Wikivoyage:Privacy policy

See also the Policy for recognizable people in photos

Many Wikivoyagers -- but by no means all! -- are experienced Internet users who value their privacy. The following policy tries to balance the needs of Wikivoyagers with the needs of the Wikivoyage community at large.

1. Wikivoyager user information will not be sold for any reason. Your user information will not be sold to marketing companies or other groups who want to bother you. Wikivoyagers get enough unsolicited bulk email as it is; we're not going to go out of our way to get more.
2. You may be sent email by other Wikivoyagers. Each user page contains a link to email the user. Your email address will not be exposed to other users, but they will be able to send you email through the Web form. Additionally, if you email another user, your email address will be used in the From field; sending email through Wikivoyage is not anonymous. You can disable email from other users on your preferences page.
3. You may be sent email by Wikivoyage administrators even if you disabled email from other users. In extreme circumstances, Wikivoyage administrators may contact you directly through email. This would be only for extraordinary situations.
4. You may be sent mass email by Wikivoyage administrators. On very rare occasions, it may be necessary for Wikivoyage administrators to send out a mass email to all Wikivoyage users. Again, this would be for extraordinary situations -- such as spectacular changes in copyright policy -- and will not be used for marketing, promotions, or other "newsletter" types of mailing. Normal announcements and news will go in the Logbook.
5. Wikivoyager user information will be transferred on demand to law enforcement officials or under court order. In general, your Wikivoyage identity will not be protected in case of legal investigation. Wikivoyage is not some kind of digital snitch service, and we won't go out of our way to rat you out to the authorities, but we do need to protect the community first.
6. IP addresses are logged. The MediaWiki software used by Wikivoyage logs the IP address of anonymous users. This is mostly to give those users some identity, but in case of legal hassle, IP address log information will be turned over to courts or law enforcement officials.
7. Your "real name" will be used for attribution. At the bottom of each page is an attribution block showing who worked on the page. This is a feature; we're giving you credit for the work that you do. You don't have to provide a real name to Wikivoyage; just don't fill out the "real name" field when signing up or in the preferences list.
8. Your username or IP address is associated with changes. When you create and edit an article, your username will be associated with that change. This is required by our copyleft; we need to have some identifier to attribute your work to.
9. User pages are published, copyleft works. Your user page is released under the same copyleft license as any other part of Wikivoyage. Don't put personal information there that you would feel uncomfortable having appear on other Web sites, in books, projected onto the sides of buildings, or whatever.
10. Talk pages are published, copyleft works. Similarly, your comments on talk pages are also copyleft, and subject to the same rules for distribution as any other page.
11. At your option, a MicroID will be generated on your user page. If you check the "publish a MicroID" (off by default) in your preferences, a hashed MicroID will appear on your user page. You can use this to verify that you own the user account with a service like claimID. No one can steal your email address from your MicroID; however, someone who already knows your email address can confirm that it's associated with your user account. If it's important to keep those two identities separate, don't enable MicroIDs.
12. If you log in with OpenID, your OpenID URL will be shown on your user page. If you use OpenID to login to Wikivoyage, your user page will have your OpenID on it automatically.