Usage Guidelines

Placekeeping is a record of land and the people who tend it. This page covers what to add to the atlas, how to add it well, and how we handle requests to change or remove something. It applies to observations, the notes and records you add about a place, and to photos.

The principle behind these rules

Placekeeping has one purpose: to help people tend land well. Everything on the atlas should serve that purpose.

A record belongs here if it helps protect biodiversity, restore habitat, or care for a place over time. We hold to that within the law, and with respect for property rights and for the privacy of the people who live on and near the land.

When you are unsure whether to add something, ask whether it serves the land. If it does, and it is lawful, and it respects the people involved, it belongs. If it is there to criticize a person, settle a score, or expose someone, it does not.

Observations

An observation is a note tied to a place and a date. It might record a planting, a stretch of invasive weeds, a stone wall, a nest box, or the condition of a plot as it changes across seasons. Good observations are specific and factual, and they still make sense when someone reads them a year later. See the classification guide for details.

Record the land and the work, not the people. Describe what is there and what was done. “Japanese stiltgrass along the north bank, roughly thirty feet” is a record. “The owner obviously doesn’t care about this place” is not. The atlas is not a place to grade neighbors or judge how someone keeps their land. Note the condition, and if it is land you tend, note what you plan to do about it.

Claim stewardship only for land you actually tend. Adopting or claiming a site means you are doing the work there, or you have permission to. Do not claim a spot to reserve it, to make a point, or because you think someone else should be tending it. False claims can be disputed and removed.

Some locations are better left vague. Precise coordinates for rare plants, active nests, dens, and other vulnerable features can put them at risk from collectors, disturbance, or harm. If you find something sensitive, record that it is present without pinning the exact spot, or tell us so we can protect the location.

Photos

Photos show plantings, stewardship work, weeds, monuments, and the condition of a spot over time. They are tied to real places and real dates. The rules below keep them useful to the land and fair to the people who live on it.

The short version

• Upload only photos you took yourself.
• Photograph from places you are allowed to be, such as public streets, sidewalks, parks, trails, and land you own or tend.
• Make the land the subject, not people.
• Do not upload identifiable images of children.
• If you own or live at a property and want a photo of it removed or blurred, ask us and we will do it.

What “permission to share” means

“Permission” sounds like one thing but it is really three separate questions. Only some of them need anyone’s actual permission.

Did you take the photo? Upload only photos you made yourself. This is the simplest way to be sure you have the right to share an image. Do not upload photos you found online, copied from another site, or that a friend took, even if they are of a place you steward.

Where were you standing? You should have had the right to be where you were when you took the photo. Public streets, sidewalks, parks, trails, and land you own or tend all qualify. Standing in someone’s yard uninvited, reaching over a fence, or shooting through a window does not.

Is a person identifiable? If a photo’s subject is a person you can recognize, you need that person’s agreement to share it. The easiest way to avoid this is to keep people out of the subject. Photograph the garden, the plot, the work, or the plants.

For most photos on Placekeeping, a garden or a plot seen from the street, no one’s permission is needed. Permission mainly matters when someone did not take the photo themselves, or when a recognizable person is the subject.

Photographing from the street

A garden or planting visible from a public street or sidewalk is fair to photograph. This is the same principle street-level map imagery works on: what is visible from a public vantage can be recorded. The test is where you are standing, not what is in the frame. If you are on a public path or a public street, a front garden across the property line is fine to photograph.

We ask for two limits on top of that. Do not photograph into the windows or interior of a home. And do not photograph private space that is screened from public view, such as a fenced back garden, even if you can get an angle on it.

People in photos

The land is the subject, not people. A passerby who happens to be in the frame is usually fine. A photo whose point is a recognizable individual is not, unless that person has agreed to it. Do not upload identifiable images of children. If someone asks to be removed from a photo, we will remove or blur them.

Changing or removing something

Different situations move through different channels.

Your own contributions. If you uploaded a photo or added an observation, you can remove it at any time from your own account.

Your property or your likeness. If you own or live at a property and a photo or observation about it is on the atlas, you can ask us to take it down or blur it. We will do this on request, email help@placekeeping.org. Once we confirm you are the owner, we will take it down. The same goes for anyone who appears in a photo.

Something that breaks these guidelines. If you come across an observation that disparages a person rather than describing the land, a stewardship claim that looks false, or a photo that should not be here, you can report it. A report goes to the people responsible for that area for review. Not every report ends in removal, but every one gets looked at.

(We will soon be introducing a flagging tool within the system to allow you to directly flag this.)

Ownership and stewardship

Placekeeping records who tends land, which is not the same as who owns it. Tending a place does not create a claim on the property, and the atlas does not assert one.

Terms

This section states the intent of the terms in plain language. The binding version needs review by a lawyer before the site goes live. The clauses below are a starting point, not final legal text.

When you contribute to Placekeeping, you confirm the following.

• Your observations are accurate to the best of your knowledge.
• You claim stewardship only for land you tend or have permission to tend.
• You took each photo yourself, or you have the right to share it.
• You had the right to be where you were standing when you took each photo.
• No photo has an identifiable person as its subject without that person’s agreement, and none shows an identifiable child.

You keep the copyright to your photos. By uploading, you grant Placekeeping a non-exclusive license to store, display, and reproduce your photos on the atlas and in materials that describe the project. You can remove your photos at any time, which ends that license going forward.

Placekeeping may remove or blur any photo, or edit or remove any observation, at its discretion, including on request from a property owner, a resident, or a person shown in a photo.

Do not use Placekeeping photos, observations, or the location data attached to them, to harass, target, or track any person.

Not legal advice

This page describes how Placekeeping asks people to use the atlas. It reflects general norms and common practice, not legal advice, and rules about photography and privacy vary by place. If you have a specific legal question, ask a lawyer.