1. Summary

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

If you contribute to the Wisteme website, you are publishing every word you post publicly. If you write something, assume that it will be retained forever. This includes questions, question attributes, answers, comments, voting, and discussion pages. Some limited exceptions are described below.

2. Publishing

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

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

3. Identification of an author

You must be logged in to publish a page.

If you are logged in, you will be identified by your user nickname. This may be your real name if you choose so or you may choose to publish under a pseudonym, whatever user name you selected when you created your account.

4. Cookies

The Wisteme website will set a temporary session cookie 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.

5. Passwords

Many aspects of the Wisteme website 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. Passwords should be minimum of 8 characters with a combination of alpha and numeric characters. No one shall knowingly expose the password of another user to public release either directly or indirectly.

6. 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 Wisteme website 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 two weeks.

Log data may be examined by developers in the course of solving technical problems, in tracking down badly-behaved web spiders that overwhelm the site, or very rarely to correlate usernames and network addresses of edits in investigating abuse of the website.

7. Policy on release of data derived from page logs

It is the policy of Wisteme that personally identifiable data collected in the server logs will not be released by the developers who have access to it, except as follows:

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 robot and its dissemination is necessary to illustrate or resolve technical issues.
4. Where the user has been vandalizing 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.
5. Where it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of the Wikimedia Foundation, its users or the public.

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

8. Sharing information with third parties

Wisteme 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.

9. User profile

Your Email address is your account id. It cannot be changed after your account is created. Address and phone number are required for advanced user membership. You can also maintain your preferences by keeping your watch list of questions and saving previous search queries. All of the above information is considered your private information. However, your nickname and advertising information will be published when you make any editing of questions.

10. 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 formats published by other users.

11. Removal/editing of user accounts

Once created, user accounts can not be removed. However, the profile of a user account can be modified anytime.

12. Deletion of content

Deleting text from Wisteme website does not really delete them. In normal question pages, anyone can look at a previous version and see what was there. If a question 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 Wisteme website and there is no guarantee this will happen except in response to legal action.