Thread: Site Rules / Terms of Service

Update: Our Site TOS was last changed on July 27, 2012. The primary changes made at that time were as follows:

1) Posting items for sale in post signatures is no longer allowed.

2) Rules regarding self-promotion have been clarified.


Site-wide rules and terms of service for SeriousCompacts.com

1. No personal attacks or insults allowed.
2. Be nice. Rude comments have no place here. If you know an answer to a question, either answer it or say nothing. Giving blunt answers like "Do a search" or linking to lmgtfy.com is not allowed.
3. Don't troll. In other words, don't bait people with inflammatory posts or make posts for the purpose of disruption.
4. Don't repetitively argue. If you've made your argument, move on without trying over and again to have the last word.
5. Don't use the forums for illegal activity. This includes but is not limited to posting links to or trading pirated photography-related applications.
6. No obscene, hateful, threatening, racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory posts or signatures. Nudity and profanity are also off limits.
7. Discussion of politics and religion is not allowed anywhere on the site. This includes discussion of photography-related politics such as photographers' rights*.
8. Commercial listings (camera dealers, items for sale, workshop offerings, etc) are not allowed anywhere on the site. Exceptions are made on a case by case basis for site sponsors/advertisers.
9. Don't spam the forums. Certain self-promotion is allowed (see guidelines below).
10. Do not modify and repost a version of anyone else's image without explicit permission to do so.
11. The owner and moderator team at SeriousCompacts may remove, edit, move or close any thread, post, posted image, or other content in the forums or on any other part of this website.
12. If you object to a moderator action, PM an administrator or the site owner. Do not post your objection in the forum.
13. Don't embed your affiliate sales codes in forum posts (instant ban for spamming affiliate links).
14. Don't list items for sale in your signature. All such listings must be in Buy and Sell where we have posted the necessary warnings, disclosures, and tips for avoiding scammers.
15. All of the rules on this page apply throughout the entire site. Our Buy and Sell forum has additional rules which you also agree to follow if you participate there.

*As much as we'd like to make an exception for "photographer's rights", this is a topic which in the past has several times degenerated into frank politics with members talking about governments being fascist, conspiring against the people, etc. Lots of moderator time and energy was consumed. It is hard to draw a line between when a discussion of photographer's rights is apolitical and when it has has veered into general politics. We have only a few moderators, each with full time jobs, and we've made the difficult decision to exclude these discussions altogether in order to limit the work for our volunteer mods who do a lot for the site already.

Rules regarding self-promotion at SeriousCompacts.com:

1. If you are not selling something, you may post to notify members of your outside photography-related content. Examples of acceptable promotion: 1) Announcing your blog covering all things about a certain camera; 2) Announcing that you wrote a lens review for another site; 3) Announcing that you have a gallery exhibition coming up. These posts should not be repeated, cross-posted, or bumped by the original poster. There is some gray area here. If a moderator feels that you are abusing this privilege, they have full discretion to edit/delete/ban as they deem appropriate.
2. If you are selling something, whether it is a product or service, for profit or not for profit, contact a site administrator before posting about it. In most cases, these requests will be denied. We may make exceptions for niche items from small companies which we think will benefit our members. If permitted to make such a post, you must specify at the end of the post that you had permission from the forum admin so that there is no precedent set for others to sell their products without asking. Again, such posts should not be repeated, cross-posted, or bumped.
3. You may place information about your own photography-related site and/or products and services in your signature. You may not use the signature area to promote products and services unrelated to photography. Do not spam the forum with posts to get your links up. If moderators think your signature promotion is excessive or that you are abusing this privilege, they have full discretion to edit/delete/ban as they deem appropriate.
4. You are not allowed to list items for sale in your signature.
5. Do not use your signature for other promotion such as (but not limited to) coupon codes, affiliate links, etc. Generally you will see a ban for this.

If you have a question about whether your post is going to violate the rules and guidelines above, please contact a moderator before making the post.

Regarding copyright (applies to all sections of our site including but not limited to forums, contests, gallery, and review section):

• By posting your own words or images one this site, you are giving permission for those words or image to be shown and/or quoted here in the forums. The owner and moderator team at Mu-43 may remove, edit, move, lock, or close any thread, post, posted image, or other content in the forums or on any other part of this website.
• All threads, posts and opinions expressed in this forum are those of the respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, beliefs or opinions of the site owner, operators or administrative staff.
• Once posted/uploaded to SeriousCompacts.com, your words and images are available to the general public. We have no control over and offer no protection against how anyone utilizes your posts and/or images after obtaining them at mu-43.com, nor can we help you to delete your posts from the internet (Google cache, etc). For all intents and purposes, when you post something here, it is unretractable as with any other forum readable by the public on the internet.
• As long as you have an active membership here, you can go back and edit your own posts, if you wish to do so. Post/thread titles in some forums are permanent and cannot be edited. We will not delete posts on request, for example if you want all your posts deleted. More on this topic here: SeriousCompacts.com FAQ
• It is against our site rules to modify and repost a version of anyone else's image without explicit permission to do so.*
• If you would like to grant limited permission for others to edit and repost your images, for critique/illustration purposes, within the same thread where it was originally posted, click here to edit your profile details, scroll to the bottom, check 'OK' under 'Image edit and repost permission', and save changes. "IMAGE EDITING OK" will then be shown next to your name in each of your posts to indicate this preference. This setting does not otherwise affect copyright.
• Do not post anyone else's photographic work, modified or otherwise, in any SeriousCompacts forum, gallery, blog, group, review, or other site section without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.*
• Do not embed anyone else's images from our gallery, blogs, groups, reviews, or other site section in a forum post without explicit permission from the copyright holder.*
• You may post a small quoted excerpt of a post or article from another site here with attribution and a link back to the source. The amount of the text which you copy and post here should be very limited in relation to the original work. A small excerpt can be used as a point of discussion or as part of a news summary. If the scope of a quote is enough to disincentivize people from reading the source, ie all the content has been disclosed here, then it goes beyond what is allowed on this site.*
• If you post someone else's copyrighted photographic work in the forums, please specify the nature of your use (used with permission of copyright holder, used under creative commons license, etc) and be sure attribute the work properly. Attached/embedded images thought to violate copyright will be deleted.

* Copyright is a complicated subject, and laws differ in different countries. Although we realize that a case could be made for fair use in some specific situations which are beyond the scope of what is discussed here, SeriousCompacts.com is a privately owned and maintained site. The above rules are our rules which apply site-wide in addition to any applicable laws.

Regarding the gallery and attachments:

• The current limit for gallery storage is 100MB per member. Site supporters (donors) get 500MB of storage.
• The current limit for attachments storage is 10MB per member (50MB for site supporters). You can manage your attachments in your user control panel or by clicking here.
• Storage and bandwidth have an associated cost. As time goes on and the forum grows, the file size limits and total per-member storage limits may be significantly adjusted to match what we can afford to pay. This includes both storage in our Gallery as well as forum post attachment storage.
• Example: Say you have 100MB of uploaded images in your SeriousCompacts member gallery, and we subsequently find that I can only afford to give each member 20MB of total storage, you may lose 80MB of your uploaded photos when I make that change.
• Therefore, please do not use SeriousCompacts as the sole archive of your images. We cannot be responsible for lost images stored on this site.
• You can help keep bandwidth costs lower for everyone by not using SeriousCompacts as a place to store images for display on other sites. Eventually, we may have to flip a switch to prevent this altogether. For now, we just ask that members be considerate in their practices.