy, on the web at /legal/privacy. Reports are kept 365 days after the decision, the copy of the reported content kept with them 30 days.
The app sends anonymous usage statistics and crash reports to Shale's own server, under a random number made on your device that is not linked to your account; never what you write. You can switch them off in Settings → Nutzungsstatistik (usage statistics).
§11 Changes to these terms
We may change these terms. We announce material changes in the app beforehand: [notice period to be decided by the operator]. Whoever does not agree can delete their account.