Plain-English terms for contributing to the equipment database. By submitting a contribution you agree to everything on this page.
The equipment database, including your contributions, is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0). In plain terms: anyone may use, copy, adapt, and build on the data — including commercially — as long as they (1) credit the Golf Equipment Database (golfequipmentdatabase.com) and (2) release any adapted version under this same open license. That “ShareAlike” condition is the point: it keeps the data — and everything built from it — permanently open, so no one can take the community's work and lock it away. By contributing, you irrevocably license your contribution to everyone under these terms. See the license page for the plain-English version.
In addition to the public CC BY-SA license above, by contributing you grant GolferX, Inc. — which owns and operates the Golf Equipment Database — a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, adapt, and sub-license or re-license your contribution, including commercially. In plain terms: this lets us keep the public database free forever and fund it through the fitting platform — and, if needed, offer a paid commercial license to a business that wants different terms than ShareAlike allows. It does not take your rights away (your contribution stays yours and stays public under CC BY-SA for everyone), and it never lets us gate, hide, or bias the public data — the charter forbids that. It only gives the project the standing to keep itself open and sustainable.
Every contribution is publicly credited to the display name you choose — your email address is never shown and never appears in the public data. The contribution log is permanent and append-only: if you later delete your account, your email and sign-in are removed, but past contributions remain in the log attributed to your display name. Pick a pseudonym if you prefer.
Contribute facts you can cite: OEM spec pages and PDFs, or your own measurements (say so — measured data is welcome and labeled as such). Submissions publish immediately marked unreviewed; a verified badge requires the citation to be confirmed on review. Don't submit marketing copy as fact, other databases' compiled work, guesses presented as measurements, or vandalism — accounts that do are removed, and the append-only log means the evidence stays.
Contributions can be approved, reverted, or have their citations confirmed by the site's maintainers. Reverted contributions stay in the historical log but stop affecting displayed values. Moderation decisions are final, though you can always submit a better-sourced follow-up.
We store your email (for sign-in only), your display name, and your contributions. No passwords are ever stored — sign-in is by single-use email link. You can delete your account at any time from the contribute page; deletion removes your email and sessions immediately. See the privacy policy for the rest.