These Community Ethics reflect the care, dignity, honesty, and respect we ask everyone to bring to Jam Band Graveyard as a space for remembrance, reflection, and community care.
Effective Date: April 20, 2026
Jam Band Graveyard exists to honor members of the jam band community with honesty, care, dignity, and respect. These Community Ethics explain the values and participation expectations that guide how content is submitted to the Site and how we care for the memorial space together.
JBG is not a general-purpose discussion forum, not a gossip venue, and not a place to inflame conflict. It is a space for remembrance, reflection, resource-sharing, and community care.
1. Lead With Respect
Treat the person being remembered, the people who loved them, and others in this community with respect, kindness, and empathy.
We expect contributors to approach memorial content in a way that honors human dignity, even where grief, conflict, or differing memories may exist.
2. Share Truthfully
Submit only what you genuinely know, experienced, created, or have permission to share.
Do not knowingly submit:
- false or misleading statements;
- fabricated stories;
- misattributed writing, images, or materials; or
- content presented in a way that distorts the truth of a person’s life, memory, or relationships.
JBG does not require every submission to be objective in a journalistic sense, but it does expect honesty and good faith.
3. Respect Privacy and Consent
Do not share personal, private, or identifying information about a living person without appropriate permission.
This includes, for example:
- phone numbers;
- home addresses;
- private email addresses;
- medical or deeply personal information about living people;
- sensitive family details that are not yours to disclose; or
- stories or images involving others that you do not have the right to share.
If you are sharing stories, photos, or other material involving others, make sure you have the right to do so and take care not to expose someone else to unwanted attention, distress, or harm.
4. Honor Dignity in What You Share
Do not submit graphic, exploitative, invasive, or needlessly distressing content.
This includes content that:
- sensationalizes someone’s death or suffering;
- lingers on graphic details for shock value;
- treats grief as spectacle;
- invades intimate boundaries without good reason; or
- disregards the emotional impact such material may have on others.
Not every difficult truth is inappropriate, but difficult material must still be handled with care, restraint, and dignity.
5. Protect the Integrity of the Tribute Space
Submissions should be relevant to honoring and remembering a specific person in this community or to the mission of the Site.
Do not use the Site to:
- harass, target, or demean others;
- pursue interpersonal disputes;
- provoke conflict;
- advertise or spam;
- post unrelated promotional material;
- campaign for unrelated causes; or
- use memorial content as a vehicle for hostility, spectacle, or self-promotion.
6. Respect Intellectual Property
Only submit writing, photos, artwork, audio, video, or other material that you created or have permission to share.
Do not submit content that infringes the intellectual property rights of others, including copyrighted photos, writing, artwork, or other protected material that you do not have the right to use.
If you are unsure whether you have the right to share something, do not submit it until you have clarified that right.
7. Communicate With Care
Use language that is thoughtful, respectful, and humane.
The following are not allowed:
- personal attacks;
- bullying;
- intimidation;
- harassment;
- discriminatory or demeaning conduct; or
- language intended to humiliate, inflame, or target a living person or group.
Strong feelings aren’t prohibited. Cruelty is.
8. Be Mindful in Conflict-Sensitive Situations
Grief can involve disagreement, fractured relationships, unresolved pain, and different memories of the same person or event.
JBG recognizes that not every family member, friend, or community member will experience a tribute in the same way. For that reason, contributors are asked to exercise restraint and care when submitting material that may affect living people.
JBG may decline, edit, pause, or remove content that appears intended to reopen harm, escalate conflict, target living individuals, or create avoidable distress inconsistent with the purpose of the Site.
9. Make Constructive Contributions
Contribute in ways that support remembrance, learning, resource-sharing, and community care.
JBG welcomes sincerity, reflection, gratitude, grief, nuance, and thoughtful contributions that help carry its mission forward.
10. Report Concerns Responsibly
If you believe content is harmful, non-consensual, false, invasive of privacy, infringing, or otherwise inconsistent with these Community Ethics, please report it through JBG’s designated channels.
When raising a concern, please do so in good faith and provide enough information for JBG to understand what content is at issue and why you believe it should be reviewed.
11. JBG May Moderate Content
To protect the integrity of the Site and the people connected to it, JBG may review, decline, edit, remove, redact, or restrict access to submitted content when it believes doing so is appropriate under the Terms of Service, these Community Ethics, or its legal obligations.
JBG may act where it believes content:
- violates these Community Ethics;
- creates privacy, consent, safety, or legal concerns;
- infringes the rights of others;
- is misleading, abusive, exploitative, or harmful; or
- is otherwise inconsistent with the purpose, dignity, or integrity of the Site.
JBG does not guarantee publication of any submission and does not guarantee that every moderation concern will be resolved in a particular way or on a particular timeline.
12. Contact
If you need to contact JBG about a question, submission, or concern related to these Community Ethics, you may use the following channels:
Jam Band Graveyard 8604 W Catalpa Avenue, Suite 910 Chicago, IL 60656 Phone: (312) 547-9499
General inquiries: help@jambandgraveyard.org
Tribute submissions and follow-up: tributes@jambandgraveyard.org
Privacy and legal concerns: legal@jambandgraveyard.org
Related Policies: Terms of Service | Privacy Policy