Terms and rules

Digital Monochrome Forum Rules

Updated 02/2022

The purpose of this forum is to discuss and learn the craft of black and white photography. It is not a platform for discussing matters of political, racial, religious, or non-photographic content.

Please put more into this Forum than you take out.

Please make the effort to introduce yourself to those already here, and contribute to the discussions.

You must be polite to others at all times, derogatory or heated responses are taboo. Remember as the written word here is obviously devoid of facial and vocal inflection it can be a blunt tool easily open to misunderstanding. So think very carefully before posting a heated rejoinder over a point that offends you.

There is a difference between debate and argument, the former is encouraged, the latter not. By all means put your case forcefully, but politely, and recognise that others are entitled to hold different points of view. You are discussing the content of the post, not its author.

If you consider a post offensive, or inappropriate please report it. Posts that are considered offensive or inappropriate will be deleted or edited without warning. It is the moderators’ definition of offensive and inappropriate that will apply in all cases and their decision is final.

If you make a nuisance of yourself you may receive one warning, possibly together with a short suspension of access; if you do not take the hint, and modify your approach then your registration will be cancelled on repetition without further warning.

Promoting or advertising (with the exception of photography related goods for sale) is only permitted by those expressly invited to do so who will restrict such posts to the appropriate section and of goods, and services appropriate to this forum. If you wish to advertise here then please ask permission first.

You shall not

Defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten or otherwise violate the legal rights (such as rights of privacy and publicity) of others.

Post any inappropriate, profane, defamatory, infringing, obscene, indecent or unlawful topic, name, material or information.

Post files that contain software or other material protected by intellectual property laws (or by rights of privacy of publicity) unless you own or control the rights thereto or have expressly received all necessary consents.

Post files or content that contains viruses, corrupted files, or any other similar software or programs that may damage the operation of another's computer.

Advertise or offer to sell any goods or services for any commercial purpose. Post surveys, contests, pyramid schemes or chain letters.

Download any file posted by another User of a forum that you know, or reasonably should know.

The Moderators offer their services here for nothing more than the simple joy of serving you; so be nice to them.

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About Digital Monochrome Forum

The Digital Monochrome Forum domain name (digitalmonochromeforum.co.uk) is registered to Ian Barber. The forum is hosted with a UK hosting company. The forum is run by Ian Barber and Martin Henson both of which are Administrators.

More information on the domain name and registration can been seen at the Whois Website.

Our commitment

We value your privacy and your desire to protect your personal information. This page is to explain to you the type of information we collect about you, why we collect it, and how that information is used.

If you have any questions about this privacy policy you can contact us via our Contact Us page. Our postal address is available on request.

What information we collect

The Digital Monochrome Forum collects and stores the following types of information about you.

Information about your computer, including IP address, browser type, operating system and screen resolution. If you are registering, or are registered as a member, we also collect the following information.

Compulsory information provided by you, for the purposes of registering as a member, including email address. Voluntary information provided by you and entered into your user profile, either at time of registration, or later. This includes your real name, location, occupation and biography, amongst others.

Your preferences and customised options as to how you wish the site to 'look' and 'feel'. Other voluntary information we collect, is any information entered by you into posts and threads on the forum.

Why we collect this information

The information about your computer is collected to assist us in compiling our website visitor statistics. These enable us to adapt and maintain Digital Monochrome Forum for the enjoyment of the majority of our visitors. With the exception of the IP address, the information about your computer is never linked to any personally identifiable information or your site account.

Your IP address is collected to allow us to enforce our site rules, detect duplicate registrations, and to assist you should you have any problems or queries (technical or otherwise) while using our site. The voluntary information you enter into your profile is to nurture our community aspect.

Your email address is required by us to ensure that we have a line of contact with a real person, and to assist us in enforcing our forum rules and to detect duplicate registrations. Your date of birth is optional at this time but may change in the future. We use this information so we can detect members under the age of 18, and restrict their site access accordingly.

Cookies

The Digital Monochrome Forum website makes use of browser cookies. A cookie is a small file of information which is placed on your computer with information relevant to your visit to our website. This is used to enable us to distinguish you as a registered member (if you are), and to enable you to take part in and access areas of our website which would otherwise be restricted. It also allows us to offer you a more personalised experience by way of applying your preferences and options to your visit.

We also use cookies that store your username (but not password unless you explicitly allow it to), to enable you to return to our site quicker on your next visit and stay logged in.

You may disable either our cookies, and/or our third party advertisers cookies in your browser preferences. If you disable the Digital Monochrome Forum cookies, this may affect your ability to interact with various functions of our site (particularly those that require you to be logged in).

How we use your information

Your voluntary personal information (your location, occupation, biography etc) is stored in your user profile, and is viewable by any registered member. Your date of birth ma be used to automatically send you a short congratulatory email on your birthday.

Your email address will be used to notify you of various website changes. These include (but are not limited to), replies after you in a thread, notification of a private message by another member

These notifications are mostly opt-in, and can all be turned off via your user control panel. We will periodically send out an email newsletter to you. This can be opted out of too via your user control panel.

We will also use your email address for our site staff to communicate with you any updates, problems or information about your account.

Sharing of your information

Your date of birth is kept private unless you change your options to allow it to be shown to other site visitors.

By default your email address is not visible to other members, and at the moment there is no option to override this. Your contact details (including email address) will never be sold to a third party.

If you are involved in a classifieds transaction and the other member has tried to (but cannot) contact you via the forum PM system, then we may pass your email address to them privately. This is only ever done after a request by the other member and each situation is decided on its individual merits.

Our classifieds section is based on trust, and in order to maintain that trust we aim to help protect our members against any possible fraudulent transactions. To help us with this, we publish on the forums, the details of those we consider 'bad traders'. A bad trader is someone who has not met their obligation in a classifieds transaction with another member, often resulting in the other member suffering a financial loss.

These details are published on the forums in accordance with our site terms and conditions (often referred to as 'Rules'), and usually only after the member in question has been banned from the classifieds section. This is only ever done as a last resort when other avenues and options have failed.

Your Uploaded Photographs

You have the option to upload your photographs direct to the server (the preffered method) in which case they are stored on the server database or you have the option to hot-link them in which case they are stored on the server you have linked them from.

Photographs stored on our server will never be shared anywhere else without the prior consent of the copyright owner

Opting out, and consent

If you are a registered member, you may only opt-out of receiving our newsletters, or any other forum notifications by modifying your user preferences. However, we may still contact you with what we consider are important updates or notifications regarding the site or your account, or queries regarding your conduct or activity on the site.

You may, at any time, remove any voluntary information you enter into your user control panel, except your valid email address and date of birth. These are required to keep your site membership active.

We may delete your site account on request. Please use the Contact Us facility of the site to do so. If you wish, you may remove ALL information from your profile yourself. However, please note that your account will become restricted if you remove your valid email address, so remove this information last.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Read more about The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)