General Conduct

Why the rules? Photographica is large photography website viewed by people all across the globe. Like any large community, Photographica has to have a set of rules or there would be chaos. If you could distill all these rules into a four line sentance, this would be it: Dont Be a Jerk!

Lurk before posting! Do yourself and us a favor: Spend a week getting a feel for this place before posting a story or comment. You'll save yourself some embarrassment.

Before you post a story: Before you post a story, ask yourself two things "Will this post contribute anything interesting to this website?" and "Could I tolerate the harsh, but valid criticism these photographs might receive?" If you don't have anything to say don't say it, and if you can't take the heat, don't post.

Before you comment: Ask yourself "does this comment contribute anything worthwhile to the poster's photographs or story?" If you can answer yes, then go ahead and reply. Otherwise, send a private message to the poster or commenter.

Harassment: Don't be a jerk. Photographica is not the place to harass somebody. This is the internet--it is not even real!

Respect the editors : Don't sass the editors. They exist to keep this place safe and sane. What they say is what goes.

Off-topic comments: We are here to discuss photography, not politics, not gossip, and not how ugly the guy in the picture is. Please don't drag a story with guns in the picture into a debate about gun control. These topics have nothing to do with photography.

Worthless Comments: Worthless comments don't contribute anything to a discussion. Worthless comments are single words like "LOL" and "I agree". They do nothing but clutter up our website. We will delete these comments.

Racism: This should go without saying. Racist comments will be deleted on sight and their authors will be hung.

Flooding the front page: Everybody wants their day in the spotlight. When you post five stories in one day, you bump others off the front page. We ask you limit your posts on the front page of our site to once every day; it's only common courtesy. If you find yourself tempted to do it, ask yourself "can I combine these into one post?" The answer is yes.

We are NOT a free image host! This site costs real money to run. We are not here to host your myspace images, or your 3 gig family photo album that you don't plan to share as a story. If you are using us as a free image host we will ban your account, blow up your hard disk, and spit on your grave. Just don't do it.

Photography Guidelines

Photographica is about sharing your world as you see. Since we live in the real world, this sometimes means less then wholesome things wind up on film. And that is just fine.

Pornography: There is a fine line between nude art and pornography; we appreciate the former, but not the later. We've been around for 4 years and have had to walk this line in only a handful of cases. It boils down to this: "We'll know it when we see it". Keep in mind people are looking at this site while at work, while their kids are on their lap, or any number of compromising situations. They will not appreciate your wondrous nude photography when their boss is looking over their shoulder. Please tag anything that a a prudent employer might object to as "Not Safe for Work" or NSFW. If you have questions about this policy, please send an editor a private message.

Illegal Activities: There is a difference between a camera phone shot of your buddies smoking pot and you using your Nikon D20 to take well thought photographs of your buddies Again, we've been around for years and this has only been an issue a handful of times. Please tag anything you'd get fired for as NSFW.

Gore: Car accidents happen. People get hurt. It happens and people take photographs of it. The Associated Press has gigabytes of gory pictures in their archives. Photography depicts the reality of our world, both good and bad. Please tag these as NSFW.

The bottom line: If you have questions or concerns about an image on this website, please send an editor a private message. We ask this to prevent flamewars in comments - if any member or anonymous contributor posts a comment disputing the appropriateness of an image, and that comment is deemed inflammatory at the Editor's discretion, that persons account may be banned from posting on the website anywhere from several hours to an indefinite period of time.

Legal Mumbo-Jumbo

You'd do well to read this.

We do not have to delete your images, comments or stories. When you use this site, you grant us non-exclusive, serial rights to publish your words and images. Why do we do this? When you post here, you are starting a discussion. By asking us to delete your work, you are breaking that discussion and insulting those who took the effort to contribute to it. Please don't ask us to remove your work, if you have any issues with sharing something, it is better to not share at all.

Do not steal. Your mom taught you this and it should be obvious to anybody who isn't a 6 year old. When you "right-click, save-as" somebody's photograph, you are stealing. Sure, it might only be stealing a penny or so, but you are still stealing. Don't steal.

Do not plagiarize. If you post a bunch of stuff you stole from deviantArt on this website, we'll find it and then spit on your grave. Don't steal. Didn't your mom teach you better?

Don't forget to floss. Please, think of your dentist.