CAZypedia:Privacy policy

This privacy policy is derived from that approved for the Wikimedia Foundation in June 2006. Where relevant, portions of that document have been retained for the purpose of outlining privacy guidelines for CAZypedia. More information on copyright issues and CAZypedia can be found on the CAZypedia:Copyright page.

Summary

If you only read the CAZypedia website, no more information is collected than is typically collected in server logs by web sites in general.

If you contribute to the CAZypedia project, you are publishing every word you post publicly. If you write something, assume that it will be retained forever. This includes articles, user pages and talk pages. Some limited exceptions are described below.

Publishing on CAZypedia and public data

Simply visiting the web site does not expose your identity publicly (but see Private logging below).

When you edit any page in CAZypedia, you are publishing a document. This is a public act, and you are identified publicly with that edit as its author.

Identification of an author

You must be logged in to publish a page in CAZypedia.

When you are logged in, you will be identified by your username. In the spirit of open scientific exchange, CAZypedia requires users to publish using their real names as their username, including their full first and last (family) names.

If you have not logged in for the purpose of simply viewing CAZypedia content, you will be identified by your network IP address. This is a series of four numbers which identifies the Internet address from which you are contacting CAZypedia. Depending on your connection, this number may be traceable only to a large Internet service provider, or specifically to your school, place of business, or home. Your IP address will not be available to others except in cases of abuse, including vandalism of a CAZypedia page by you or by another user with the same IP address. In all cases, your IP address will be stored on the CAZypedia servers and can be seen by CAZypedia administrators. Your IP address, and its connection to any usernames that share it may be released under certain circumstances (see below).

Cookies

CAZypedia will set a temporary session cookie (PHPSESSID) whenever you visit the site. If you do not intend to ever log in, you may deny this cookie, but you cannot log in without it. It will be deleted when you close your browser session.

More cookies may be set when you log in, to avoid typing in your user name (or optionally password) on your next visit. These last up to 30 days. You may clear these cookies after use if you are using a public machine and don't wish to expose your username to future users of the machine. (If so, clear the browser cache as well.)

Passwords

CAZypedia depends on the reputation and respect that is built up through a history of valued contributions. User passwords are the only guarantee of the integrity of a user's edit history. All users are encouraged to select strong passwords and to never share them. No one shall knowingly expose the password of another user to public release either directly or indirectly.

Private logging

Every time you visit a web page, you send a lot of information to the web server. Most web servers routinely maintain access logs with a portion of this information, which can be used to get an overall picture of what pages are popular, what other sites link to this one, and what web browsers people are using. It is not the intention of the CAZypedia project to use this information to keep track of legitimate users.

Log data may be examined by developers in the course of solving technical problems and in tracking down badly-behaved web spiders that overwhelm the site. IP addresses of users, derived either from those logs or from records in the database are frequently used to correlate usernames and network addresses of edits in investigating abuse of CAZypedia, including the suspected use of malicious "sockpuppets" (duplicate accounts), vandalism, harassment of other users, or disruption of CAZypedia.

Policy on release of data derived from page logs

It is the policy of CAZypedia that personally identifiable data collected in the server logs, or through records in the database, may be released by the system administrators in the following situations:

1. In response to a valid subpoena or other compulsory request from law enforcement
2. With permission of the affected user
3. When necessary for investigation of abuse complaints.
4. Where the information pertains to page views generated by a spider or bot and its dissemination is necessary to illustrate or resolve technical issues.
5. Where the user has been vandalising articles or persistently behaving in a disruptive way, data may be released to assist in the targeting of IP blocks, or to assist in the formulation of a complaint to relevant Internet Service Providers
6. Where it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of the CAZypedia, its users or the public.

CAZypedia policy does not permit public distribution of such information under any circumstances, except as described above.

Sharing information with third parties

CAZypedia will not sell or share private information, such as email addresses, with third parties, unless you agree to release this information, or it is required by law to release the information.

Security of information

CAZypedia makes no guarantee against unauthorized access to any information you provide.

E-mail

You may provide your e-mail address in your Preferences and enable other logged-in users to send email to you through CAZypedia. Your address will not be revealed to them unless you respond, or possibly if the email bounces. The email address may be used by CAZypedia to communicate with users on a wider scale.

If you do not provide an email address, you will not be able to reset your password if you forget it. However, you may contact one of the CAZypedia server administrators to enter a new mail address in your preferences.

You can remove your email address from your preferences at any time to prevent it being used. However, CAZypedia strongly encourages all users to maintain a current email address, to facilitate communication.

User data

Data on users, such as the times at which they edited and the number of edits they have made are publicly available via "user contributions" lists, and in aggregated forms published by other users.

Removal of user accounts

Once created, user accounts will generally not be removed. It may be possible for a username to be changed, but CAZypedia does not guarantee that a name will be changed on request.

Deletion of content

Removing text from CAZypedia does not permanently delete it. In normal articles, anyone can look at a previous version and see what was there. If an article is "deleted", any user with "administrator" access on CAZypedia, meaning almost anyone trusted not to abuse the deletion capability, can see what was deleted. Information can be permanently deleted by those people with access to the servers, but there is no guarantee this will happen except in response to legal action.