VeganWiki:Privacy policy

The short version

This software will automatically retain some information your computer freely gives out, as well as any data you voluntarily enter. In some contexts, the software will publish information about you, but unless necessitated by some legal or technological problem, I, the human behind the software, have no intention of publishing that information. I don't really care about who you are, I'm just trying to run a useful resource.

The long version is an altered copy of The Wikimedia Foundation's privacy policy as it appeared on Nov 17, 2009. I reformatted it, removed the parts I felt were irrelevant and changed the names. Assume any transcription or formatting errors are mine.

General Scope

This policy covers personally identifiable information collected or stored by the VeganWiki server in relation to VeganWiki and their communities. VeganWiki collects and retains the least amount of personally identifiable information needed to fulfill its operational needs.

The public and collaborative nature of this project

Anyone with Internet access (and not otherwise restricted from doing so) may edit the publicly editable pages of VeganWiki with or without logging in as a registered user. By doing this, editors create a published document, and a public record of every word added, subtracted, or changed. This is a public act, and editors are identified publicly as the author of such changes. All contributions made and all publicly available information about those contributions, are irrevocably licensed and may be freely copied, quoted, reused and adapted by third parties with few restrictions.

Activities on VeganWiki

In general, this Policy only applies to private information stored or held by VeganWiki which is not publicly available.

Interactions with VeganWiki not covered by this Policy include, but are not limited to, aspects of browsing and editing pages, use of the wiki "email user" function, subscribing and posting to VeganWiki hosted email lists, and corresponding with volunteers via VeganWiki's ticketing system ("OTRS"). These interactions may reveal a contributor's IP address, and possibly other personal information, indiscriminately to the general public, or to specific groups of volunteers acting independently of VeganWiki.

Users may also interact with one another outside of VeganWiki, via email, IRC or other chat, or independent websites, and should assess the risks involved, and their personal need for privacy, before using these methods of communication.

User accounts and authorship

VeganWiki does not require editors to register. Anyone can edit without logging in with a username, in which case they will be identified by network IP address. Users that do register are identified by their chosen username. Users select a password, which is confidential and used to verify the integrity of their account. Except insofar as it may be required by law, no person should disclose, or knowingly expose, either user passwords and/or cookies generated to identify a user. Once created, user accounts will not be removed. It may be possible for a username to be changed. VeganWiki does not guarantee that a username will be changed on request.

Purpose of the collection of private information

VeganWiki limits the collection of personally identifiable user data to purposes which serve its well-being, including but not limited to the following:

• To enhance the public accountability. VeganWiki recognizes that any system that is open enough to allow the greatest possible participation of the general public will also be vulnerable to certain kinds of abuse and counterproductive behavior. VeganWiki has established a number of mechanisms to prevent or remedy abusive activities. For example, when investigating abuse, including the suspected use of malicious “sockpuppets” (duplicate accounts), vandalism, harassment of other users, or disruptive behavior, the IP addresses of users (derived either from those logs or from records in the database) may be used to identify the source(s) of the abusive behavior. This information may be shared by users with administrative authority who are charged by their communities with protecting VeganWiki.
• To provide site statistics. VeganWiki statistically samples raw log data from users' visits. These logs are used to produce the site statistics pages; the raw log data is not made public.
• To solve technical problems. 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.

Details of data retention

General expectations

IP and other technical information

When a visitor requests or reads a page, or sends email to a VeganWiki, no more information is collected than is typically collected by web sites. The VeganWiki may keep raw logs of such transactions, but these will not be published or used to track legitimate users.

When a page is edited by a logged-in editor, the server confidentially stores related IP information for a limited period of time. This information is automatically deleted after a set period. For editors who do not log in, the IP address used is publicly and permanently credited as the author of the edit. It may be possible for a third party to identify the author from this IP address in conjunction with other information available. Logging in with a registered username allows for better preservation of privacy.

Cookies

The sites set a temporary session cookie on a visitor's computer whenever VeganWiki is visted. Readers who do not intend to log in or edit may deny this cookie; it will be deleted at the end of the browser's session. More cookies may be set when one logs in to maintain logged-in status. If one saves a user name or password in one's browser, that information will be saved for up to 30 days, and this information will be resent to the server on every visit to VeganWiki. Contributors using a public machine who do not wish to show their username to future users of the machine should clear these cookies after use.

Page history

Edits or other contributions to VeganWiki on its articles, user pages and talk pages are generally retained forever. Removing text does not permanently delete it. Normally anyone can look at a previous version of an article and see what was there. Even if an article is "deleted", a user entrusted with higher level of access may still see what was removed from public view. Information can be permanently deleted by individuals with access to VeganWiki's server, but aside from the rare circumstance when VeganWiki is required to delete editing-history material in response to a court order or equivalent legal process, there is no guarantee any permanent deletion will happen.

User contribution

User contributions are also aggregated and publicly available. User contributions are aggregated according to their registration and login status. Data on user contributions, such as the times at which users edited and the number of edits they have made, are publicly available via user contributions lists, and in aggregated forms published by other users.

Reading

No more information on users and other visitors reading pages is collected than is typically collected in server logs by web sites. Aside from the above raw log data collected for general purposes, page visits do not expose a visitor's identity publicly. Sampled raw log data may include the IP address of any user, but it is not reproduced publicly.

Editing

Edits are identified with the username or network IP address of the editor, and editing history is aggregated by author in a contribution list. Such information will be available permanently.

Logged in registered

• Logged in users do not expose their IP address to the public except in cases of abuse, including vandalism of a wiki page by the user or by another user with the same IP address. A user's IP address is stored on the wiki server for a period of time, during which it can be seen by server administrators and by users who have been granted CheckUser access.
• IP address information, and its connection to any usernames that share it, may be released under certain circumstances (see below).
• Editors using a company mail server from home or telecommuting over a DSL or cable Internet connection, are likely to be easy to identify by their IP address; in which case it may be easy to cross-identify all contributions made by that IP. Using a username is a better way of preserving privacy in this situation.

Unlogged-in registered users and unregistered users

• Editors who have not logged in may be identified by network IP address. Depending on one's connection, this IP address may be traceable to a large Internet service provider or more specifically to a school, place of business or home. It may be possible to use this information in combination with other information, including editing style and preferences, to identify an author completely.

Discussions

On wiki discussion

• Any editable page can theoretically be the location of a discussion. In general, discussions on VeganWiki occur on user talk pages (associated with particular users), on article talk pages (associated with particular articles) or in pages specially designated to function as forums (e.g., the Village Pump). Privacy expectations apply to discussion pages in the same way as they do elsewhere.

Via email

• Users are not required to list an email address when registering. Users who provide a valid email address can enable other logged-in users to send email to them through the wiki. When receiving an email from other users through this system, one's email address is not revealed to them. When choosing to send an email to other users, one's email is displayed as the sender.
• The email address put into one's user preferences may be used by VeganWiki for communication. Users whose accounts do not have a valid email address will not be able to reset their password if it is lost. In such a situation, however, users may be able to contact the VeganWiki server administrator to enter a new e-mail address. A user can remove the account's email address from his preferences at any time to prevent it from being used. Private correspondence between users may be saved at those users' discretion and is not subject to this policy.

On mailing lists

• The email addresses used to subscribe and post to mailing lists are exposed to other subscribers. The list archives of most such mailing lists are public, and searches of public archives may be performed on the Web. Subscribers' addresses may also be quoted in other users' messages. These email addresses and any messages sent to a mailing list may be archived and may remain available to the public permanently.

Access to and release of personally identifiable information

Access

Some dedicated users may be chosen by the community to be given privileged access. User group rights and group members are reachable from the Special:ListGroupRights page.

Other users who may have access to private identifiable information include, but are not limited to, users who have access to the server on which VeganWiki runs, or to the CheckUser and Oversight functions.

Release: Policy on Release of Data

As a matter of policy, personally identifiable data collected in the server logs, or through records in the database via the CheckUser feature, or through other non-publicly-available methods, may be released by VeganWiki in any of 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 vandalizing articles or persistently behaving in a disruptive way, data may be released to a service provider, carrier, or other third-party entity 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 VeganWiki, its users or the public.

Except as described above, policy does not permit distribution of personally identifiable information under any circumstances.

Third-party access and notifying registered users when receiving legal process

As a general principle, the access to, and retention of, personally identifiable data should be minimal and should be used only internally to serve the well-being of VeganWiki. VeganWiki may receive a subpoena or other compulsory request from a law-enforcement agency or a court or equivalent government body that requests the disclosure of information about a registered user, and may be compelled by law to comply with the request.

Disclaimer

VeganWiki believes that maintaining and preserving the privacy of user data is an important value. This Privacy Policy represents a committed effort to safeguard the security of the limited user information that is collected and retained on this server. Nevertheless, VeganWiki cannot guarantee that user information will remain private. We acknowledge that, in spite of our committed effort to protect private user information, determined individuals may still develop data-mining and other methods to uncover such information and disclose it. For this reason, VeganWiki can make no guarantee against unauthorized access to information provided in the course of participating in VeganWiki.