Privacy policy

Your privacy is important to us, and our policy is simple: we will collect no personally identifiable information about you when you visit Energypedia unless you log in as a registered user.
Data of registered users is only visible for other registered and logged in users. This does also include all information stated as “publicly available” or “publicly identifiable” in the paragraphs below. For not logged in visitors personal data of registered users, such as the profile page will not be available, any edits etc. will be displayed as anonymous.

Cookies

The sites set a temporary session cookie on a visitor's computer whenever a page is visited. Readers who do not intend to log in or edit may deny this cookie; it will be deleted at the end of the browser's session. More cookies may be set when one logs in to maintain logged-in status. If one saves a user name or password in one's browser, that information will be saved for up to 30 days, and this information will be resent to the server on every visit. Contributors using a public machine who do not wish to show their username to future users of the machine should clear these cookies after use.

Identification of an author

Edits to energypedia pages are identified with your username, and editing history is aggregated by author in a contribution list. Such information will be available permanently for logged in users on Energypedia.

Publishing on the wiki

Energypedia is collaboratively developed by its users using the MediaWiki software. Anyone with Internet access (and not otherwise restricted from doing so) may edit the publicly editable pages of these sites with logging in as a registered user (including all pages e.g. articles, discussion pages, visible profile pages). By doing this, editors create a published document, and a public record of every word added, subtracted, or changed. This is a public act, and editors are identified publicly (visible for logged in users only) as the author of such changes. All contributions made, and all publicly available information about those contributions, are irrevocably licensed and may be freely copied, quoted, reused and adapted by third parties with few restrictions under the CC-BY-SA license.

Discussions

On energypedia discussion pages: Any editable page can theoretically be the location of a discussion. In general, discussions on energypedia occur on user talk pages (associated with particular users) or on article talk pages (associated with particular articles). Privacy expectations apply to discussion pages in the same way as they do elsewhere.
Via board: Users can send board messages to other users through energypedia. When receiving a board message from other users through this system, one's email address is not revealed to them. Private correspondence between users may be saved at those users' discretion and is not subject to Energypedia policy.

Page history

Edits or other contributions to articles, user pages and talk pages are generally retained forever. Removing text from a project does not permanently delete it. Normally, anyone can look at a previous version of an article and see what was there. Even if an article is "deleted", a user entrusted with higher level of access may still see what was removed from public view. Information can be permanently deleted by individuals with access (administrator) to Energypedia servers, but aside from the rare circumstance when energypedia is required to delete editing-history material in response to a court order or equivalent legal process, there is no guarantee any permanent deletion will happen.

E-Mail notification

All kind of e-mail notification (e.g. news blog, board message, discussion thread) can be disabled within the personal preferences. However, in particular situations the administrator will still be able to contact you via e-mail even though notifications are switched off.

User data

Users are required to provide their name (see Publishing on the wiki) and a valid email address when registering. The email address put into one's user preferences may be used by Energypedia for communication with the user. Users whose accounts do no longer have a valid email address will not be able to reset their password if it is lost. In such a situation, however, users may be able to contact one of the Energypedia administrators to enter a new e-mail address.
You can always change and delete your personal data (except the account see Removal of user accounts) on your personal profile.

Password

Users select a password, which is confidential and used to verify the integrity of their account. Except insofar as it may be required by law, no person should disclose, or knowingly expose, either user passwords and/or cookies generated to identify a user.

Energypedia will never ask you for your password.
Passwords are encrypted, they are neither disclosed to energypedia staff nor to administrators. 

Purpose of the collection of private information

Energypedia limits the collection of personally identifiable user data to purposes which serve the well-being of its project, including but not limited to the following:
To enhance the public accountability of the project. Energypedia recognizes that any system that is open enough to allow the greatest possible participation of the general public will also be vulnerable to certain kinds of abuse and counterproductive behavior. Energypedia has established a number of mechanisms to prevent or remedy abusive activities. For example, when investigating abuse on a project, including the suspected use of malicious “sockpuppets” (duplicate accounts), vandalism, harassment of other users, or disruptive behavior, the IP addresses of users (derived either from those logs or from records in the database) may be used to identify the source(s) of the abusive behavior.
To provide site statistics. Energypedia statistically samples raw log data from users' visits. These logs are used to produce the site statistics pages; the raw log data is not made public.
To solve technical problems. Log data may be examined by developers in the course of solving technical problems and in tracking down badly-behaved web spiders that overwhelm the site.

Removal of user accounts

Once created, user accounts will not be removed. It may be possible for a username to be changed. Energypedia does not guarantee that a name will be changed on request.

Information sharing and transferring

We will not share with or transfer to any third party information about you except in the following circumstances (or if we reasonably believe such circumstances apply):

• It is required by law, a competent judicial authority, an authorized law enforcement entity or government agency;
• It is for the purpose of legal or dispute resolution proceedings of any kind between you and us, other users or third parties in relation to the Energypedia network or its content;
• The information is not personal information, and it is shared or transferred as an anonymous, statistic or aggregative information.

Security of information

The energypedia team makes no guarantee against unauthorized access to any information you provide. This information may be available to anyone with access to the servers. However, SSL is enabled on all energypedia pages to secure users’ information and communications.

Changes to this policy

We may change all or part of this Privacy Policy at any time by displaying the updated policy here, and if the changes are material we will provide a prominent notice of such changes on the Energypedia network.

Last update

This Privacy Policy was last updated on August, 27, 2011.

Contact information

Questions or comments regarding the web site should be sent by e-mail to energypedia