* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Forum Policy

Blobrana · L

Pictures are very important in astronomy. Most of the images on this site have been processed by me, but are not owned by me. If you borrow the images from this site and use them on your own Web site or for commercial purposes, you may be asked to stop using them.
If the images belong to me, then permission is granted.
You may use any of the images on this site for limited educational purposes.

(Briefly, teachers and students in non-profit schools may incorporate as many as five images in education-related things like papers and reports, class notes (including online class notes), handouts, and computer displays. Teachers may use them for no more than two years, except for things like portfolios. The details are given under the educational fair use guidelines established by the U.S. Congress. )

You may use these images for these purposes if you:
Copy or download them from this site (no need to ask me first). Use only the image, not the article, or any of the content.
Include their source whenever you use them or include a link to the page where the image came from.

For use of my images, you can write to me and ask for permission, in which case you can say "used by permission" instead of "reproduced under educational fair use." But permission is granted.
You can alter the images to your own satisfaction. I make my images look and work their best at a certain size and shape to fit this forum. You may change the file format, crop, shrink or enlarge, etc, as you see fit.

Some of the images on my site are created by the U.S. government and its agencies. These are not subject to copyright and may be used freely.
Some other images are by other people or agencies, used here by permission. You have the right to make fair use of those, too, but follow the fair use guidelines carefully.

Blobrana · L

Disclaimer: The publication of any and all content e.g., articles, reports, editorials, commentary, opinions, as well as graphics and or images on this web-site does not constitute sanction or acquiescence of said content; it is solely for informational purposes.

Fair Use Notice: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which may not be specifically authorised by the copyright owner. If such material is used it should purely for efforts to advance understanding of scientific, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, social justice, and religious issues, etc. i believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Blobrana · L

Just a small note on the forums outrageous policy.

(part one of ground rules)

The Forum is really only a personal news portal. If you want to chat then I would recommend another forum like whyzzat.com
Queries on the other hand are welcome.

The internet is vast and the danger is that important or interesting information is sometimes swamped by the volume of the news reports.
The forum is my reaction to that.

So, try to post informative links or posts. The use of humour , jokes or puns are allowed; though for the benefit of American readers try not to use irony.

Insane posts or off topic subjects will be consigned to the `Trash` members’ only forum.

Please leave racism, sexism, nationalism and economic constraints outside the door when entering the forum.
But be warned, religion is tolerated here.

As to the sticky problem of copyright:
The official policy is `don’t`.
But due to the nature of what the forum is about, sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.

I do not recognise copyright on knowledge.

Try to give credit for images, or a link to the site that they came from.
(the worst fate of a website is that no one visits it – Remember, people actually pay to increase their Google rating).
A quick email to the author will usually reveal that (s)he is only too pleased to grant permission.

In the case of big organisations like NASA or ESA etc the credit is `taken as given` and obvious. But please make the effort.

Try to respect other people’s privacy.

Direct linking of images to small personal sites is generally frowned upon as it eats up the server bandwidth. Small sites also have the habit of shutting down or deleting images so rendering your post lacking that photo - but given that this forum is small and not publicised, and you don’t post huge pictures (more than, say, 50kb) and give them a free website plug, by posting a URL link; then I will overlook this for now.

Please apply the same when quoting text or articles.

Any feedback complaints will be acted upon at my leisurely pace, but they will be acted upon.

Disinformation, however, will be corrected swiftly. (please feel free to highlight any errors – nit picking is not allowed)

Out of context Url links to sites that sell products will be edited or deleted.
The forum is totally free. No monetary exchanges are allowed.

These ground rules will change in the future.

-- Edited by Blobrana at 14:19, 2005-10-05