Geograph - photograph every grid square

The answers given by Barry have been on the site for a long time, and they form the basis of what the site is about. Yet many good Geographs do not fulfil any of those criteria, and two are almost contradictory (at close up and being useful in interpreting a map).

It is important to realise that the site has grown way beyond what was first envisaged, and so the site's definition of Geography is now very wide, incorporating a lot of social history, ecology, geology and other allied subjects. This is encouraged but it means that the definition of a Geograph has become broader.

So a Geograph is any photograph, accurately geoloacted, that depicts the Geography of a square, or any aspect of the Geography of the square, shown in some form of context. A description is useful and encouraged, especially for photographs in which the geography is not obvious, but it is not essential.

Some other photographs are still extremely welcome and contain useful geographical information but may not be classified as Geographs*, and listed below:

Firstly, it was felt that it was very important that every square should be actually visited and not just 'view-bagged' from a distance. So, Geographs must be taken within the square. Nevertheless, certain views can only be seen from outside a square. These cross-grid shots are classified as "Cross Grid".

Secondly, some photographs don't have much context. These are usually details of large objects, but they may just be very small objects or they could be large objects that are not shown completely. Most mods would agree that the smaller the object the more context that is needed to make it a Geograph. These close-ups are classified as "Close Look"*. The largest objects that tend to be classed as shown in close-up or incompletely are buildings. Most mods believe that to be a Geograph a building photograph should the whole building or some context, although some mods would prefer both.

Thirdly, indoor shots are classified as "Inside". They can add useful information, but indoors, being an entirely human environment, is on the fringe of the site's definition. Only public indoor areas are acceptable.

Fourthly, shots taken from the air are classified as "Aerial". They are often useful, but they approach the subject of Geography in a different way than was originally envisaged.

Finally some shots are classified as "Extra" these include:
Silhouettes
Sunsets and sunrises
Cloudscapes, sky, auroras, celestial bodies etc
Things in the sky such as birds, aircraft, balloons etc.
Things on the sea that are not permanently fixed to the sea bed for extended periods of time such as boats, windsurfers, inflatables


*(From 11 May 2016 the Supplemental Classification is replaced by Image Type Tags:
see http://www.geograph.org.uk/article/Image-Type-Tags-update ).

Geograph runs on a pretty large database, and the load is spread over several servers. That means things do occasionally go wrong, and they aren't always consistent.

If a page doesn't display properly, try loading it again (by pressing F5) _once_. If that doesn't work, navigate away from the page, clear your cache (under privacy settings in most browsers) and try again. Or just wait a while, most of the time things get cleared up automatically given time.

If you think something is permanently wrong, post a bug report on the forum http://www.geograph.org.uk/discuss/index.php?&action=vtopic&forum=4 . Remember to say which page is affected (best paste in its address), which browser and version, and which operating system and version you use.

If something is wrong about the _content_ of a page (description text, photo location etc.), use the 'suggest an update' link under the main picture to contact the contributor and moderators.

Anyone can suggest images for inclusion in the Showcase Gallery http://www.geograph.org.uk/gallery.php just click the 'suggest images' link top right on any gallery page. Viewers can then 'rate' the images using the scale on the right.
You can also build your own collection of favourite images by using the 'thumbs up' on the photo page .

These are searches which have been done on your computer on other websites. They are stored in your browser and you can remove them by clearing the search history. Methods vary with browsers and operating systems - Google can probably help.

Running this site costs money, particularly over time as the storage requirements are quite large. Whilst those costs were initially met by generous sponsorship from the Ordnance Survey, more recently the site has been dependent upon donations. Granting commercial use allows anyone who runs the archive in the distant future to explore other options for generating funds, such as sales of montage posters.

Granting everyone those same rights actually protects the site community from exploitation), but do bear in mind that we only retain a screen-quality version of your image, and that under the terms of the Creative Commons Licence, you must be credited for any use of your image.

http://www.geograph.org.uk/help/freedom

The main picture on Geograph should be free from annotations because different people may want to use it in different contexts. However, annotated pictures demonstrating features such as geological or geographical details are very welcome. Please upload annotated versions to Geograph's media repository http://media.geograph.org.uk/ and link them from the description of the original image uploaded to Geograph's main archive. This article http://www.geograph.org.uk/article/Howto-Crosslinking-descriptions shows how to make such links.

The media repository can also be used for out-of-copyright images such as old postcards to compare with the same scene in a current geograph, or for user-generated maps of the area.

You can also annotate other people's images and link them as external images from an article you're writing. To get started with article writing, have a look at this overview: http://www.geograph.org.uk/article/Help_on_formatting_of_articles .