EOpedia:Terms of Use

Summary

This is a summary of the Terms of Use. To read the full terms, scroll down or click here.

This is a human-readable summary of the Terms of Use. Disclaimer: This summary is not a part of the Terms of Use and is not a legal document. It is simply a handy reference for understanding the full terms. Think of it as the user-friendly interface to the legal language of our Terms of Use.

Our mission is to:

• Empower and Engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content of the Earth observation domain and publish it under a free license.
• Disseminate this content effectively and globally, free of charge.
• Offer the website, moderation, and technical infrastructure to help you do this.

You are free to:

• Read and Print our articles and other media free of charge.
• Share and Reuse our articles and other media under free and open licenses.
• Contribute To and Edit our various articles.

Under the following conditions:

• Responsibility - You take responsibility for your edits (since we only host your content).
• Civility - You support a civil environment and do not harass other users.
• Lawful Behaviour - You do not violate copyright, post illegal content, or violate other applicable laws that follow human rights principles.
• No Harm - You do not harm our technology infrastructure and you follow the policies for that infrastructure.
• Terms of Use and Policies - You adhere to the below Terms of Use when you visit our website or participate in our community.

With the understanding that:

• You License Freely Your Contributions - You generally must license your contributions and edits to our website under a free and open license (unless your contribution is in the public domain).
• No Professional Advice - The content of articles on EOpedia is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice.

If you need help or you want to report a violation of these Terms of Use you can:

• Ask for help: Visit the contacts page which is linked in the footer of each page to find the right contact point.

Terms of Use

Welcome to EOpedia! EOpedia is a project started by Marco Peters to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop content under a free license and to provide a source of knowledge for the Earth observation community.

To support the community, we provide the essential infrastructure and organizational framework for the development of the content of the EOpedia wiki.

We welcome you ("you" or the "user") as a reader, or contributor of the project, and we encourage you to join the EOpedia community. Before you participate, however, we ask that you please read and agree to the following Terms of Use ("Terms of Use").

Overview

These Terms of Use tell you about our public services, our relationship to you as a user, and the rights and responsibilities that guide us both.

By accessing and using this service, you accept and agree to be bound by the terms and provision of this agreement. In addition, when using these particular services, you shall be subject to any posted guidelines or rules applicable to such services. Any participation in this service will constitute acceptance of this agreement. If you do not agree to abide by the above, please do not use this service.

Please be aware that you are legally responsible for all of your contributions, edits, and reuse of EOpedia content under the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany and other applicable laws (which may include laws where you or the subject of your contributions are located). This means it is important that you exercise caution when posting, modifying or reusing content. Considering this responsibility, we have some rules about what you cannot do, most of which are either for your own protection or for the protection of other users like yourself. Please keep in mind that the content we host is for general informational purposes only, so if you need expert advice for a particular question, you should seek the help of an appropriate professional. We also include other important notices and disclaimers, so please read these Terms of Use in their entirety.

Our Services

EOpedia is dedicated to provide a free of charge source of knowledge for the Earth observation community. The long-term goal is that EOpedia shall become the first point of contact for people looking for information about Earth observation, remote sensing and GIS. We act as a hosting service provider, maintaining the infrastructure and organizational framework.

Because of our unique role, there are a couple of things you should be aware of when considering our relationship to you and other users:

1. We do not take an editorial role: Because EOPedia articles are collaboratively edited, most of the content that we host is provided by users, and we do not take an editorial role. We might edit and add articles in the role as a regular user, but we do not take the role as a general editor or reviewer of user provided content. This means that we generally do not take any responsibility for this content, except for the content we provided as a regular user. Similarly, unless we have expressly stated otherwise, we do not endorse any opinions expressed via our services, and we do not represent or guarantee the truthfulness, accuracy, or reliability of any submitted community content on EOpedia.
2. You are responsible for your own actions: You are legally responsible for your edits and contributions on the Projects, your reuse of content on the Projects, your use of the APIs, and your use of our services more generally. For your own protection you should exercise caution and avoid taking any actions that may result in criminal or civil liability under any applicable laws. For clarity, applicable law includes at least the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany. For other countries, this is determined on a case-by-case basis. Although we may not agree with such actions, we warn users—particularly the editors, contributors, and authors—that non-German authorities may seek to apply other country laws to you, including local laws where you live or where you view or edit content. We generally cannot offer any protection, guarantee, immunity or indemnification against the application of such laws.

Privacy Policy

We ask that you review the terms of our Privacy Policy, so that you are aware of how we collect and use your information.

Content We Host

1. You may find some material objectionable or erroneous: Because we host a wide array of content that is produced or gathered by fellow users, you may encounter material that you find offensive, erroneous, misleading, mislabelled, or otherwise objectionable. We therefore ask that you use common sense and proper judgment when using our services.
2. EOpedia content is for general informational purposes only: Although our project hosts a great deal of information that pertains to professional EO topics, this content is presented for general informational purposes only. It should not be taken as professional advice. Please seek independent professional counselling from someone who is licensed or qualified in the applicable area in lieu of acting on any information, opinion, or advice contained on EOpedia.

Refraining from Certain Activities

EOpedia only exist because of the vibrant community of users like you who collaborate to write, edit, and curate the content. We happily welcome your participation in this community. We encourage you to be civil and polite in your interactions with others in the community, to act in good faith, and to make edits and contributions aimed at furthering the mission EOpedia.

Certain activities, whether legal or illegal under the applicable law, may be harmful to other users and violate our rules, and some activities may also subject you to liability. Therefore, for your own protection and for that of other users, you may not engage in such activities or use them in any other way. These activities include:

Harassing and Abusing Others

• Engaging in threats, stalking, spamming, vandalism, or harassment;
• Transmitting chain mail, junk mail, or spam to other users;
• Posting or modifying content with the intention to seriously harm others, such as deliberate inducements to self-harm, or deliberate triggering of epilepsy.

Violating the Privacy of Others

• Infringing the privacy rights of others under the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany or other applicable laws (which may include the laws where you live or where you view or edit content);
• Soliciting personally identifiable information for the purposes of harassment, exploitation, or violation of privacy, or for any promotional or commercial purpose not explicitly approved by EOPedia; and
• Soliciting personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 18 years, or under the age of majority where you are if higher than 18 years, for an illegal purpose or violating any applicable law regarding the health or well-being of minors.

Engaging in False Statements, Impersonation, or Fraud

• Intentionally or knowingly posting content that constitutes libel or defamation under the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany;
• Posting or modifying content with the intent to deceive or mislead others;
• Attempting to impersonate another user or individual, misrepresenting your affiliation with any individual or entity, hiding your affiliation with any individual or entity when disclosure is required by these terms or local Project policy, or using the name or username of another person with the intent to deceive; and
• Engaging in fraud.

Committing Infringement of Intellectual Property Rights

• Infringing copyrights, trademarks, patents, or other proprietary rights under the applicable law.

Misusing Our Services for Other Illegal Purposes

• Posting child pornography or any other content that violates applicable law concerning child pornography or child sexual abuse material, or encouraging, grooming, or advocating for others to create or share such material;
• Posting or trafficking in obscene material that is unlawful under applicable law; and
• Using the services in a manner that is inconsistent with applicable law.

Engaging in Disruptive and Illegal Misuse of Facilities

• Posting or distributing content that contains any viruses, malware, worms, Trojan horses, malicious code, or other device that could harm our technical infrastructure or system or that of other users;
• Engaging in automated uses of the EOpedia website that are abusive or disruptive of the services, violate acceptable usage policies where available, or have not been approved by EOpedia;
• Disruption of services due to unreasonable load on an API, website or the connected networks or servers;
• Interference with the services by flooding one of the websites with messages or other traffic that does not indicate a serious intention to use the website for its stated purpose;
• Knowingly accessing, tampering with, or using any of our non-public areas in our computer systems without authorization; and
• Probing, scanning, or testing the vulnerability of any of our technical systems or networks unless all the following conditions are met:
  • such actions do not unduly abuse or disrupt our technical systems or networks;
  • such actions are not for personal gain (except for credit for your work);
  • you report any vulnerabilities to the relevant developers (or fix it yourself); and
  • you do not undertake such actions with malicious or destructive intent.

Paid Contributions Without Disclosure

• You must disclose each and any employer, client, intended beneficiary and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. You must make that disclosure in at least one of the following ways:
  • a statement on your user page,
  • a statement on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions, or
  • a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions.

Password Security

You are responsible for safeguarding your own password and other security credentials and should never disclose them to any third party.

Licensing of Content

We ask that you review the terms of our Copyright & License, so that you are aware of your rights and obligations regarding the provision and usage of content.

Third-party Websites and Resources

You are solely responsible for your use of any third-party websites or resources. Although the EOpedia website contains links to third-party websites and resources, we do not endorse and are not responsible or liable for their availability, accuracy, or the related content, products, or services (including, without limitation, any viruses or other disabling features), nor do we have any obligation to monitor such third-party content.

Termination

Though we hope you will stay and continue to contribute to EOPedia, you can stop using our services any time. In certain (hopefully unlikely) circumstances, it may be necessary for us to discontinue some or all of our services, terminate these Terms of Use, suspend your account or access, or exclude you as a user. If your account or access is blocked or otherwise terminated for any reason, your public contributions and a record of your activities on or in relation to EOpedia (including any correspondence you have sent us) will be unaffected (subject to applicable policies), and you may still access our public pages for the sole purpose of reading publicly available content on EOpedia. In such circumstances, however, you may not be able to access your account or settings. However, regardless of any other provision in these Terms of Use, we reserve the right to suspend or end the services at any time, with or without cause, and with or without notice. Even after your use and participation are banned, blocked or otherwise suspended, these Terms of Use will remain in effect with respect to relevant provisions.

Disclaimers

At EOpedia, we do our best to provide educational and informational content to the EO community, but your use of our services is at your sole risk. We provide these services on an "as is" and "as available" basis, and we expressly disclaim all express or implied warranties of all kinds, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We make no warranty that our services will meet your requirements, be safe, secure, uninterrupted, timely, accurate, or error-free, or that your information will be secure.

We are not responsible for the content, data, or actions of third parties, and you release us, our directors, officers, employees, and agents from any claims and damages, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with any claim you have against any such third parties. No advice or information, whether oral or written, obtained by you from us or through or from our services creates any warranty not expressly stated in these Terms of Use.

Any material downloaded or otherwise obtained through your use of our services is done at your own discretion and risk, and you will be solely responsible for any damage to your computer system or loss of data that results from the download of any such material. You agree that we have no responsibility or liability for the deletion of, or the failure to store or to transmit, any content or communication maintained by the service. We retain the right to create limits on use and storage at our sole discretion at any time with or without notice.

Some states or jurisdictions do not allow the types of disclaimers in this section, so they may not apply to you either in part or in full depending on the law.

Limitation on Liability

EOpedia will not be liable to you or to any other party for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or exemplary damages, including but not limited to, damages for loss of profits, goodwill, use, data, or other intangible losses, regardless of whether we were advised of the possibility of such damage.

Modifications to these Terms of Use

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to amend these Terms of Service at any time and will update these Terms of Service in the event of any such amendments. However, we believe that community input is essential for these Terms of Use to properly serve our users. It is also essential for a fair contract. Therefore, we will provide these Terms of Use, as well as any substantial future revisions of these Terms of Use, to the community for comment at least thirty (30) days before. the change taking effect by posting a notice on our website or sending email to the email address specified in your EOpedia account. Customer's continued use of the Service after those 30 days constitutes agreement to those revisions of this agreement.

Other Terms

These Terms of Use do not create an employment, agency, partnership, joint control or joint venture relationship between you and EOpedia. For the purposes of European Economic Area law, or other laws that involve a similar concept, you are not acting "under the authority of" EOpedia when you use the services. If you have not signed a separate agreement with us, these Terms of Use are the entire agreement between you and us. If there is any conflict between these Terms of Use and a signed written agreement between you and us, the signed agreement will control.

You agree that we may provide you with notices, including those regarding changes to the Terms of Use, by email, regular mail, or postings on the website.

If in any circumstance, we do not apply or enforce any provision of these Terms of Use, it is not a waiver of that provision.

You understand that, unless otherwise agreed to in writing by us, you have no expectation of compensation for any activity, contribution, or idea that you provide to us or the community.

Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary in these Terms of Use, we and you agree not to modify the applicable terms and requirements of any free licence if such free licence is authorised by these Terms of Use.

If any provision or part of a provision of these Terms of Use is found unlawful, void, or unenforceable, that provision or part of the provision is deemed severable from these Terms of Use and will be enforced to the maximum extent permissible, and all other provisions of these Terms of Use will remain in full force and effect.