AquaPedia:Privacy policy

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General Info

  • Anyone with internet access can use AquaPedia to view pages and comments made upon them.
  • All contributors edits and discussion page comments are logged and publicly viewable.
  • User Pages are the "profile" page in AquaPedia. You can view your user page by clicking your user name as it appears at the very top of any page while logged into AquaPedia. All information provided on a User Page is public. It can be viewed by any person (whether logged in or not) reading AquaPedia.
  • All information on a User's Talk page is publicly available. While a User Talk page is for leaving messages for a user, those messages can be viewed by anyone with an internet connection.
  • All edits are considered to be a public act. All edits are logged and available in a page history.
  • Due only to the public nature of this web site, all contributions can be freely copied, quoted, reused, and adapted by third parties with few restrictions and zero oversight.
  • The only information provided by users that is not listed publicly, is the email addressed used when registering and used for communication by the software with the user. Administrators have access to each users email address. You can view/edit your email address here: Special:Preferences

Plain English Explanation of Privacy

If you are not okay with a piece of information being public, do not provide it within AquaPedia pages.

Very little information on AquaPedia is private. The email address provided within your user preferences (Special:Preferences) is not visible to any users of the system. It is only available to the system auto-mailer (for automated emails regarding password resets, etc) and the site's system administrator/sysop.

Do not contribute sensitive information to AquaPedia. Understand that others will have the ability to find and see previous comments and edits, etc.


Data Retention

This website was created using MediaWiki. The privacy settings and information used by the software is determined by the software. We are also using basic analytic software to compile information about where our visitors come from for the purpose of future site/content development. Google provides an Opt-Out browser plugin for use by individuals who would like to prevent sharing this type of information.

IP Address

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.

Cookies

A temporary cookie is set for anonymous (non-logged in users). A cookie is used when users log in. 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 the same Project. 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

Any edit to any page may be saved forever. It should be expected that any comment, edit, addition, etc to any page on the AquaPedia site may be publicly available forever. This includes information changes made to a user's profile/talk page.


User contributions

User contributions are also aggregated and publicly available. 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. Users group (editing status) is also publicly viewable.

Google Analytics

To learn more about how Google Analytics tracks data, what data is collected and how users can opt-out of being tracked, please consider reading the Wikipedia page on this topic.


Access to and Release of Personally Identifiable Information

Sharing information between privileged users (AquaPedia Administrators) is not considered "distribution." As a Water Diplomacy project, some information about AquaPedia users may need to be shared with other Water Diplomacy staff in the course of coordinating activities.

A typical example would be: an AquaPedia administrator might need to share a specific users email address and/or an email sent by a user to an administrator with another Water Diplomacy staff member so that they may contact the user regarding a specific issue or problem.

AquaPedia is hosted by a private 3rd party. Some user information, such as IP addresses, or user login meta data could potentially end up being inadvertently shared with a staff member of the hosting company during troubleshooting of server problems.


When Will We Release your Information? Policy on Release of Data

Our policy is that personally identifiable data collected in the server logs, or through records in the database, or through other non-publicly-available methods, may be released by AquaPedia staff, in any of the following situations: In response to a valid subpoena or other compulsory request from law enforcement, With permission of the affected user, Where the information pertains to page views generated by a spider or bot and its dissemination is necessary to illustrate or resolve technical issues, 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, Where it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of AquaPedia, its users or the public.

Except as described above, our policy does not permit distribution of personally identifiable information (such as email addresses or private email communications between an AquaPedia/Water Diplomacy representative and a user).

Policies can Change

This policy may need to change to improve clarity or reflect changes in how we manage projects at Water Diplomacy. If it does, then this page will be updated.