ShoutWiki Hub:Privacy Policy

Summary

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

If you contribute to ShoutWiki, you are publishing every word you post publicly. If you write something, assume that it will be retained forever. This includes content pages, user pages and talk pages.

Cookies

A cookie is a small text file that is stored on a user's computer for record-keeping purposes. We do use cookies on our site. ShoutWiki may use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. We use session cookies to make it easier for you to navigate our site. A session cookie expires when you close your browser. A persistent cookie remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time. You can remove persistent cookies by following directions provided in your Internet browser's help file.

When you login you may select the "Remember me" check box to set a persistent cookie to store your user name and password, so you don't have to enter it more than once. You can remove the session ID cookie by clicking the "log out" link.

Collection of personal information

User information is stored on servers in the state of Chicago, USA. The only information that you need give is a username and password. The username does not need to be your real name. Therefore, any personal information you choose to give is not compulsory. No personal information should be given on the wiki by persons aged less than 13 years.

If you choose to enter a real name in your preferences, this will be publicly available. However, this field is optional, and there is no requirement for any user to give a real name. Users under 13 should not give their real name.

Information from our server logs may be stored and used to gather aggregate data about users, and used to determine whether the identity of one or more users is the same in cases of abuse. This data includes your IP address, and details about your browser.

Your browser must permit cookies to be set (by *.shoutwiki.com) in order for you to log in to ShoutWiki. If you do not make an account on any wiki, there is no necessity to accept cookie requests from this site.

Edits by users who are not logged in will show the user's IP address in the page history of the article they edited, and also in other places on the site, including watchlists and recent changes, and in any external feeds made of such pages.

Links to other sites

ShoutWiki may contain links to other sites that are not owned or controlled by ShoutWiki. Please be aware that ShoutWiki is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information.

Information sharing

ShoutWiki 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.

ShoutWiki content

ShoutWiki takes no responsibility for the content uploaded by third parties. ShoutWiki's staff will act to remove copyright violations in a timely manner following the receipt of a DMCA takedown request.

ShoutWiki wikis are provided "as is". ShoutWiki has no responsibility for lack of availability of any wiki or of any particular content. You should be aware that the wikis are editable by the public, and, as such, may contain inappropriate content at any time.

Any use you make of content hosted by ShoutWiki must be in line with the terms of that wiki's license.

Any content you upload or post to any ShoutWiki wiki must be compatible with the relevant license, and not violate another person's intellectual property or infringe on any copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, or other proprietary rights. No content shall be added which violates any applicable law, including local, state, national, and international laws.

No content shall be added to any wiki hosted by ShoutWiki that is tortious, threatening, harmful, hateful, unlawful, libelous, defamatory, harassing, abusive, fraudulent, contains viruses, or is otherwise objectionable or potentially damaging, as reasonably determined by ShoutWiki. Hate sites shall not be created at ShoutWiki. However, please be aware that wikis may still contain content of an adult nature, or content that you find offensive.

All content on any wiki is the responsibility of the person who uploaded it or added it to a wiki page. ShoutWiki does not control the content, and does not approve the content before it is published. Although they are not obliged to do so, ShoutWiki, or its designees, have the right to remove any content for any reason, including violation of these terms of use.

Security of information

ShoutWiki makes no guarantee against unauthorized access to any information you provide. This information may be available to anyone with access to the servers.

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 ShoutWiki to use this information to keep track of legitimate users.

These logs are used to produce the site statistics pages; the raw log data is not made public, and is normally discarded after about three weeks.

Here's a sample of what's logged for one page view:

192.168.2.3 - - [28/Aug/2007:02:03:19 +0000] "GET /wiki/Privacy policy HTTP/1.1" 200 18084 

"http://www.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Privacy_policy" "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/85.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) 

Safari/85.5"

Log data may be examined by server administrators 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, or through records in the database via the CheckUser feature are frequently used to correlate usernames and network addresses of edits in investigating abuse of the wiki, including the suspected use of malicious "sockpuppets" (duplicate accounts), vandalism, harassment of other users, or disruption of the wiki.

E-mail and IRC

E-mail: You may provide your e-mail address in your Preferences and enable other logged-in users to send email to you through the wiki. Your address will not be revealed to them unless you respond, or possibly if the email bounces.

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 ShoutWiki staff members 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.

IRC channels are not officially part of ShoutWiki proper. By participating in an IRC channel, your IP address may be exposed to other participants. Different channels have different policies on whether logs may be published.

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.

Use of the ShoutWiki sites

Use of websites hosted by ShoutWiki is at your own risk.

Users of this service may not act in a way on ShoutWiki which would be harmful to minors. Users of this service may not impersonate any other person or entity without good reason.

Users may not harass other users or collect or publish personal information about them without their permission.

ShoutWiki may terminate your use of the site, and administrators within each wiki may terminate your ability to edit the site.

Commercial activities which have not been authorized by ShoutWiki are not permitted on the site. You may not sell or otherwise commercially exploit the use of this service, or access to the service without approval.

Disclaimer of warranties

Except in those jurisdictions which do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, ShoutWiki expressly disclaims all warranties of any kind and shall not be liable for any damages or losses whether directly or indirectly related to your use of this site or its content.

Legal action

You agree to indemnify ShoutWiki, its staff and users from any liability relating to your use of this site, or its content.

Severability

If any term, condition or clause of these terms of use is found to be invalid then the remaining terms, conditions and clauses, shall remain valid.