Halopedia:Privacy policy

Publishing on the wiki and public data
Simply visiting the web site does not expose your identity publicly (but see log files below).

When you edit 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. If you write something, assume that it will be retained forever. This includes articles, user pages, and talk pages.

Identification of an author
Users who are logged-in to edit the wiki will be identified by their user name. This may be their real name if they choose, or they may choose to publish under a pseudonym, whatever user name they selected when they created their account.

If you edit this wiki while not logged-in to an account, your IP address will be used to identify you, thus being available to the public. Editing while logged-in to an account will hide your IP address from the public, but it will be stored on the wiki servers. Thus it will be available to developers and may be released under certain circumstances (see below).

Cookies used by the wiki
Halopedia does use cookies to store information about visitors preferences, record user-specific information on which pages the user access or visit, customize Web page content based on visitors browser type or other information that the visitor sends via their browser.

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 may be set when you log in, to avoid typing in your user name (or optionally password) on your next visit. These 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 wiki 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.

Log files
Like many other Web sites, Halopedia makes use of log files. The information inside the log files includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, type of browser, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement around the site, and gather demographic information. IP addresses, and other such information are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable.

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

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 wiki.

Policy on release of data derived from page logs
It is the policy of Halopedia 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 bot and its dissemination is necessary to illustrate or resolve technical issues.
 * 4) Where the user has been vandalizing 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.
 * 5) Where it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of the wiki, its users or the public.

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

Advertisements
Halopedia uses third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements on this website, other sites, and other forms of media about goods and services that may be of interest to you.

These companies may collect data including but not limited to your web browser, operating system, ISP, bandwidth, and time of day. In addition, your IP address may be used for location-targeted ads and cookie information may be used to target ads based on the number of times you have been exposed to any given message.

DoubleClick DART Cookie

 * Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on halopedia.org.
 * Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to users based on their visit to halopedia.org and other sites on the Internet.
 * Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy at the following URL: http://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html

Other third-party cookies
Some of our advertising partners may use cookies and web beacons on our site. Our advertising partners include Google AdSense.

These third-party ad servers or ad networks use technology to send the advertisements and links that appear on halopedia.org directly to your browsers. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. Other technologies (such as cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons) may also be used by the third-party ad networks to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and/or to personalize the advertising content that you see.

Halopedia has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.

You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information on their practices as well as for instructions about how to opt-out of certain practices. Our privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers or web sites.

If you wish to disable cookies, you may do so through your individual browser options. More detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers can be found at the browsers' respective websites.

Sharing information with third parties
Halopedia 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
Halopedia makes no guarantee against unauthorized access to any information you provide. This information will be available to all developers with access to the servers.

Wikimail
You may provide your e-mail address in your preferences. This enables other logged-in users to 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 wiki 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 the wiki 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.

IRC
By participating in the IRC channel, your IP address will be exposed to other participants.

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.

Removal of user accounts
Once created, user accounts will 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. Halopedia does not guarantee that a name will be changed on request.

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

Deletion of content
Deleting text from the wiki is not truly deleted. In normal articles, anyone can look at a previous version and see what was there. If an article is "deleted", any sysop can see what was deleted. Only a developer can permanently delete information from the wiki and there is no guarantee this will happen except in response to legal action.