If you create an account, we store your first name, last name, email address, and a securely hashed password (we never store or can see your actual password — see "How passwords are handled" below). If you comment on an article, we store the name and message you submit. If you use the contact form, we store your name, phone number, email, and message.
We don't track you across other websites, and we don't sell or share your information with advertisers or data brokers. This site does show ads, and third-party ad networks may set their own cookies independently of anything described here — we don't control what they do with that data.
Passwords are never stored in plain text. They're run through a one-way hashing function (scrypt) combined with a random value unique to your account, before being saved. This means even we can't look up your actual password — if you forget it, the only option is resetting it, not recovering it.
We use your browser's local storage (not tracking cookies) to remember your login session, and your Display and Accessibility preferences (dark mode, text size) if you set them. None of this is used for advertising or shared with third parties.
Comments and the name you post them under are public — anyone visiting the article can see them. Contact form messages and account details (email, name) are only visible to site administrators, used solely to respond to you or manage your account.
You can update your name and email anytime from Account Settings. You can delete your account by contacting us — we don't currently have a self-service delete option, but we'll act on any request promptly. Comments you've posted may remain after account deletion unless you specifically ask for them to be removed too, since removing them could break reply threads other people are part of.
If you have questions about how your information is handled, use the contact form — that goes directly to the people who run this site.