Purpose of Membership

Membership in the site is offered to enable community members, including patients, providers, citizens, students, teachers, researchers and advocates to discuss, debate, disseminate, display, analyze and otherwise make constructive use of community health information for the betterment of the community.

Joining LocalHealth.info allows you to publish health-related contents directly on this Web site.  Members can submit articles, links, data and other items simply by logging in from any Internet connection.

Members also can add public comments to certain items throughout the site, and may belong to groups that work together on projects or common interests.

Joining the Site

Anyone may join this site simply by clicking join on the membership box, and registering a name, username, password and a valid e-mail address.

Once an individual has joined the site by completing this process, they are a member and are bound by this membership policy in addition to the Terms of Use that govern all use of LocalHealth.info.

Members attest that the name and email address they register are true, accurate and legitimate.  LocalHealth.info will not show your personal information to visitors or other members unless you to choose to do so.  Please see our Privacy Policy for more details.

License to to Use Works Submitted by Members

In order to maintain the body of works contributed to our community of users, LocalHealth.info requires members to grant us a broad license to use their submitted works:

By submitting any works for publication or review on LocalHealth.info, members grant LocalHealth.info a permanent, worldwide, non-exclusive license to store, publish, broadcast, edit, modify, derive from, incorporate into other works or otherwise use and adapt the submitted work. This license is binding regardless of whether the work is accepted or published at the time of submission, or whether the contributor's membership is active at the time of publication.

Members DO NOT give up ownership or copyright of the works, and may maintain original copies of the works for their own use or derivation, and issue other non-exclusive licenses to other parties.

The LocalHealth.info Terms of Service provides details of how we allow visitors to use members' contents. In brief, we allow visitors to use contents for personal, educational and non-commercial purposes.  We also require that credit to the author and any copyright notice be maintained with the contents.

Copyright Rules

Members are solely responsible for the material they upload or create on the site, including with respect to copyright. Members must not infringe upon copyright or other intellectual property rights of the creators or owners of works they cite or excerpt.

Important!  By submitting content for publication on LocalHealth.info, the member asserts that:

• They are the owner of such content, and/or
• Use of any cited or excerpted content within the submission falls within fair use guidelines and that the sources of such content are properly identified, and/or
• The member has proper permission from the content owner for using anyone else's content in a manner that exceeds fair use.

In addition, if a member uses permission to publish someone else's content, by submitting the content the member asserts that:

• Their use and publication of the content fully meets the requirements of the content's owner, and
• They have included any applicable copyright notice and notice of the license or permission used, and
• The member is solely responsible for any consquences of their decision to publish the content on the Internet using LocalHealth.info as a medium.

LocalHealth.info does not assume or share any responsibility for content submitted by its members, or the use or misuse of any license or permission concerning it.

Proper attribution to sources must always be made, not only to avoid legal pitfalls but to maintain the high standards of information integrity that we espouse, and that are espoused by authorities on health and internet resources.

Membership in Groups

Members may elect to join Groups.  Groups are collections of members that can work together on content development, by sharing permissions to view, create and edit content items within a Group folder.

Members of groups agree to hold other group members harmless with regard to shared items.

Comments on Members' Published Items

As members have the ability to add public comments to some items published on LocalHealth.info, members' own items may also be the subject of comments from other members.

Comments that are respectfully critical are ENCOURAGED.  The purpose of comments is to provide community members with the richest possible array of information and opinion on any given topic.

Therefore, members agree to hold harmless all other members and LocalHealth.info with regard to comments.  The sole remedy available to a member who objects to a comment, other than posting a counterpoint in reply, is to request that it be removed by the management.

LocalHealth.info managers may delete any comment at its sole discretion, but is under no obligation to do so.  However, since comments can only be made by members, their use is subject to the guidelines in this Policy.

Interpersonal Conduct

Members agree not to use their membership to carry out any illegal, hateful, harrassing or obscene activity. This site may provide opportunities for discussion and debate, in which participants must conduct themselves in a manner that is respectful of all people at all times.

Members must not attempt to invade the privacy or infringe upon the rights of other members.

If members elect to receive communication from other members or visitors through any service offered by LocalHealth.info, such members acknowledge that LocalHealth.info has no control over the contents of such communications.  The Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability sections in the Terms of Use applies to any potential harm that a member might experience as a result of using LocalHealth.info.

Use of Site Resources

Personal or commercial use of site membership, other than for the purposes stated in this Policy, is not allowed.

Members are prohibited from posting any links or downloadable files that are known or likely to cause adware, spyware or other software to be installed in a visitor's computer without the visitor's knoweldge and active consent.

Members will not use the site resources in any way that may harm the site, eg by uploading unreasonably large amounts of data. If there is any question about acceptable practices, members must ask the site management before proceeding.

Members are not permitted to include executable scripts in uploaded or created work. Members wishing to do so may communicate with the site administrator about possible collaboration in feature development.

Limitation of Responsibilities of LocalHealth.info for Works Created or Uploaded on the Site

LocalHealth.info highly values the contributions of its members, and we employ reasonable methods to back-up and protect all work on the site. However, no guarantee can be made regarding the permanence of any works residing on the site. Members are advised to protect their work using standard and reasonable methods relevant to all electronic media, including maintenance of off-site back-ups.

LocalHealth.info reserves the right to delete work that is not considered by site management to be under development or potentially suitable for publishing. In general, an attempt will be made to contact the members owning any such work prior to deletion.  Any content that is deemed objectionable or harmful by site managers may be deleted without prior notice to the owner.

LocalHealth.info makes no guarantee that submitted works will be accepted or published. Reviewers and managers may make suggestions to aid members in creating works that are of publishable quality, but the decision to publish any work rests with the site management and shall be considered proper by all concerned parties.

LocalHealth.info reserves the right to retract or restore the published status, and otherwise change the review status, of submitted work as dictated by the needs of the site.

The Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability sections in the Terms of Use applies to all content and information owned by members.

Security

LocalHealth.info uses passwords to protect areas of the site from unauthorized view, including unpublished items in members' home folders and group workspaces. The purpose of this security layer is to provide private workspaces for unfinished, unapproved or embargoed items.

Passwords are not infallible. Therefore, no items or information should be uploaded or created on the site that, if put to unauthorized use, could result in material loss or other loss to its owners, creators or users.

LocalHealth.info specifically disclaims any liability arising from password misuse, or other breach or failure of the security measures we maintain.  The Disclaimers and Limitations of Liabilities sections in the Terms of Use applies to all content and information owned by members.

Members agree not to share their passwords with anyone, including other members. If joint work is desired, site managers can readily provide a group workspace accessible to two or more members via their individual permissions.

Breaches of This Membership Policy

LocalHealth.info maintains this Membership Policy to provide a respectful, legitimate and secure educational resource in which our community members may participate.

Breaches of this Membership Policy may result in membership being revoked at any time, possibly resulting in the deletion of any site content owned by the member. Activity that is intentionally harmful to the site, or to other members, may be referred to law enforcement authorities.

Changes to this Membership Policy

This policy may change from time to time, generally to clarify certain points or account for new uses or situations as needed. We will post an announcement of any substantive changes on the website.

Members are advised to consult this policy periodically to maintain a current understanding of its terms, particularly if they have not logged in for a long time, and would be likely to have missed any announcement of policy changes. Members agree to be bound by this policy in the form it is in at each use of their membership.  The date of the most recent revisions to these terms can be viewed at the bottom of this page.

Questions or Feedback

Please send us any questions or feedback you might have, by sending us a feedback note.