Gaia Guide site policies (Gaia Guide)

Gaia Guide site policies

Overview

Gaia Guide is an online field guide that supports the creation of new field guide information by its users. This information can be used online. It is also available for export and through web services to users who wish to make use of that content in other contexts, so long as those contexts are permitted by the licensing arrangements pertaining to the content being reused.
The policies of Gaia Guide are intended to maximise the extent to which the data collated by and developed on Gaia Guide are available for use, in many forms and contexts, by the general public. Increasingly, the general public should be able to carry with them a simple means of better understanding the the natural world in which they live. Gaia Guide is a step in that direction.
While differing in some regards, the policies set out below have been derived from the excellent policies of the Encyclopedia Of Life.

Content and Copyright Policies

Content available on Gaia Guide (including text, images and other multimedia resources) have been contributed by many different individuals and organisations. Those contributors may have placed restrictions on how their content can be reused. The nature of those restrictions is specified by the license, if any that is attached to the content that they have contributed. As a user, you are required to determine which license, if any, applies to the content that you wish to re-use and to abide by any restrictions imposed by that license.
That said, Gaia Guide strongly prefers contributions to be available to members of the public for reuse, at no cost, so long as those members of the public meet the following whatever requirements are imposed by the content providers' licenses:
  • Attribution requirements, requiring that attribution regarding the source of the information is maintained and made available to others, along with the content being reused;
  • Share-alike requirements, requiring that any derivative works, produced by alteration, transformation or development of the content must also be redistributed under the same, or a similar, or a compatible license; and
  • Non-commercial requirements, requiring that the content not be used for commercial purposes.
To make this simple, it is strongly preferred that multimedia contributions to Gaia Guide must be either in the public domain, or made available under a license like the Creative Commons Licenses or the GNU Free Documentation Licenses.
All textual content, created through interaction with this website, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) License.
In the event that you wish to contribute content to Gaia Guide and would like to do so under an alternative licence because your requirements are not met by any of the licenses listed above, please contact the site administrator regarding an amendment to this policy.
In the event that you find content that is not available under one of the licensing arrangements described here, again please contact the site administrator to have the content removed from this site.
If you wish to re-use any content on Gaia Guide for purposes or in ways other than those allowed by the associated Creative Commons license, you must get permission to do so from the copyright holder (Source).

Linking Policies

This site encourages the hyperlinking from other web sites to pages on Gaia Guide. Please, however, do not link directly to multimedia resources, however. Instead, copy those resources to your own infrastructure and make them available from there. Any such hyperlinks must not be presented in a way that implies that your organization, its products, or its services are endorsed by Gaia Guide. Permission to link to Gaia Guide is not necessary.
Gaia Guide also links to third party sites that are not under the control of Gaia Guide. These links are provided as a convenience and for informational purposes only Gaia Guide has no control over, makes no representation or warranty regarding and bears no responsibility for the accuracy, and legality of the content on such third-party sites.

Usage Policies

If you create content on Gaia Guide, you agree to comply with the following policies:
  • Content must not be outside the scope and purpose of Gaia Guide
  • Content must not contain personal attacks, expletives, or otherwise include abusive, threatening, unlawful, harassing, discriminatory, libelous, obscene, false, pornographic information
  • Content must not infringe on the rights of any third party
You will only post content that is yours or for which you have received permission from the person or entity that owns the content and the related intellectual property rights.
You will not insert your own or a third party’s advertising or promotional content into your posting.
If you make use of the content on Gaia Guide, you understand that Gaia Guide assumes no responsibility or liability arising from the posting of your content or for any error, defamation, libel, omission, obscenity, danger or inaccuracy contained in any posted information or from any failure or delay in removing such content.
You will not introduce any software viruses, worms or other code designed to damage software, hardware or telecommunications equipment.
You agree that you will not collect personally identifiable information about the users of this website or use such information for any purpose.

Privacy Policies

Gaia Guide is committed to the responsible handling of the information and data it collects. Gaia Guide provides this privacy policy to explain what information it collects through its website and how that information is used.
Gaia Guide permanently logs standard non-personal technical information, such as browser type and IP addresses of the website visitor’s computer, in order to better understand traffic patterns, technical needs, and improve performance.
Gaia Guide use third party analytic traffic analysis services to provide quantitative analysis about Gaia Guide usage patterns. This information does not include name, email, address or telephone details from your visits to this website. All of your personal data stored on the site as your user preferences will not be shared with such third party analysis services or with any other entity for that matter.
Gaia Guide uses a third-party vendor, currently Google Analytics, to analyze website usage. Information that Gaia Guide collects from cookies will not be used to create profiles of users and only will be used in aggregate form. You may set your browser to refuse cookies from any website that you visit. Turning off cookies will disable functionality enabled by logging into the site including the ability to add or alter existing content in anyway. However, all regularly viewable content will remain accessible. You also may opt out of cookie tracking by using a browser opt out.
You do not need to provide any personal information to access the information on Gaia Guide. In order to gain access to the interactive features of Gaia Guide, you must provide a user name and a valid e-mail address. If you elect to use certain features on the site, you may be asked for additional personal information.
Other than this, Gaia Guide collects information that you choose to provide to it. You decide how much information to provide and by which method you provide it.
Gaia Guide may share information with third parties if it has a good faith belief that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to (a) take action regarding suspected illegal activities; (b) enforce or apply Gaia Guide policies or terms; (c) comply with legal process, such as a search warrant, subpoena, statute, or court order; or (d) protect Gaia Guide rights, reputation, and property, or that of Gaia Guide users, partners, or the public. Otherwise, Gaia Guide does not rent, sell, or provide your name or contact information to third parties.

Third Party Technology Policies

Gaia Guide embeds a limited amount of third party technology. It also links to third party websites. The third parties operate independently of Gaia Guide and Gaia Guide does not have control over their privacy practices or content; Use of third parties by Gaia Guide is not intended to be an endorsement of the third party, its technology, website, or content. Gaia Guide recommends that users read the privacy policies at all websites they visit.