These rules keep observatory.global useful, safe and welcoming. They apply to everyone who uses the service and form part of our Terms of Use.
1. Scope
These rules apply to everything you do on observatory.global and its sites: profiles, posts, comments, discussions, messages, groups, events, portfolio items, knowledge contributions, stations, data and use of our interfaces. Community stewards may add rules for their own groups, as long as those rules are consistent with these.
2. Our code of conduct
- Be respectful. Disagree with ideas, not people. No insults, slurs or personal attacks.
- Be constructive. Share what you know, cite your sources and help newcomers.
- Be honest. Report what you observed. Say when data is estimated, incomplete or uncertain.
- Be safe. Field work, masts, power and radio can hurt people. Share safe practices and point to qualified help.
- Respect privacy. Ask before you share someone else's information, image or location.
- Stay on topic. Post in the right group and keep discussions useful to others.
3. What is not allowed
You must not post, send, upload or do anything that:
- Is illegal where you are or in Canada, or helps someone break the law.
- Sexually exploits or endangers children, including any child sexual abuse material. We remove it, report it to the authorities and close the account.
- Harasses, bullies, threatens or intimidates anyone, including repeated unwanted contact, pile-ons and threats of violence.
- Promotes hatred or violence against people because of a protected characteristic such as race, ethnic origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or age, or praises or supports terrorist or violent extremist organizations.
- Is sexually explicit, or shares intimate images of anyone without their consent.
- Shares personal information without consent, such as home addresses, contact details, identity documents, the exact location of another person's station, or images of identifiable people captured by a sensor or camera.
- Impersonates a person or organization, or misrepresents your affiliation, qualifications or authority.
- Infringes copyright, trademarks, database rights or other rights (see our copyright policy).
- Is spam or manipulation: unsolicited advertising, repetitive posts, fake accounts, buying or selling accounts, coordinated inauthentic behaviour, or gaming points, badges, trust levels or reports.
- Promotes financial schemes: offers of securities, tokens, coins or investments, promises of income or earnings from stations or data, pyramid or multi-level schemes, or requests for money from members.
- Gives unsafe instructions that put people or property at risk, such as unsafe electrical, climbing or field work, or transmitting on radio frequencies without the required licence.
- Falsifies data: fabricated observations, spoofed locations or time sources, tampered devices or firmware, or data you know to be wrong presented as real.
- Attacks the service: malware, probing or exploiting vulnerabilities outside our disclosure policy, overloading the service, circumventing rate limits, bot checks, blocks or bans, accessing accounts or data that are not yours, or scraping beyond our published interfaces and robots.txt.
- Evades enforcement: creating a new account after a ban, or using another account to get around a restriction.
Posts that are off-topic or disruptive may be moved, hidden or closed by moderators or stewards.
4. Stations and field work
- Install a device only where you run the site or have the site owner's permission.
- Follow the electrical, building, radio and safety rules that apply where you are, and obtain any licence or approval you need.
- Do not point cameras, microphones or other sensors at people, homes or private spaces in a way that captures identifiable individuals without a lawful basis.
- Keep your device's firmware genuine and up to date, and tell us if a device is lost, stolen or compromised.
5. Trust levels and limits
New accounts start with limited features. As you verify your email, turn on two-step sign-in and make contributions that others accept, your trust level rises and more features open, such as links, uploads, messages and creating groups. Hourly limits apply to posts, messages and reports to prevent abuse. Points never buy a level.
6. Reporting and consequences
Use the Report button on any post, profile, group or portfolio item, or our notice form for illegal content, which works without an account. Depending on how serious and how frequent a breach is, we may hide or remove content, limit features, warn you, suspend your account or close it. In urgent cases we act first and review afterwards. Our moderation policy explains how decisions are made, how we tell you why and how you can appeal.