ISFDB:Privacy policy

Summary
For casual readers of the ISFDB and associated Wiki, the following information is gathered at this site:


 * Web server requests are logged. This includes the requestor's IP address and the requested page. This information is not available to the public or the ISFDB staff.
 * The act of viewing an ISFDB page increments a counter which is not tied to any particular user or IP address.
 * The act of viewing an author bibliography increments an author-associated counter, which is not tied to any particular user or IP address.
 * The act of viewing a title bibliography increments a title-associated counter, which is not tied to any particular user or IP address.

If you contribute to the ISFDB, you are publishing every word you post publicly. If you write something, assume that it will be retained forever. This includes bibliographic data, articles, user pages and talk pages.

Publishing on the ISFDB and public data
Simply visiting the web site does not expose your identity publicly. When you edit any bibliographic database record or any page in the wiki, 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
Making changes to either the bibliographic database or the wiki requires you to log in, identifying you by your user name. This may be your real name if you so choose, or you may choose to publish under a pseudonym, whatever user name you selected when you created your account.

Cookies
The wiki 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 will be set when you log in, in order to maintain an authenticated session. You cannot edit the bibliographic database nor the wiki without logging in and accepting these cookies. Additional user-related features such as voting and tagging also require the user to login. These cookies 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
Many aspects of the ISFDB community interactions depend 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.

Policy on release of data derived from page logs
It is the policy of the ISFDB that personally identifiable data collected in the server logs, or through records in the wiki via the CheckUser feature, may be released by the system administrators or users with CheckUser access, 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) Where the information pertains to page views generated by a spider or bot and its dissemination is necessary to illustrate or resolve technical issues
 * 4) 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

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

Sharing information with third parties
Except where otherwise specified, all text added to the ISFDB is available for reuse under the terms of the Creative Commons License.

The ISFDB 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
The ISFDB makes no guarantee against unauthorized access to any information you provide. This information will be available to all developers with access to the servers.

E-mail
You may provide your e-mail address in your Preferences. This allows other logged-in users may send email to you through the wiki (unless you disable this in your preferences). Your address will not be revealed to them unless you respond, or possibly if the email bounces. The email address may be used by the ISFDB 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 Wikimedia's developers 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.

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 occasionally in aggregated forms published by other users.

Removal of user accounts
Once created, user accounts can not be removed. It may be possible for a developer to change the username on an account, but you will need to request this yourself. The ISFDB does not guarantee that a name will be changed on request.

Whether specific user information is deleted is dependant on the deletion policies of the project that contains the information.

Deletion of content
Deleting text from the ISFDB wiki does not really delete them. In normal articles, anyone can look at a previous version and see what was there. If an article is "deleted", any sysop/administrator, meaning almost anyone trusted not to abuse the deletion capability, can see what was deleted. Only a developer can permanently delete information from the Wikimedia projects and there is no guarantee this will happen except in response to legal action.

Other policies
See ISFDB:Policy for other site policies.