Articles from Team

2 October 2026 - Club News

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 16:02:36 +0000

Team has posted an article:

Dear members and friends of ipernity,

Seasons may change, but we're still here because of you!

1) Server overload fixed.

Our recent server overload issue was quickly fixed with the help of our outside IT support, IT Assurance. A new scraper had found a way to use our website.

Rob is working to learn from this event how to fix any new issues such as this without needing to use the outside support. We continue to keep a vigilant eye on our system.

We had learned from our previous server issue how to switch to a different server mode so that the website response time was only effected for a couple days, incurring only a minor cost due to the prompt fix. We hope the issue didn't cause any serious interruptions to your use.

2) New benefit for Basic club memberships.

In an effort to find ways to entice Guest accounts to join as paying club members, Basic club memberships can now upload files that are up to 5MB in size (previously 2.5MB). Storage space and other upload limits remain the same.

3) Excess content deletions upon end of club membership.

Our programming has been lenient with excess content deletions after a club member stops renewing their membership, previously only dropping the account down to 100 items and not taking into consideration how much server space or individual file size. (Excess content being any content over the allowed Guest limits.)

We have now updated the programming so that lapsed club accounts will no longer take up more server space and file size than allowed, along with having no more than 100 items. This may result in some lapsed club membership accounts dropping to below 100 items.

Note, this also applies to Trial memberships that don't convert to a paid membership at the end of the trial time period.

4) Let's get New members!

The most recent ima board meeting once again pointed out the need for increased club memberships. With this in mind, please remember to tell your friends about ipernity.

- Do you know people who love steam engines? Let them know we have this train group: steam trains

- Do your friends love saying hello once a week? Tell them to come say hello over the fence at our HFF group - the friendliest group around!

- Let them know there is no language barrier with a club membership.

- Surprise them with the fact that a Basic club membership is only about €2.50 a month!

- Be sure to mention that we have zero advertising. Almost unique on the web these days.

We hope to have the promotional pamphlet finished by the end of October.

In the meantime, you can copy the pamphlet's content to share with friends, family, people you bump into on the street, found here, or simply give them the url to our main Explore page: Explore Overiew

Expect more news about how we can gain more club members soon.

Your ima team.

4 September 2026 - Club News

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 14:54:26 +0000

Team has posted an article:

Dear members and friends of ipernity,

1) World Photography Day.

This year a lovely group of 72 people participated in our all ipernity event.

If you don't already know, all 72 of us took photos on the same day around the world. Now that's one dedicated group of photographers!

The variation this year was asking along with a photograph, names of photographers that are admired or that inspire. These names create a wonderful list. Both famous photographers as well as our own members have been mentioned.

Check out that admired list here

I bet you discover photographers you didn't know about!

Please, be sure to visit the group here to enjoy the photos, and if you want you can even join in the discussion about next year's event here.

2) Check your groups.

As we progress the seemingly never ending task of tidying up group, for which we thank those who are helping, we would like to ask the following from you:

All Group Administrators - Please regularly check your groups

A) Go to your 'Groups' tab from your home page, www.ipernity.com/group

B) Review pending contributions

C) Check for missing languages for group titles and descriptions

You may need to scroll through multiple pages to see all the groups you administer.

3) Cookie consent.

Our cookies banner (at login) has been updated to make the policy clearer. Also, to be compliant, having a Consent option (the Allow button we had) should also mean a Reject option be provided. But as all our cookies are in the 'essential' category, consent is not required, and so the change to a 'Got it' button.

But something further that you might help us with. Should we make it a friendly welcome, what message might you suggest be displayed above the technical phrases?

Your ima team.

New Club Members - most recent

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 05:43:25 +0000

Team has posted an article:

A warm welcome to our newest club members!

Please visit their pages to personally welcome them and see what they bring to our community.

Regis Guillois ← publicly active

Alex Morgan

Sakura Haru ← publicly active

Mathilde Rötterink

Frisco Rose ← publicly active

Pako Belmonte ← publicly active

Alan Yahnke ← publicly active Long time guest, now club member!

Tapani Tuominen ← publicly active

7 August 2026 - Club News

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 14:58:40 +0000

Team has posted an article:

Dear members and friends of ipernity,

1) Protection of our servers.

Following on from last month's report on solving our server issues, the major fixes are considered working and completed. One final task remains to be implemented this month.

2) Group administrator promotions.

The text for item 3 of the June 2026 Club News is now in a separate article, and is made available via a link in the message sent to the promoted administrator.

3) World Photography Day.

This month, August 19th, our club will celebrate our favorite hobby for the sixth year in a row. Last year we had 81 participants - will you join in this year and help get us to 100?

You can find details about this year's event here.

4) In Memoria

It is with great sadness that we let you know that we have only recently learnt that our long time member ©UdoSm passed away on 24 November 2024. Condolences and comments can be made on their in memoria page.

Your ima team.

World Photography Day - August 19th, 2026

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 00:06:57 +0000

Team has posted an article:

World Photography Day

is an annual, worldwide celebration of the art, craft, science

and history of photography.

This is the 6th year that our club's World Photography Day group will honor the day and we will be accepting photographs taken on Wednesday, August 19th, 2026.

Each photographer may submit one photo.

Last year we had record 81 participants! Can we get more this year? Tell your friends!

Submissions will be accepted through the end of August to allow time for editing, processing, and uploading.

See also:

2026 group rules

Discussion prompts

JOIN THE GROUP TO ADD YOUR PHOTO

Thank you for participating!

Your ima team

3 July 2026 - Club News

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 18:50:01 +0000

Team has posted an article:

Dear members and friends of ipernity,

1) Listing of new groups.

Thanks to the astute ipernity member who noticed and reported that the 'New groups' under the Explore menu was actually listing the oldest first. This has been corrected.

We are truly a member-run website.

2) Resistance was not futile.

The previously reported success at curbing the over utilisation of our servers has continued, so the cost and effort involved with obtaining outside help has proven worthwhile.

The most obvious issues caused directly by these fixes have been resolved. A few others remain that we continue to work on solving. Your continued patience is requested.

It is yet to be determined if we will need monetary support to pay for the outside help we required. For the moment our monthly costs are slightly down from before, so it will be a couple months before we know the exact monetary needs.

3) In memoria.

It is with great sadness that we let you know of the passing of two of our long time members, Robert Cabaret in November 2025, and Elbertinum on 21 June 2026. Condolences and comments can be made on Robert's and Elbertinum's in memoria pages.

Your ima team.

Are you surprised to have been made admin of a group?

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 19:43:14 +0000

Team has posted an article:

When you receive notice that you have been automatically promoted to administrator of a group, that is the perfect time to help out the team with the clean-up of our groups.

Even if you don't want to continue as administrator, please take a moment to do the following:

1) View the group and it's current rules.

2) Check to see if the contributions are set to be moderated.

3) Check to see if contributions are staying on the topic/theme of the group.

4) See if the group is getting new suggestions/contributions, this can be seen on the group's home page using the [i] below the shown images?

5) Is the topic concise enough so that the group highlights a particular area of interest and isn't too general?

Once you know these things, you can make an informed decision about whether you want to keep the group, have it passed on to someone else, or if you think it should be deleted.

a) If the group is good and you want to keep it, great! Thank you!

b) If you think it should be kept but passed onto someone else, then ask another group member to take the group on. You can then appoint them as administrator and then leave the group. If you can't find someone, then contact the ima Moderator for help.

c) If you think the group should be deleted, contact the ima Moderator as they can easily delete the group.

Please do not simply leave the group as the team will have no knowledge of the group and it will remain, making our groups section less effective.

5 June 2026 - Club News

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 15:59:27 +0000

Team has posted an article:

Dear members and friends of ipernity,

1) The Good News.

Slow but determined work gets the job done.

We can report that the download to pc, and the creation/change of icon and banner for a user's home page, and for groups, are again working. And that the AI driven content scrapers causing the overload have finally been blocked, (mm/dd below).

2) Progress on our server issues.

Please read all of the below carefully

The Story

Back in April our servers began being attacked by bots and scrapers to the point that we had to restart servers every hour in order to keep the website running. This was the most recent increase in this battle lasting over a year. Even with this action you may have experienced extra slow loading of pages or even error messages and no loading of pages at all.

Since it was not possible for us to continue restarting servers every hour, we have engaged outside IT support from IT Assurance (located in Portland, Oregon) in order to keep the website running normally and to help us find the best ways to keep the bots and scrapers off our website.

Know that this is not unique to our website. Any photo heavy website has to deal with the same type of thing. Our disadvantage is that we are volunteers with experience in only certain areas. Therefore we have to pay outside service providers to help us. This is a necessary added expense that is challenging our budget. The hope is that the outside support can stabilise us enough to only need them a couple times a year, but that is an unknown at this point.

Some Details and Progress Made

As this is very complicated, and as there have been some unexpected and unwanted side affects due to some of the measures taken, it has had to be a slow iterative process. Implementing a different blocking rule at a time, logging the data and then checking it. Also affecting progress is the 8 hour time difference between Rob and IT Assurance, and the 2 week scuba diving he took recently.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) in their Web Application Firewall (WAF) section offer various rules for identifying and blocking unwanted traffic. However, to be used they require a level of expertise that we had to seek from IT Assurance.

The first phase has been to implement some of these WAF rules just to add overdue protection to the site. Sadly, the 'bot' blocking rules proved ineffective against the AI type of content scrapers. Only now with data collected and analysed has it been possible to finally have bespoke rules written that do reduce the overload. As only just implemented this month, the ongoing effectiveness is yet to be confirmed.

What This Means for our Members

1) Any further disruptions to the website should be minimal.

2) Cost increases may need to be considered before the next annual meeting.

3) Members will need patience while we work on finding solutions to the current unwanted side effects.

4) New issues can be reported via Help & Contact - but please note that reporting already known issues (see below) only takes time away from us fixing them. It's important that you include the following information in any new issue reported:

URL of the page with the error.
Day/Time of error (and time zone you are in).
Your computer or phone's operating system.
Browser you use.

Known Issues Currently Under Investigation

1) Applications that require authenticated API access fail (this only effects special features and outside use of ipernity, not everyday use of the website).

2) Daily News emails are not being delivered consistently.

3) Setting or editing the geo-position of images.

Everyone on the team is also an ipernity club member and so we also hope for quick solutions to all these issues, but we have to ask for your patience as we do have to take one step at a time.

Your ima team.

WEBSITE MAINTENANCE - Investigative Work

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Fri, 29 May 2026 19:53:40 +0000

Team has posted an article:

Work on the Website is scheduled for the following days/times:

Friday, May 22 17:00 - 20:00 UTC - COMPLETED

Wednesday, May 27 Beginning 14:00 UTC - COMPLETED

Thursday, May 28 - COMPLETED

Friday, May 29 - COMPLETED

ADDITIONAL DAY:

Monday, June 1

This is being done to help us investigate solutions to our current issues including:

SERVER OVERLOADS

DOWNLOAD FAILURES

GROUP AND INDIVIDUAL BANNER & ICON UPDATES NOT WORKING

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Besides these known issues, please report any other issues discovered in a comment below.

It's important that you include the following information:

1) URL of the page with the error

2) Day/Time of error (and time zone you are in)

3) Your computer or phone's operating system

4) Browser you use

1 May 2026 - Club News

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Fri, 01 May 2026 17:07:49 +0000

Team has posted an article:

Dear members and friends of ipernity,

1) Communicating on ipernity.

Let’s take a moment and celebrate our community! Connecting with people on the internet can be a difficult thing to do, but here on ipernity the vast majority of our communications are rooted in enjoyment and curiosity. That’s something to pause for, to notice and appreciate. We spend a lot of time viewing the world from another person’s perspective, both visually and in writing. This wonderful type of experience is a special appeal of ipernity and we should honor and embrace this way our community supports each other.

Still, there are times when something we see or read might not be to our liking and so to help us all navigate such situations we now have two ways to communicate any inappropriate items to the team. Giving the team a chance to intervene before replying oneself can help keep things from escalating.

The first option has been around since we took over the website, and that is the ‘Report as inappropriate’ option on every image or blog.

Now, in addition, it is possible to report a comment made under either of these. This option shows up when you hover over the comment in question (at the bottom right).

Thank you for being such a wonderful and caring community!

2) 'Show All' option for a moderated group.

This option will appear when there are more than 10 images to be reviewed by the administrator before acceptance into a moderated group. It provides an overview of the task ahead, and is more likely to be of use when you are promoted to administrator of a neglected group. The accepting or rejecting of each image still has to be done on the pages of ten at a time.

3) Please: We need your help!

As you have seen in our recent banners, we are searching for an assistant for our Treasurer. It would be preferable to have at least two such people. This is not a need to be taken lightly.

Our current treasurer will be stepping down in March of 2027 at the latest, less than a year away. It is a legal requirement to have someone in that position in order to keep our association going and our website up on the internet.

Please read here to understand the basics of the position.

PLEASE: If supporting our community in this way doesn't appeal to you, think about other club members that you connect with that might be suitable. Not everyone reads the club news, nor even pays attention to our banners. We need you to help us find club members to reach out to. Simply send the team a Help Ticket with a suggested name and we will reach out to those members individually.

Your ima team.

Can you help? Treasurer assistant needed

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 19:16:42 +0000

Team has posted an article:

Help keep our association going. Join the ima team as an Executive assistant.

Our current treasurer, Corinne, will be stepping down in less than a year. We are looking for someone to become an executive assistant to Corinne.

Are you a Club Member with a love for ipernity?

WE NEED YOU!

Becoming an assistant to Corinne will also allow you to learn exactly what it means to be our treasurer and for you to consider whether you would like to stand for treasurer next year.

What being an Executive Assitant to Corinne means:

- Spending less than an hour per week connecting with Corinne

- Learn how our funds are accounted for

- Learn how member accounts are handled when renewals

are done via bank transfer

- Learn how we pay our bills and to whom

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Does this raise your curiosity?

Do you have questions for further discussion?

PLEASE CONTACT THE TEAM NOW

via Help Ticket

3 April 2026 - Club News

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 22:06:12 +0000

Team has posted an article:

Dear members and friends of ipernity,

1) Our annual general meeting was held 22 March 2026.

A big thank you to all the members who took the time to attend.

Summary of important changes voted into place:

1) Our Vice President is now Don Sutherland.

2) Our Treasurer, Corinne Pommerell, is re-elected.

3) Our Cash Auditor, Thomas Reck is re-elected.

4) Membership fees will now be listed only in euros - PayPal and banks used will do any currency adjustments needed.

The text box under 'Tier 2' says, If you can afford to, please select this higher price to help cover transaction fees. Thank you.

5) Membership fees are increased by 5%.

6) Voyeuristic images (images taken in a non-consensual voyeuristic manner that is degrading - obscuring their identity does not make it allowable) are no longer acceptable.

Our Statutes and Terms of Use have been updated with the changes.

The official record of the meeting is available as a pdf document here, being a copy of the IGA group discussion here.

Additionally for official record keeping, see attendees, and of the vote tallies.

See this page for links to various documents now available to everyone.

2) AI on ipernity.

It was felt that the IGA was not the place for a discussion on this matter.

However, since this is a topic that many have opinions about, we think it is important for the full membership to be able to have their say.

Therefore, a new group has been created, AI on ipernity - Discussion Group.

This will allow time for ideas to develop and for steps forward to be agreed upon.

Any suggested changes to ipernity resulting from a consensus reached in those discussions might be put to a future vote.

3) Are you surprised to have been made admin of a group?

When you receive notice that you have been automatically promoted to administrator of a group, that is the perfect time to help out the team with group clean-up.

Even if you don't want to continue as administrator, please take a moment to do the following:

1) View the group and it's current rules.

2) Check to see if the contributions are set to be moderated.

3) Check to see if contributions are staying on the topic/theme of the group.

4) See if the group is getting new suggestions/contributions (this can be seen on the group's home page using the [i] below the shown images?

5) Is the topic concise enough so that the group highlights a particular area of interest and isn't too general?

Once you know these things, you can make an informed decision about if you want to keep the group, have it passed on to someone else, or if you think it should be deleted.

a) If the group is good and you want to keep it, great! Thank you!

b) If you think it should be kept but passed onto someone else, then ask another group member to take the group on. You can then appoint them as administrator and then leave the group. If you can't find someone, then contact the ima Moderator for help.

c) If you think the group should be deleted, contact the ima Moderator as they can easily delete the group.

Please do not simply leave the group as the team will have no knowledge of the group and it will remain, making groups less effective.

Your ima team.

IGA 2026 - Candidatures for the Board

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 09:25:28 +0000

Team has posted an article:

In reply to our call for candidatures for the mandates of Vice President and Treasurer, we have the following:

Don Sutherland - as Vice-President.

New to the role, here you can read about Don

Corinne Pommerell - as Treasurer.

Current incumbent, standing for re-election, (for a 1 year term only).

We look forward to the membership confirming these candidate at the IGA.

Your ima team

- - - - - - - - - - - -

IGA 2026 - Treasurer's Report on 2025

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 17:18:42 +0000

Team has posted an article:

IGA2025 - Treasurer's report on 2025

Related Annual Financial Report 2025

IGA2025 - Rapport de la trésoriere sur l'année 2025

Rapport financier annuel 2025 correspondant

IGA2025 - Bericht der Schatzmeisterin über das Jahr 2025

Zugehöriger Finanzbericht 2025

IGA 2026 - Proposed increase to membership fees

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 09:15:34 +0000

Team has posted an article:

5% Increase in Membership Fees

As is detailed in our Treasurer's report, due to inflation our income from membership fees no longer matches the costs. As William mentioned, we have managed to avoid fee increases while other sites have not, only needing a realignment in 2021 due to exchange rate changes.

With the uncertainty of membership levels and inflation, we think something in the 5 to 10% range is required. Of course it would be counter productive to propose a higher increase, and risk a decline in renewals offsetting any gains.

Therefore we propose only 5% at this time, to gauge the effect of the single currency amendment reducing the loss due to conversion fees on non-euro transactions. As well as a new feature on the renewal page for people to select a slightly higher fee to cover the bank and PayPal transaction fees, for those that are able to afford it.

We believe this is the route most likely to find broad acceptance, as well as being respectful of the varying ability of our members to afford the increase. We will be able to evaluate the effect of the different elements for the IGA next year.

IGA 2026 - Agenda

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 21:35:04 +0000

Team has posted an article:

Agenda of the Ipernity General Assembly 2026 (IGA2026)

Ordre du jour de l'Assemblée Générale d'Ipernity 2026 (IGA2026)

Tagesordnung der Ipernity-Mitglieder-Generalversammlung 2026 (IGA2026)

IGA 2026 - Report of the President on 2025

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 09:58:30 +0000

Team has posted an article:

IGA 2026 - Report of the President on 2025

Activity report on the year 2025

IGA 2026 - Rapport du Président sur l'année 2025

Rapport d'activité pour l'année 2025

IGA 2026 - Bericht des Präsidenten über das Jahr 2025

Tätigkeitsbericht über das abgelaufene Geschäftsjahr 2025

Proposed amendment to the statutes - IGA 2026

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:19:33 +0000

Team has posted an article:

Regarding the intention to display and accept membership fees only in euros

This amendment will save ipernity money by avoiding the subtractions for currency conversion, before the amount eventually ends up in our account in euros. This will reduce the required increase of membership fees to balance the books this year. Any currency conversion fees, paid by those non-EU members will be at the exchange rate current at the time, rather than set for a whole year.

Shown below are the deletions and updates to the statutes. The first deletion regarding the other currencies is obvious given the above. This then leads to not needing to make updates to the membership fees for exchange fluctuation. The EUR-USD exchange rate is relevant because our association's money is held in EUR but our largest expense is for the AWS servers that are invoiced in USD. The section about pro-rata payments has never been feasible and would have been considered for deletion in any case.

ARTICLE V, Section 4 – Membership contribution: The amount of the membership contribution depends on the desired range of functions and storage space volume. It shall be set annually by the General Assembly of members for all options. The reference currency is the Euro. ~~The membership contribution amount in the other currencies (British Pound, Canadian Dollar, Swiss Franc and US-Dollar) is calculated according to official exchange rates in relation to the Euro.~~ In the event of large fluctuations in the EUR-USD exchange rates, the Board of the Association shall be entitled to make adjustments during the year. In the case of future membership contribution adjustments, the new (lower or higher) membership contributions shall apply indiscriminately to all full members from the date of the adjustment for the period thereafter. Any difference from the previous (paid in advance) membership contribution shall be calculated on a pro rata basis for the remaining period until the end of the full membership. These calculated differences shall either be refunded to the member by the Association or paid by the member to the Association in arrears. Alternatively, the association has the right to apply a time equivalent of the calculated difference to the remaining time until the end of the full membership.

About Don Sutherland

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 22:00:43 +0000

Team has posted an article:

Don Sutherland works in higher education and pursues a parallel calling in photography as a way to observe and interpret the world. Guided by curiosity and attentiveness, he continually seeks out moments of beauty wherever they appear.

Don Sutherland, March 2026

---------------------------------------------------

Acitve member of the club since 2013.

Open Mandates for 2026

nobody@ipernity.com (Team) — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 07:53:33 +0000

Team has posted an article:

For other languages: ipernity members may use the integrated translator at the end of this article.

(Visitors: Please use DeepL Translator or install an add-on that suits your browser.)

Dear members and friends of ipernity,

For IGA 2026 the mandates for Vice President and for Treasurer are up for election. We have Corinne Pommerell willing to stand for re-election as Treasurer and Don Sutherland as VP.

Important - Executive Assistants needed

Anyone interested in supporting any of the mandates as an assistant is welcome to let us know. Know that being an extra pair of hands at whatever tasks, would be appreciated by the current four board members.

Our current treasurer is willing to stand for election, but only for one year as she will be moving on to other projects away from ipernity at that time. She would prefer to step down sooner, but is kindly remaining so we can find a replacement.

This means that at this time, in addition to the mandates, any club member who is an EU citizen who is unsure but might consider standing for treasurer next year should please come forward so they can be considered for an executive assistant position and shadow Corinne for as long is needed. We could easily use two such executive assistants. Executive assistants are appointed by the team member they would be supporting.

Please notify the team if you are such a club member, or if you know of some such member who might be interested and the team will reach out to them.

The Vice President organises the internal and external communication and public relations. This person coordinates all activities to promote our website in appropriate media, helping to ensure that our community has a sufficient influx of new club members. In detail, the duties of the Vice President.

The Treasurer draws up and monitors the annual budget, creates quarterly and annual reports and creates forecasts. They handle the manual membership renewals. Further details can be found in the ipernity statutes, Article VII. Section C.

Note, the Treasurer must be an EU citizen.

Data Protection Officer. While not a position on the board, some of the duties of a DPO are important in helping to operate ipernity. But as the duties and legal responsibilities are onerous if the job is taken seriously, we are not looking for a volunteer. Noting that having one is not a requirement for ipernity.

We invite loyal and active club members who feel a part of our community and who care about the future of ipernity to make themselves know to us at any time.

Take this opportunity to shape ipernity's future together with us.

Being on the board as well as being an advisor is a rewarding adventure, so please contact us now.

Your ima team