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rules

Table of Contents

1. Main Provisions
  • 1.1 These Rules have been developed in accordance with the current legislation of the Russian Federation.
  • 1.2 Photoforum.ru is privately owned.
  • 1.3 All site services are provided “as is.”
  • 1.4 The mission of Photoforum.ru is to provide for discussion on published photographs and for communication among of both professional and amateur photographers on photography topics.
  • 1.5 http://www.facebook.com/photoforum.ru is an integral part of photoforum.ru (hereafter PF).
  • 1.6 Commenting on other authors’ photographs is a prerequisite of being a PF user.
  • 1.7 Artistic photography is preferred. It is recommended to use other resources for publication of “family photos” (photos of family members, friends, loved ones, pets, good purchases, harvest at the country cottage, etc.) as well as photos interesting only for family members, friends and acquaintances.
  • 1.8Using other resources is also recommended for computer designers and photographic models.
  • 1.9 Photographs taken at PF user meetings should be labeled as "Life at PF."
  • 1.10 Any advertising without the prior consent of the Administrator is not allowed.

PF has an Administrative Group (hereafter Administration):

Administrator. No changes in PF are possible without the prior approval of the Administrator. The Administrator's decision is final and are not subject to debate.

Moderator (a group of Moderators). They monitor compliance with PF Rules by its users.

Editorial Board (hereinafter EB). They monitor whether the status of users and of the published photographs comply with the PF Rules as well as whether the comments are relevant to published photographs.

Note: In the case of any disagreement between Moderator and EB the final decision belongs to Moderator.

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2. Registration
  • 2.1 To become a PF user one must register.
  • 2.2 It is necessary to indicate one’s real place of residence (country, city).
  • 2.3 Registration through an anonymous proxy is prohibited. Accounts registered in this manner may be closed.
  • 2.4 By registering at PF one agrees to comply with its rules.
  • 2.5 User profile photos (or avatars) are subject to the same requirements as published photographs.
  • 2.6 A newly-registered user is assigned with the candidate status.
  • 2.7 Creating and / or using multiple accounts by the one and the same user is not allowed, except for a service assigned by the Administration.
  • 2.8 If two or more persons (such as husband and wife with different accounts) access PF from one and the same IP address (for example, from a single computer or several computers, if they are connected to a net with a single access to the Internet) then, for avoiding confusion, Administration must be notified of the fact.
  • 2.9 If no photographs are published from an account within 6 (six) months since the registration then this account is considered void. A void account may be closed. Exceptions may be made for users actively and creatively commenting on photographs of other users.
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3. Photograph Publishing

Users are entitled to publish only their photographs (i.e. made by themselves). Plagiarism entails closing the account. All parts of composite photographs should consist of images made by photographers themselves. If any doubt arises about the authorship, the Administration may request the source photographs. In the case of refusal to provide the source photographs the publication may be canceled.
Depending on their status users are entitled to publish photographs in the following sections:
Candidats in the Candidacy Section;
Participants in the Without Evaluation Section and Discussion Section;
Rating Photographers in the Without Evaluation Section, Discussion Section, and Rating Section.

All users barring those blocked by the Administration are entitled to publish photographs in the Competition Section.

  • 3.1 All photographs published on PF belong to their authors; any reproduction and / or use without author’s permission is prohibited.
  • 3.2 Published photographs must be in JPEG format (recommended profile is sRGB)
    Recommended sizes are:
    600 * 600 pixels minimum
    2000 * 1000 maximum.
    File size must not exceed 800 Kb; in some cases, file size may be increased (see. Awards).
  • 3.3 Certain minor elements of computer graphics (much smaller than the photograph itself) are allowed. Images created entirely within a graphic editor are not allowed. Published images must be based on photography.
  • 3.4 Any reproducing of any non-photographic images (pictures, drawings, imprints, screenshots, bill-boards, etc.) as self-sufficient pictures is not allowed. Such images are allowed as photographic elements if they are integral parts of the composition, background elements, and are important parts (but not the main parts) of a photograph. As an exception personal congratulations, messages about personal exhibitions and the like are allowed in the Without Evaluation section.
  • 3.5 Publication of works showing disrespect to state symbols and other government, nationwide, international, religious, moral and ethical values is not allowed.
  • 3.6 Pornography of any kind is not allowed.
  • 3.7 Child erotica is prohibited.
  • 3.8 Erotic photographs must be labeled as nude. Model’s agreement for publication is required. Administration may request such agreement. If the photographer refuses to submit the agreement, the photograph may be deleted.
  • 3.9 Photographer’s caption may contain only first name and / or last name. URLs, phone numbers and company names are not allowed.
  • 3.10 Publication of two or more identical photographs are not allowed. In the case of this rule violation the status of the photographer may be lowered.
  • 3.11 Be prepared for unflattering comments if you publish family photos (photos of family members, friends, loved ones, pets, good purchases, harvest at the country cottage, etc.) as well as photos interesting only for family members, friends and acquaintances.
  • 3.12 Rating photography publishing implies additional requirements (see. Rating section).).
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    4. Communication

    Users communicate on PF via comments and at the discussion forums. Users are expected to adopt a pro-active attitude and to be willing to learn from each other.

    • 4.1 The use of profanity is prohibited (Moderator resolves disputable cases).
    • 4.2 If a comment is offensive or does not meet ethical criteria (Moderator resolves disputable cases), the account of the commenting user may be blocked and, in the case of systematic repetition of the unethical behavior, deleted without notice.
    • 4.3 If a user finds that a comment is offensive for him or her, he or she may apply to the Administration requesting the deletion of the comment.
    • 4.4 The policy of moderation and actions of the Administration are not subject to discussion. The authors of such comments may be blocked, and their comments and topics in discussion forums deleted without notice.
    • 4.5 Administrator and Moderators are entitled to close discussion on a forum topic if they feel that further discussion may be counterproductive or do it at the request of the topic’s author.
    • 4.6 Constructive comments like "good because ..." and "bad, because …” are welcome, but not just "good" or "bad".
    • 4.7Discussion of any political, national, ethnic, religious, social issues or topics is not allowed (does not apply to the Off Topic part of the forum).
    • 4.8 Discussing authors’ or commentators’ personalities or models’ features is not allowed.
    • 4.9 o Non-photography topics are to be discussed on the Off Topic part of the forum.
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    Addenda
    5. User status

    Decisions to modify user status taken by EB are not subject to debate. These decisions are published in the Editorial Board Information forum topic.

    Basic information about status reduced to a table:

    Scope of Rights / Status Candidate Participant Rating Photographer
    Submitting photographs in the Candidacy Section + - -
    Submitting photographs in the Discussion Section - + +
    Submitting photographs in the Rating Section - - +
    Submitting photographs in the Without Evaluation Section - + +
    Submitting photographs in the Competition Section + + +
    Maximum number of photographs to be submitted (within the last seven days) 3 3+bonus 4+bonus
    Maximum number of photographs displayed 5000 5000 5000
    Commenting in the Candidacy Section + + +
    Commenting in the Discussion Section - + +
    Commenting in the Rating Section - + +
    Commenting in the Without Evaluation Section - + +
    Commenting in the Competition Section + + +
    Evaluating photographs in the Discussion Section (pluses) - + +
    Evaluating photographs in the Rating Section (numbers) - + +
    Evaluating photographs in the Competition Section (pluses, numbers) - + +
    1. 5.1 Guest
      is a user blocked by the Administration.
    2. 5.2 Candidate
      a) is entitled to::
      • submitting photographs in the Candidacy Section: maximum number to be submitted: 3 photographs within 7 days, minimal time interval between submissions – 40 hours, maximum number of submitted photographs – 7;
      • commenting photographs in the Candidacy Section;
      • submitting photographs in the Competition Section;
      • commenting photographs in the Competition Section;
      • submitting a claim for status change after publishing 5 photographs and commenting several photographs by other photographers (claims are considered within 24 hours to two weeks);

      b) Conditions for granting the Participant status:
      • o Candidate’s photographs should be above the family photography level, i.e. photographs that are only interesting for relatives and friends.
      • o Candidate’s photographs should be free of composition and shooting technical errors.
      • o Candidate’s photographs should be free of postprocessing errors and should meet the submission conditions.
      • o Candidate’s comments should be instructive.
      • o Candidate should follow these Rules.
      c) If a Candidate’s claim for changing status to Participant is dismissed or deleted, then the next claim may be submitted after publication of 5 new photographs of the Candidate and after Candidate’s newer comments placed.
    3. 5.3 Participant
      a) is entitled to::
      • submitting photographs in the Discussion, Without Evaluation and Competition Sections: maximum number to be submitted: 3 photographs within 7 days, minimal time interval between submissions – 20 hours.
      • commenting photographs in the Candidacy, Discussion, Without Evaluation, Rating and Competition Sections;
      • evaluating photographs in the Discussion, Rating, and Competition Sections;
      • granting Recommended Rank to comments;
      • submitting a claim for status change (claims are considered within 24 hours to two weeks);

      If the integral evaluation (pluses) of a Participant drops below zero the Participant loses his or her entitlement to submitting his or her newer photographs and to evaluating photographs by other users.
      b) Conditions for granting the Rating Photographer status:
      • Minimum 6 months of the Participant status.
      • Minimum 50 published photographs.
      • Participation in anonymous voting (in the Rating Section).
      • The number of instructive comments is higher than the number of own published photographs.

      c) Conditions for degrading the Participant status to the Candidate status:
      • Regular publishing “family photos” (interesting only to friends and relatives).
      • Low artistic and technical level of published photographs.
      • No published photographs in any section within 6 months..
      • The actual number of published photographs is less than 5.
      • Violation of these Rules.
    4. 5.4 Rating photographer
      a) is entitled to: :
      • submitting photographs in the Discussion, Without Evaluation, Rating, and Competition Sections: maximum number to be submitted: 4 photographs within 7 days, minimal time interval between submissions – 20 hours;
      • commenting photographs in the Candidacy, Discussion, Without Evaluation, Rating and Competition Sections;
      • evaluating photographs in the Discussion, Rating, and Competition Sections;
      • granting Recommended Rank to comments;
      • submitting a claim for status change (claims are considered within 24 hours to two weeks);

      Extra numbers of submitted photographs (within the last seven days) for Rating Photographers with higher ratings
      rating extra number
      15000 – 29999 +1 photograph
      30000 and more +2 photograph
      b) Before submitting a photograph in any section Rating Photographer must: have evaluated at least 10 photographs in the Rating Section (those that are still in the mode of anonimous voting) within the last 7 days.
      Weights of Rating Photographer evaluations (numbers): `
      Photographer’s rating Evaluation weight
      less than 0 0
      from 0 to 14999 1
      from 15000 to 29999 2
      30000 and more 3
      c) Conditions for degrading the Rating Photographer status to the Participant status:
      • Regular publishing “family photos” (interesting only to friends and relatives).
      • Low artistic and technical level of published photographs.
      • The actual number of published photographs is less than 50.
      • The numbers of instructive comments is less than the number of own published photographs.
      • Violation of these Rules.
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    6. Sections

    Basic information about Sections reduced to a table:

    Section/parameter Comments evaluation (pluses) evaluation (numbers) photographer’s name may be temporarily hidden
    Candidacy + - - -
    Discussion + + - -/+
    Rating + - + +
    Without Evaluation + - - -/+

    • 6.1 Candidacy

      Photographs are discussed. No evaluation (pluses, numbers) is done.

      • allowed comments only;
      • photographer’s and commentators’ names are open.
    • 6.2 Discussion

      Photographs are discussed. A simplified evaluation (pluses) system is in effect.

      • allowed comments and evaluations (pluses);
      • photographer’s and commentators’ names are open (photographer’s name may be hidden for 24 hours);
      • Participants and Rating Photographers are entitled to publish photographs;
      • Participants and Rating Photographers are entitled to comment;
      • Participants and Rating Photographers are entitled to evaluate (in pluses); ;

      Verbal description of pluses’ weight:
      • - (Poor) a poor shot (-1)
      • (Fair) an average photograph, so-so (0)
      • + (Good) a good photograph(+1)
      • ++ (Very Good) a very good photograph, but could be better (+2)
      • +++ (Excellent) an excellent photograph, no objections (+3)

    • 6.3 Rating

      a) Anonymous voting, within 72 hours the following data are hidden: photographer’s name, all evaluations, comments, and commentators names (voters may see parts of data after voting).
      b)Evaluations are anonymous at all times. Photographer’s name, comments, and evaluations open after anonymous voting is closed. Further photograph discussion is held open; only comments are allowed. Evaluators’ names are hidden (Administrator has this information but not EB or Moderator (Moderators). During the anonymous voting photograph’s statistics is unavailable to users and partly available to the Photographer.

      c) Photographs submitted to Rating Section should not possess any “marks” directly or indirectly showing authorship (e.g. Photographer’s name, copyright, framing frequently used by Photographer, the same model, place or other details that Photographer used before so many users may easily identify authorship). If any of the above mentioned “marks” are found the photograph in question may be deleted without notice. It is strongly recommended not to submit a rating photograph to other sites before anonymous voting is closed.

      Crops or fragments of photographs published earlier are not allowed.

      Photographer may re-upload the photograph with any inscriptions that are allowed by these Rules after anonymous voting is closed.
      d) Uploading a photograph to Rating Section means that Photographer agrees with uploading conditions as well as all evaluations given during anonymous voting (no matter that evaluations may not coincide with Photographer’s own opinion).

      • comments and evaluations are allowed;
      • photographs are evaluated in three ranks: composition, impact, and technique;
      • names of Photographer and commentators are hidden 3 days (to those who have not yet evaluated it or are not entitled to) since the photograph is uploaded;
      • Rating Photographers are entitled to submit photographs;
      • Participants and Rating Photographers are entitled to comment photographs;;
      • Participants and Rating Photographers are entitled to evaluate photographs.

    • 6.4 Without evaluation

      Photographs are discussed but not evaluated.

      • only comments are allowed;
      • names of Photographer and commentators are open (Photographer’s name may be hidden for 24 hours);
      • Participants and Rating Photographers are entitled to submit photographs;

    • 6.5 Competitions

      Competitions are held on PF from time to time. Competition subject and conditions are specified by Photographer who offers Competition. Competitions in detail

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    7. Statistics
    Photographs
    • Photograph’s Rating is computed for photographs uploaded to Rating Section and depends on evaluation values (numbers) and their quantity. If there are less than 10 evaluations then missing evaluations are allotted so to make their quantity equal to ten (evaluations allotted are 4/4/4 with the weight of 1)
      Note. Deleting low rating photographs may increase Photographer’s integral rating.
    • Pluses– the quantity of pluses received for all photographs uploaded in the Discussion Section by an author.
    • Integral pluses are computed using the following formula: integral pluses = average pluses * ln(photograph quantity),
      where:
      average pluses are arithmetic average of each photograph pluses sum,
      photograph quantity – quantity of photographs with pluses quantity other than zero,
      ln – natural logarithm.
      Note. Deleting low pluses sum photographs may increase Photographer’s integral pluses.
    Statistics renewal is done:
    • for photographs – every hour;
    • for Photographers – every 2 hours;
    • for critics (evaluators / commentators)—every 24 hours.
    When evaluations (numbers / pluses), comments, photographs, accounts are deleted the corresponded statistics is recomputed.
    8. Awards
    • The Popular Photograph of the Day +1 - a photograph published within the period of time from 00:00:00 to 23:59:59 of the day and having the highest pluses sum of the day. It is determined at the end of the next day and two times more after 24 and 48 hours.
    • The Popular Photograph of the Week +7 - a photograph published within the period of time from 00:00:00 Monday to 23:59:59 Sunday of the week and having the highest pluses sum of the week. It is determined on Monday next week and two times more after 7 and 14 days.
    • The Popular Photograph of the Month +30 - a photograph published within the period of time from the first day of the month 00:00:00 to the last day of the month 23:59:59 and having the highest pluses sum of the month. It is determined on the first day of the next month.
    • The Rating Photograph of the Day ¢1 - a photograph having the highest rating for the day of its publication after anonymous voting period. It is determined on the day next to the day of anonymous voting end.
    • The Rating Photograph of the week ¢7 - a photograph having the highest rating for the week of its publication after anonymous voting period. It is determined on Monday of the week next to the week of anonymous voting end.
    • • The Rating Photograph of the month ¢30 - a photograph having the highest rating for the month of its publication after anonymous voting period. It is determined on the first day of the month next to the month of anonymous voting end.
    • The Choice of Editorial Board - a photograph deserving recognition according to EB members.
    • Participant having 500 or more integral pluses is entitled to submitting photographs with the size of up to 1,000 Kbytes.
    • Rating Photographer having rating of 30,000 or more is entitled to submitting photographs with the size of up to 1000 Kbytes.
    *PF has Moscow time (UTC + 04:00)
    Recomputation of all awards with regard to new pluses, deleted photographs, etc. is done on a monthly basis. Links to the best photographs of the day are published on the PF official pages in social networks as well as in the mailings.
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    9. Penalties

    Any violation of these Rules (as decided by the Administrative Group) may be punished with the following:

    • comment deletion;
    • moving photograph to another Section;
    • photograph deletion;
    • lowering user status;
    • blocking user account;
    • user account deletion;

    9.1 Conflict resolution

    Any violation of PF’s friendly atmosphere may be punished by the following: comments of such type may to be deleted, user account may be blocked, and if unethical behavior is systematically repeated user account may be deleted without notice.

    Examples of such violations:
    • profanity in comments and photographs;
    • trolling, publishing comments provoking conflicts or insulting users, creating scandals when discussing photographs or forum topics.
    • criticizing photographs of your photograph commentator as a reply to critique;
    • Оdiscussing personality of photographers and commentators as well as discussing personality and appearance of models.
    Any human communication is bound up to potential conflicts. Conflicts may be avoided using PF resources. If you meet with boorishness or a mere insult, do not enter unnecessary polemics; most likely it is counterproductive.
    But if a conflict did happen:
    • messages by the conflicting parties may be deleted;
    • if the previous did not help accounts of one or more participants of the conflict may be blocked for some time (duration is determined by Moderator).
    • if the previous did not help accounts of one or more participants of the conflict may be deleted.
    Be tolerant. Respect other people. People are different. No one owes anything to another. Everyone has his or her own opinion. If you still wish to quarrel we recommend using personal communication software.
    10. Communication with Administration
    For communication with Administration are reserved the following topics in Forums: You may as well write messages to: (back to the top)

Programming, design, coding, support: © Nikolay Obukhov
All photographs are the properties of the authors. Any usage - with permissions of the authors only.
currect time: Tue 19 Mar 2024 05:52 (UTC+04:00)

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