Rules in the Leica Forum

[admin]

Rules for the Use of the Leica Camera User Forum

The Leica Camera User Forum centres on Leica and photography. Content is defined by users: you can raise questions or provide answers; get information about new products (and old ones!), seize suggestions or talk to like-minded people. Mainly the forum is a platform to establish contacts with other people who share our Leica passion.

In order to achieve a clear understanding, the following terms are used:

• A post is a written statement given by a forum member into a publicly visible thread.
• A thread is a chain of posts.
• The licensee is the legal responsible administrator of the technical platform.

Forum Utilization
Participation in this forum cannot be claimed by legal action. The Licensee, administrator and moderators are striving to create an open platform as much as possible. If someone offends the interests of the forum, forum members, licensee or moderators, the licensee reserves the right to suspend membership of the offender either for a dedicated time period or permanently.

Legal Notice
The jurisdiction relating to the forum is German law, since the server is operated in Germany and the licensee is resident in Germany. Therefore, any posts which infringe German law are prohibited.

Social Life
Within the Leica forum, different people from various nations and cultures are interacting. In order to achieve constructive discussions all participants are obliged to interact in a civilized and respectful manner and in a manner which is not likely to cause offence to other forum members.

Aside from legal regulations (e.g. insult, defamation) so called "Netiquette" may serve as a standard for communication: Netiquette - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Conflicts

In case of conflict, the following rules will apply:

• Provocations by others are no justification for own aggressive behaviour. If you feel provoked, either ignore and/or use the Ignore function or report the incident to a moderator, using the appropriate button or the Private Message facility.
• Conflicts between individual members will not be tolerated on the forum. Please deal with such disputes off-forum. Everyone can use the Ignore function.

If you post a statement about someone else, please consider:

• Defamation of another person is prohibited in general
• Publication of personal data (mail address, telephone number, email address etc) is prohibited in general -- even if made in good faith. Every person has a legal right to decide about whether to publicise their own personal data.

Authentification

During the registration process you need to provide your full and correct name together with a valid email address; the member profile should be updated accordingly. These data provided will neither be published within the forum nor elsewhere nor passed on to other parties. They are required for the legal safeguard of the forum operator/licensee only. Current German legal jurisdiction assigns joint liability to forum operator/licensee in case of infringements. The operator/licensee therefore reserves the right to relate to a member's identity in such cases. If the identity of a forum member turns out to be unreproducible, his/her membership can be terminated temporarily or for unlimited time.

Liability

With the registration and participation the member releases the operator/licensee from all claims resulting from breaches of the law by the member, for example (but not limited to) damages against third parties or attorney fees.

Posts

For all posting activities in this forum each member should remember the following:

• Posts are publicly visible -- worldwide and time unrestricted. There is no legal claim either to get posts deleted at a later point of time or to limit access to them. Even after a potential cancellation the post may still be readable in the cache of internet search engines and online archives (and quotes within a thread). The forum licensee has no influence on such occurrences. Content posted may be visible for a long time outside of the forum in the internet.
• In case of release of content picked up from other sources, it needs to be ensured that there is no infringement of someone else’s rights; you need to ensure that information is free of claims from other third parties. (This is not only for pictures). As a minimum, the origin of the information source needs to be quoted.
• It is a bad habit to implement posts into a thread which detract from the original subject; especially when members "maintain their personal animosities". These posts will either be deleted or moved by Moderators without prior warning.
• Please avoid double posts to an identical subject. The forum provides a search facility to accommodate any search requests.
• Please select the appropriate forum for your subject
• If possible try to avoid consecutive posts from the same author
• Please use a meaningful post title to allow a quick orientation in the forum overview. Don’t use lurid headlines.
• Please keep the sections on topic. For example, photos go to the photo forum please. The M8 forum stays for technical topics please.

Publication of Photographs

Forum members uploading photo(s) into the forum declare that:

• The photo(s) is(are) not associated with the forum licensee
• He/she/they is(are) the author/originator of the published photo(s), bear(ers) of all associated legal rights and that they do(es) not violate any third-party claims
• Pictures containing human beings may only be published by obeying all legislative regulations with regard to copyrights/intellectual properties of the person shown on the photo

If a member publishes pictures in a forum, he puts them up for discussion and grants the right of use within the forum for an unlimited amount of time.
If a member uploads pictures into the "Gallery" he keeps the right to delete them at any point of time (in contrast to the upload within the forum sections!)

Without permission of the bailee all ulterior usage of pictures from the forum or the "Gallery" is prohibited.

Photos which cannot be accepted for moral, ethical or religious reasons will be deleted immediately without prior notice and comment.

Prerequisite for placing a photo is that it has been made with Leica equipment and/or has a strong relationship to a Leica subject. For the avoidance of doubt, this includes the use of Leica lenses on third party bodies, Leica lenses on Leica partner cameras (e.g. Panasonic) and the use of third party lenses on Leica bodies. In general, photographs taken without the use of Leica equipment are not permitted.

The maximum image size is 960 x 640 pixels and with a file size not exceeding 240 Kb.

As a sign of respect towards users having no broadband internet access a single post should not contain more than three photos.

Links
The licensee is not liable for the content of external links.

It is strictly prohibited to reference links to executable files or download-files (e.g. .zip/ .dmg / .exe)

If you want to reference software, please direct your link to the URL containing the downloadable file.

Links to illegal content are prohibited. If you believe the link is of general interest, please contact a moderator.

Industrial Utilization
The Leica forum is funded by sponsors and advertisers. Therefore gratuitous usage for the purpose of advertising is not allowed. Posts / threads with such clearly visible intent or content will be deleted immediately without any comment.

Private sale of Leica products
This forum contains a buy & sell area. Leica User Forum Classifieds - Main Index - Powered by PhotoPost Classifieds. No buy & sell activities, linking to third party selling sites (e.g. link to eBay and similar areas) are allowed.

This also includes any form of negotiations, price/pricing discussions or for sale information.

Sanctions

Any case of a profound breach of above mentioned regulations (e.g. a clearly identifiable breach of law) will result in an immediate and uncommented deletion of the affected post and/or suspension of the forum membership. This is necessary to protect the licensee of this forum against any legal claims or prosecution caused by external fault.

Normally a small breach is addressed and settled by a short and friendly "Warning" communicated via direct email or Private Message

In case of reoccurrence and/or profound breaches the user will receive a "Yellow Card" as a warning from the administrator or a moderator.

If breaches continue, the member will be suspended from the forum for either a limited period of time or permanently ("Red Card"). The decision about a "Red Card" is made up jointly between moderators and administrator.

[k_g_wolf]

Good luck with these RULES ...



Best

[andybarton]

Bump...

[underground]

Hello I have looked around briefly, but am not finding the reason i have BENUTZER under my sign in name. What does this mean?

Thanx. dave mac.

[andybarton]

"Benutzer" means "member" in German (or something similar)

When you get to 100 posts, you will become a "Erfahrener Benutzer", which is a senior member, and there you will stay.

[etibeti]

Benutzer = user

[underground]

Thank You.