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Northlands site rules

This site is for photographers and models: to share and discuss photographs, exchange experience and get to know each other's work. It is conceived as a place for photographers of the wide northern and eastern territories, but members from any region are welcome if they follow these rules. By registering, posting or using the site's features you confirm that you have read the rules and agree to follow them.

Last updated: 3 November 2026.

1. General

  1. The site is about photography and related questions. It is not a place for political debate, campaigning or organising public conflicts.
  2. Treat other members with respect whatever their experience, views, place of residence or skill level.
  3. The administrators may take moderation measures to keep the site on topic, to enforce the rules, to protect members and to keep the site running.
  4. Rights in photographs belong to their authors or other lawful rights holders. Others may use a photograph only with the necessary permission.

2. What you publish

  1. Post photographs, or works based on photographs, in a suitable section. Artistic processing, retouching, montage and collage are fine if they do not mislead viewers about the nature of the work.
  2. The administrators may refuse material that does not fit the site's subject, purpose or editorial principles.
  3. We do not welcome everyday and family snapshots with no photographic idea of their own (“me in front of the cottage or the monument”).
  4. Titles, descriptions, tags and other accompanying text must match the work and must not be used to get around the rules.
  5. Artistic nude photography is allowed only in the section made for it and is shown behind an 18+ warning.

3. Not allowed

  1. Material whose publication breaks the law that applies to the site and its administrators, or copyright and related rights, image rights, privacy or other legally protected rights.
  2. Posting other people's work without a legal basis, passing it off as your own, or hiding the authors and co-authors. If an author has agreed not to be named, say so clearly in the description.
  3. Pornography, sexual exploitation, unlawful images of minors, and needlessly graphic depictions of cruelty, abuse or violence.
  4. Threats, harassment, degrading treatment, calls to violence, and incitement of hatred or hostility on grounds of nationality, race, religion or similar.
  5. Obscene language, insults, and offensive images or symbols in titles, comments, messages or anywhere else on the site.
  6. Insulting, pursuing, intimidating or deliberately provoking other members, moderators or the administration; spreading knowingly false statements about members; using discussions to settle personal scores.
  7. Publishing personal information about others (addresses, contacts or other restricted data) without proper grounds.
  8. Advertising goods, services or outside sites, and political or other campaigns.
  9. Material clearly unrelated to the site's subject, or used mainly to discuss matters that have nothing to do with photography.

4. Politics, armed conflict and publicly contested topics

  1. Northlands is a photography site. It is not intended for political campaigning or propaganda, or for discussing political confrontation, armed conflicts and the public disputes around them.
  2. Not allowed are posts, comments, captions, symbols, slogans and other material about political confrontation, military action and armed conflicts, their participants and sides, or judgements on what is happening, if they could lead to political arguments, campaigning, mutual accusations or conflict between members. This includes material in which a photograph serves mainly to express a political position.
  3. Not allowed are symbols, insignia and material of organisations and associations whose activity or symbols are banned by the law that applies to the site, and material whose distribution is restricted by law.
  4. Not allowed are photographs of military and other protected facilities, of the location, movement or activity of military equipment and personnel, and any images that give exact coordinates of such places.
  5. These limits apply wherever a member can put information: photographs and their descriptions, tags, comments, the forum, private messages, usernames, avatars, signatures, profile fields, links to outside resources, and any text or symbols within the pictures themselves, including watermarks.
  6. That a work is documentary, historical, artistic or informative, in the author's view, does not guarantee that it will be published. The administrators judge the content, caption, context and fit with the site's purpose.
  7. The rules apply regardless of the author's views, the stated reason for posting, or the declared genre.
  8. Hiding or removing material under this section is not a judgement on its accuracy, on the author's views or on the events shown. It only reflects the site's subject and these rules.

5. Conversation, comments and the forum

  1. Criticism is welcome when it is courteous and about the work itself: content, composition, technique. Do not move from discussing a work to insulting its author or other members.
  2. Do not use comments, messages or the forum to provoke conflict, organise mass complaints, or harass individual members.
  3. A calm question or a reasoned disagreement is not a violation in itself.
  4. Send questions, suggestions and bug reports through the contact forms and the relevant forum sections.
  5. You can limit contact with other members using the block functions. Trying to get around such limits may lead to further moderation.

6. Moderation and the administrators' powers

  1. The administrators decide whether material and behaviour fit the site's subject, purpose and these rules.
  2. The administrators may, without prior notice, reject, hide or delete photographs, titles, descriptions, comments, forum posts, topics, private messages (where moderation is possible), avatars, signatures and any other material.
  3. Grounds for moderation include:
    • breach of the rules, the law or the rights of third parties;
    • material that does not fit a photography site's subject and purpose;
    • advertising, campaigning, propaganda, or using the site for purposes other than intended;
    • abusive, provocative, confrontational or discriminatory content;
    • touching on political, military, ideological, religious or other publicly contested matters;
    • reasonable doubt about the lawfulness of the material or the rights of third parties;
    • other circumstances that, in the administrators' judgement, could interfere with the site.
  4. The administrators may hide material while it is checked, and may delete it or restrict access to it if its content, context or likely consequences give reasonable cause for concern, even when a breach of a particular rule is not obvious.
  5. The administrators may close discussions, limit commenting, impose temporary or permanent limits on particular features, block accounts, and review the first posts and comments of new members before they are shown.
  6. The administrators are not obliged to keep posts, to provide a place to repost them, or to explain every decision in detail. Decisions are made within the law.
  7. The absence of prior notice does not entitle anyone to bypass a restriction or to repost removed material.
  8. You can report material through the contact form or a report button where the page has one.

7. Copyright and responsibility for what you post

  1. Copyright stays with the lawful rights holders. Posting on the site does not transfer exclusive rights to the administrators or other members.
  2. By posting you confirm that you hold the necessary rights and permissions.
  3. If other people appear in a photograph, the author is responsible for having any consent the law requires.
  4. On a reasoned complaint of infringement, the administrators may restrict access to the material while it is checked.
  5. Members are responsible for the content of their own material, comments and messages within the limits set by law.

8. Posting photos and deleting your account

  1. You post and delete your own photographs using the site's features.
  2. By posting a photograph you agree to its being shown on the site, in line with the site's purpose and these rules, until you delete it.
  3. The administrators are not obliged to keep or show a photograph indefinitely and may delete it on the grounds set out in the rules and in law.
  4. You can start deleting your account with the site's function. Where a 14-day period for cancelling is provided, you may use it within that time.
  5. Deleting an account and material does not always mean technical copies, backups and records are removed at once where law requires or allows them to be kept.

9. Legal information

Members must obey the law that applies, including provisions on copyright, personal-data protection, image rights, and limits on the distribution of certain kinds of information. This section is informational, does not replace the text of any legislation and is not legal advice.

10. Final provisions

  1. The administrators may change and add to these rules. The current version is published on the site; it is worth rereading now and then.
  2. If one provision proves inapplicable or invalid, the others remain in force.
  3. The site's main aim is to bring together people who love photography and to keep a place for sharing work, exchanging experience and calm conversation.

Thank you for taking part and for treating other photographers with respect!