Privacy Policy

Last updated on 30th April 2022

This privacy policy sets out how this site uses and protects any information you provide whilst using its services. This site may change this policy as and when necessary.

1. What information do we collect about you, and how do we use this information

1.1 Account and profile information You have to create an account to use this site. You must provide us with some personal data so that we can provide our services to you. This includes a display name (for example, “John Doe”), nickname (for example, @john- doe), a username (for example, johnxdoe), a password, and an email address. Your display name and nickname are always public, but you can use your real name or a pseudonym. After registration, your account display name, nickname, and username are the same. We recommend changing your display name and nickname to keep the username private and secure. You can change those in your account editing page.

Once you have registered and created an account, you also have the option of adding the following:

  • Member Title
  • Avatar
  • Biography (About Me)
  • Website
  • Occupation
  • Signature
  • Location (Country)
  • Timezone
  • and other details as enabled by the forum administrator

Additionally, whilst using the site, the following information may be collected as part of the WordPress and Forum software used:

  • Internet Protocol (IP) address
  • Geographical location
  • Browser type and version
  • Operating system
  • Referral source
  • Length of visit, page views, website navigation and any other related browsing activity

Information on this site can only be seen by the registered users of this forum. This includes your public profile and forum postings, and comments. You are responsible for the topics, comments, posts and other information you provide through our services, and you should think carefully about what you make public, especially if it is sensitive information.

1.2 Contact information We use your contact information, such as your email address, to authenticate your account and keep it – and our services – secure and help prevent/mitigate spam, fraud, and abuse. We also use contact information to personalise our services, enable certain account features, for example, login verification, resetting the password, to send you information about our community and notify you of new replies to your subscribed forums and topics. You can also unsubscribe from any email notifications. If you email us, we will keep the content of your message, your email address, and your contact information to respond to your request.

1.3 Private messages and non-public communications We provide certain features that let you communicate more privately or control who sees your content. For example, the forum admin may enable the “Set Topic Private” checkbox, which allows you to create a private topic or click on the “Private” button of your topic first post or use the Private Messages to have non-public conversations. We will still store and process your communications and information in these cases. This includes message
content, images, and information about whom you have communicated with and when to better understand the use of our community, protect the community’s safety, and review the reported messages. We share the content of your Private Messages with the people you’ve sent them to; we do not use them to serve you ads. When you use features like Private Messages to communicate, remember that recipients have their copy of your communications – even if you delete your copy of those messages from your account, they may duplicate, store, or re-share.

1.4 Cookies A cookie is a small piece of data stored on your computer or mobile device. Like many websites, we use cookies and similar technologies to collect additional website usage data and operate our community. Cookies are not required for many parts of our community, such as searching and looking at public profiles. Although most web browsers automatically accept cookies, many browsers’ settings can be set to decline cookies or alert you when a website attempts to place a cookie on your computer. However, some of our community features may not function properly if you disable cookies. You can learn more about how we use cookies and similar technologies here. We use cookies for the following purposes:

1.4.1 Authentication We use cookies to identify you when you visit our community. When you create a topic or post a reply. We use this information to detect current visitor content (topics, posts) and display it to you even if the content is under moderation (not approved by moderators). The name is used to display as topic/post author name. Also, we store your name and email in cookies to auto-populate these fields when you post a new reply or create a new topic (you do not have to fill this information every time you post content).

1.4.2 Status  We use cookies to help us to determine if you are logged into our website.

1.4.3 Security We use cookies as an element of the security measures used to protect user accounts, including seeking to prevent fraudulent use of login credentials, and to protect our website and services generally.

1.4.4 Service providers  Our service providers use cookies and those cookies may be stored on your computer when you visit our website.

1.4.5 Google Analytics  We do not use Google Analytics.

1.5 Log data We receive information when you view content on or otherwise interact with our community, which we refer to as “Log Data”. For example, when you visit our forum, sign into our community, interact with our email notifications, we may receive information about you. This Log Data includes information such as your IP address, browser type, operating system, the referring web page, pages visited, location, your mobile carrier, device information (including device and application IDs), search terms, and cookie information. We use Log Data to operate our services and ensure their secure, reliable, and robust performance. We DO NOT use information you provide to us and data we receive, including Log Data and data from third parties, to make inferences like what topics you may be interested in and what languages you speak. We do not use your data to serve you advertisments.

2. Information we share and disclose

2.1 How we share information we collect You should be aware that any
information you provide on our community – including profile information associated
with the account you use to post the information – may be read, collected, and used by
any registered member of this forum. Your posts and certain profile
information may remain even after you terminate your account. We urge you to
consider the sensitivity of any information you input into these services. To request
removal of your information from this forum, please contact us. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your information, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to and why.

2.2 Sharing with third parties

2.2.1 Service providers We share information with third parties that help us operate, provide, improve, integrate, customize, support and market our services. We work with third-party service providers to provide website and application development, hosting, maintenance, backup, storage, virtual infrastructure, payment processing, analysis and other services for us, which may require them to access or use information about you. If a service provider needs to access information about you to perform services on our behalf, they do so under close instruction from us, including policies and procedures designed to protect your information. Our administrators may choose to add new functionality or change the behaviour of the community by installing third party apps within the community. Doing so may give third- party apps access to your account and information about you like your name and email address, and any content you choose to use in connection with those apps. Third-party app policies and
procedures are not controlled by us, and this privacy policy does not cover how third-party apps use your information. Please review the privacy policies of third parties before connecting to or using their applications or services to learn more about their privacy and information handling practices. If you object to information about you being shared with these third parties, please do not sign up to this service.

Below are the third party services we use on our community:

2.2.2 Links to Third Party sites Our community may include links that direct you to other websites or services whose privacy practices may differ from ours. If you submit information to any of those third party sites, your information is governed by their privacy policies, not this one. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policy of any website you visit.

Some of our services contain widgets and social media features, such as the Facebook “share” or Twitter “tweet” buttons. These widgets and features collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our website, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Widgets and social media features are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our website. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.

2.3 Law, harm, and the public interest Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Privacy Policy or controls we may otherwise offer you, we may preserve, use, or disclose your personal data if we believe that it is reasonably necessary to comply with applicable law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request; to protect the safety of any person; to protect the safety or integrity of our platform, including to help prevent spam, abuse, or malicious actors on our services, or to explain why we have removed
content or accounts from our services; to address fraud, security, or technical issues; or to protect our rights or property or the rights or property of those who use our services. However, nothing in this Privacy Policy is intended to limit any legal defence or objections that you may have to a third party’s, including a government’s, request to disclose your personal data.

2.4 Non-Personal information We share or disclose non-personal data, such as aggregated information like the community statistics (online users, visitors, current viewers of a topic, etc…), the number of people who clicked on a particular link (number of topic views) or voted on a poll in a topic (even if only one did).

3. How to access and control your information

3.1 Accessing or rectifying your personal data You have the right to request a copy of your information, to object to our use of your information. If you have registered an account on our community, we provide you with tools and account settings to access, correct, delete, or modify the personal data you provided to us and associated with your account. You can request for downloading your account information, including your created content (posts). You can also request correction, deletion, or modification of your personal data. Your request and choices may be limited in certain cases: for example, if fulfilling your request would reveal information about another person, or if you ask to delete information which we or your administrator are permitted by law or have compelling legitimate interests to keep. Where you have asked us to share data with third parties, for example, by installing third-party apps, you will need to contact those third-party service providers directly to have your information deleted or otherwise restricted.

3.2 Deletion of your personal data You can request for your account deletion. This will include personal data, profile data, created content, logs, etc… Cookies should be deleted from your side. Almost all browsers have an option to delete cookies. Keep in mind that search engines and other third parties may still retain copies of your public information, like your profile information, even after we/you have deleted the information from our community.

3.3 Restricted processing

3.3.1 Request that we stop using your information In some cases, you may ask us to stop accessing, storing, using and otherwise processing your information where you believe we do not have the appropriate rights to do so. For example, if you believe a community account was created for you without your permission or you are no longer an active user, you can request that we delete your
account (contact us). Where you had given us consent to use your information for a limited purpose, you can contact us to withdraw that consent, but this will not affect any processing that has already taken place at the time. You can also opt-out of our use of your information for marketing purposes by contacting us. When you make such requests, we may need time to investigate and facilitate your request. If there is delay or dispute as to whether we have the right to continue using your information, we will restrict any further use of your information until the request is honoured or the dispute is resolved, provided your administrator does not object (where applicable). If you object to information about you being shared with a third- party app, please disable the app or contact your administrator to do so.

3.3.2 Opt out of communications You may opt out of receiving email notifications related to your subscribed forums and posts or promotional communications from us by using the unsubscribe link within each email, updating your subscription settings in My Profile, Subscription page, or by contacting us as provided below to have your contact information removed from our promotional email list or registration database. 

3.4 Data portability Data portability is the ability to obtain some of your information in a format you can keep in your devices or share with other communities. Depending on the context, this applies to some of your information, but not to all of your information. Should you request it, we will provide you with an electronic file of your basic account information and the information you create on the spaces under your sole control, like your topics (only with your posts), your replies in other topics, private messages and conversations (only with your messages), etc.

4. How we store and secure information we collect We use data hosting service providers to host the information we collect, and we use technical measures to secure your data. While we implement safeguards designed to protect your information, no security system is impenetrable and due to the inherent nature of the Internet, we cannot guarantee that data, during transmission through the Internet or while stored on our systems or otherwise in our care, is absolutely safe from intrusion by others.

5. Online privacy policy only This online privacy policy applies only to information collected through our website and not to information collected offline.

6. Your consent to this policy By using our site, you consent to our Privacy Policy.

7. Changes to this privacy policy We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page. We will let you know via email and/or a prominent notice on our Privacy Policy page, prior to the change becoming effective and update the “effective date” at the top of this Privacy Policy. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

8. Contact Us. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact the forum administrator.