dmv.community is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
A small regional Mastodon instance for those in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia areas. Local news, commentary, and conversation.

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dmv.community

Decentralized social media powered by Mastodon

About

General Information

DMV.Community Wiki

DMV.Community is a small regional Mastodon instance for those in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia areas. A place for local news, sports, politics, events, and general discussion.

We fully subscribe to and comply with the Mastodon Server Covenant. A number of instance blocks are implemented to comply with the principles of the covenant. It is my top priority that this is a safe and friendly space for members from all walks of life.

This server depends on your donations to keep it running!

Donate at Ko-fi or use the widget below:

Detailed rules

The following guidelines are not a legal document, and final interpretation is up to the administration of dmv.community; they are here to provide you with an insight into our content moderation policies:

The following types of content will be removed from the public timeline:

  • Excessive advertising or self-promotion (including but not limited to crypto ponzi schemes or other MLM scams)
  • Uncurated news bots posting from third-party news sources
  • Untagged nudity, pornography and sexually explicit content, including artistic depictions
  • Untagged gore and extremely graphic violence, including artistic depictions

The following types of content will be removed from the public timeline, and may result in account suspension and revocation of access to the service:

  • Racism or advocation of racism
  • Sexism or advocation of sexism
  • Casteism or advocation of casteism
  • Transphobia, homophobia, discrimination against gender and sexual minorities, or advocation thereof
  • Xenophobic and/or violent nationalism
  • Spreading disinformation or conspiracy theories that undermine public health

The following types of content are explicitly disallowed and will result in revocation of access to the service:

  • Sexual depictions of children
  • Content illegal in the United States (where dmv.community is hosted)
  • Holocaust denial or Nazi symbolism
  • Conduct promoting the ideology of National Socialism

Any conduct intended to stalk or harass other users, or to impede other users from utilizing the service, or to degrade the performance of the service, or to harass other users, or to incite other users to perform any of the aforementioned actions, is also disallowed, and subject to punishment up to and including revocation of access to the service. This includes, but is not limited to, the following behaviors:

  • Continuing to engage in conversation with a user that has specifically has requested for said engagement with that user to cease and desist may be considered harassment, regardless of platform-specific privacy tools employed.
  • Aggregating, posting, and/or disseminating a person's demographic, personal, or private data without express permission (informally called doxing or dropping dox) may be considered harassment.
  • Inciting users to engage another user in continued interaction or discussion after a user has requested for said engagement with that user to cease and desist (informally called brigading or dogpiling) may be considered harassment.

These provisions notwithstanding, the administration of the service reserves the right to revoke any user's access permissions, at any time, for any reason, except as limited by law.

Most of our rules are forked from mas.to.

Media Retention

We currently keep local media files for up to 30 days or until the user deletes it.

DMCA policy

This Digital Millennium Copyright Act policy (“Policy”) applies to the dmv.community website (“Website” or “Service”) and any of its related products and services (collectively, “Services”) and outlines how this Website operator (“Operator”, “we”, “us” or “our”) addresses copyright infringement notifications and how you (“you” or “your”) may submit a copyright infringement complaint.

Protection of intellectual property is of utmost importance to us and we ask our users and their authorized agents to do the same. It is our policy to expeditiously respond to clear notifications of alleged copyright infringement that comply with the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) of 1998, the text of which can be found at the U.S. Copyright Office website. This DMCA policy was created with the help of WebsitePolicies.

What to consider before submitting a copyright complaint

Before submitting a copyright complaint to us, consider whether the use could be considered fair use. Fair use states that brief excerpts of copyrighted material may, under certain circumstances, be quoted verbatim for purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching, and research, without the need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder. If you have considered fair use, and you still wish to continue with a copyright complaint, you may want to first reach out to the user in question to see if you can resolve the matter directly with the user.

Please note that if you are unsure whether the material you are reporting is in fact infringing, you may wish to contact an attorney before filing a notification with us.

We may, at our discretion or as required by law, share a copy of your notification or counter-notification with the account holder engaged in the allegedly infringing activity or for publication. If you are concerned about your information being forwarded, you may wish to hire an agent to report infringing material for you.

Notifications of infringement

If you are a copyright owner or an agent thereof, and you believe that any material available on our Services infringes your copyrights, then you may submit a written copyright infringement notification (“Notification”) using the contact details below pursuant to the DMCA. All such Notifications must comply with the DMCA requirements. You may refer to a DMCA takedown notice generator or other similar services to avoid making mistake and ensure compliance of your Notification.

Filing a DMCA complaint is the start of a pre-defined legal process. Your complaint will be reviewed for accuracy, validity, and completeness. If your complaint has satisfied these requirements, our response may include the removal or restriction of access to allegedly infringing material as well as a permanent termination of repeat infringers’ accounts.

If we remove or restrict access to materials or terminate an account in response to a Notification of alleged infringement, we will make a good faith effort to contact the affected user with information concerning the removal or restriction of access, which may include a full copy of your Notification (including your name, address, phone, and email address).

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any portion of this Policy, the Operator reserves the right to take no action upon receipt of a DMCA copyright infringement notification if it fails to comply with all the requirements of the DMCA for such notifications.

The process described in this Policy does not limit our ability to pursue any other remedies we may have to address suspected infringement.

Changes and amendments

We reserve the right to modify this Policy or its terms related to the Website and Services at any time at our discretion. When we do, we will revise the updated date at the bottom of this page, post a notification on the main page of the Website. We may also provide notice to you in other ways at our discretion, such as through the contact information you have provided.

An updated version of this Policy will be effective immediately upon the posting of the revised Policy unless otherwise specified. Your continued use of the Website and Services after the effective date of the revised Policy (or such other act specified at that time) will constitute your consent to those changes.

Reporting copyright infringement

If you would like to notify us of the infringing material or activity, we encourage you to contact us using the details below:

jcrabapple@dmv.community

This document was last updated on November 29, 2022

Made with WebsitePolicies

Mental Health Concerns

What to do about self-harm and suicide concerns on Mastodon

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, you’re not alone. Use the contact info below to get help.

United States: Contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Crisis workers are available 24 hours a day. Calls are free and confidential.

Other countries & regions: To find a crisis center near you, visit International Association for Suicide Prevention.

If you or someone you know is thinking about engaging in self-harm or suicidal behavior, you should seek help as soon as possible by contacting services with expertise in crisis intervention and suicide prevention.

Feedback

If you have ideas on how to improve DMV.Community, please head over to https://feedback.dmv.community and add your suggestions there!

Server Status and Hosting

Server Status Page

DMV.Community is hosted by Vultr.com


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