Shotupnorth Forum

GUIDELINES

The Shot Up North Forum is exclusively for Shot Up North forum members.

This is a private forum and you should not communicate the contents to anyone outside of SHOT UP NORTH.

SHOT UP NORTH may impose sanctions against anyone who forwards any content of the forums to a third-party.

The Forum's primary function is for member-to-member interaction. They do not act, nor should they be viewed as, open comms channels to the SHOT UP NORTH's management. Other well-established channels of communication already exist if a member wishes to raise a management issue.

Behaviour is governed by the SHOT UP NORTH forum GUIDELINES and the universal rules of what's generally known as 'Net Etiquette' or 'netiquette'. Discussions are also subject to the laws of England & Wales, including libel and employment legislation, etc.

Subscribers who contravene the guidelines or directives of the forum admins may be excluded without further warning.

Your introduction (required)

Before you post to the forums for the first time please introduce yourself, include your name, location, and main area of photographic activity. You may share as much about yourself as you're comfortable with.

Observance of netiquette

As part of the Guidelines we include the universally accepted rules of netiquette. These describe the types of reasonable behaviour that enable a free-flowing and acceptable exchange of views, even from opposing positions. Your conduct is always expected to conform to the best traditions of netiquette. You must NEVER use disrespectful or inflammatory language, even when you strongly disagree with another view.

You can find out more about netiquette in the next expandable block.

Discussion Topics

The forums are aimed at the traditional concerns of members of the SHOT UP NORTH. Some possible subjects for discussion include;

  • Photo-techniques
  • Materials
  • Equipment
  • Licensing and business practice
  • Studios
  • Suppliers
  • Libraries
  • Copyright and intellectual property
  • Client-Agency-Photographer relationships

Topics on matters affecting SHOT UP NORTH

SHOT UP NORTH is liable for its actions and has responsibilities to the company and staff. Therefore discussion of certain SHOT UP NORTH issues is not permitted, e.g. day-to-day management, policies, etc.

Check your information before posting

Once you have clicked the Send button you are committed and your post cannot be undone, although it can be edited and re-sent. Therefore you're expected to investigate your sources before sending messages to the forums. In these aspects we strongly urge subscribers to be self-monitoring and self-editing.

Announcements

If you have an announcement it is usually best to clear it with the forum admin (aka 'list-admin') before sending.

Commercial announcements

Members who are running a commercial event, such as a workshop, or promoting products or services, must seek permission from the forum admin first, if wishing to announce it. Only those events/products which offer SHOT UP NORTH members a 15% discount (reduced to 10% if you are posting as a charity or not-for-profit) will be considered.

Forum operation and management

Forum subscribers are obliged to abide by these rules. If you disagree or wish to question a rule you must address this in private to the management, not to the forums.

Discussion is monitored and overseen by the forum admin/owner. Subscribers are required to abide by the requests and directives of the forum admin at all times.

Any serious breaches of the guidelines can result in immediate suspension from the forums without warning.

Repeated Violations

We hope that members will always be considerate and moderate in their behaviour on the forums. However should a subscriber repeatedly ignores requests to conform to the guidelines or abuses the open nature of the forums, the subscriber will be suspended or removed.

Limit of Liability

The forum owners, admins, monitors/moderators, operators or sponsors are in no way responsible for any direct or indirect damage or consequential loss as a result using this forum. Opinions expressed are those of the individual authors and do not represent the views of SHOT UP NORTH, its operators or facilitators. All legalities come under the jurisdiction of the laws of England and Wales.

Usage rights:

Participants who post to this list grant rights to the forum owner to include their posts in a searchable archive and grant permission to use the posts solely as part of a complete list archive in other mediums, all of which will be available only to members of SHOT UP NORTH.

Netiquette (or 'net-etiquette')

The following has been adapted from several sources and represents the way many milions of people worldwide conduct themselves in similar forums.

How to conduct yourself

Use common sense when posting. Be aware that you always have two options: responding through the forum or to a member personally. The content of your message should determine which of these you choose.

  • Follow the forum rules at all times. If you're not sure whether your post will violate the rules, ask the forum admin before you send it.
  • Lurk and learn what's acceptable before posting to the forum.
  • Don't over-quote. Include only the specific information you're responding to, and chop out the rest.
  • Don't forward e-mails that have been sent to you in private. The original sender may not wish for their post to be viewed by others.
  • Keep posts to the forum brief. If your post doesn't add value, don't send it. (For e.g., it's not necessary to send a "thanks" message through the forum. Send something like that directly to the person you're thanking.)
  • Be courteous to other subscribers. If you disagree with them, fine, just don't resort to personal insults.
  • Consult the forum archives before posting a question. This is also a good way to become familiar with a forum's acceptable topics, etc.
  • Do not cross-post (send the same message to more than one forum).
  • Do not flame, send hate mail, or anything similar.
  • Do not forward virus warnings.
  • It is a courtesy to others and good practice NOT to quote an email address in full (it might be crawled by a virus on someone's hard drive). Try replacing the "@" with [at], people will still be able to understand the contact in this way.
  • Do not subscribe to forums with an email address with an auto-responder function. This includes 'Out of Office' auto reply and other features. Doing this creates a large amount of wasted email, which can be a significant burden on a publisher with a large email list.
  • Respect other people's opinions. If you disagree, do it politely.
  • Spell-check and reread your messages before posting.
  • Do not blatantly promote yourself or otherwise spam the forum. Self-promotion should be kept to a brief signature file at the end of your posts. Signature files shouldn't exceed 4-5 lines.
  • Do not forward copyrighted material to the list unless you have permission to do so.
  • If you do use information not your own, give proper credit.