Privacy
At the moment this website is actively hidden from search engines. However, it is not private. It was my intention to make some areas private, available only to Owners and residents, after an initial period of a week or two, but this was dependent on the response of Owners and residents to the website. However, to put it bluntly, there has been little public response to this website from Owners and residents — other than the fact that some of you are obviously checking in and reading occasionally, judging by the web server statistics — so there isn’t really anything here to protect from outside eyes at the moment. In short, if you’re not signing up and signing in, there are no privacy concerns. Should that change, this “privacy policy” (if you can call it that) will change too.
When you register you will be asked to provide a user name and email address. Your email address will not be spammed. (I live in the same building as you!) Once you log in using the password that is emailed to you (which you can change), you will see a profile page. You can fill in some, all or none of the available fields in your profile. However, this isn’t meant to be an anonymous website, so please at least use your real first name. (For example, if your name is Jane Doe, “JaneD” would be a good user name.) If you want to use “sparklybabe” or “superstud”, you’re on the wrong website! 🙂
Due to limitations inherent in the software used to run this website, I can’t keep the IP addresses of people who post comments — i.e., responses to blog posts — completely private. They are not displayed publicly, but Owners and residents who complete the sign-up process will be able to see them when they log in. However, there are two things to note about this:
- An IP address, on its own, does not tell anyone anything about you. About the best people can do is tell roughly in what part of the city you live (but, uh, we already know that on this website!) and who your ISP or network provider is.
- However, your IP address is sent with every email you write, so people can connect the dots if they want to. If “Bob” sends an email to “Jane”, and she notes the IP address in his email, and then later sees that someone posting on this website from that IP address is writing about her, she can deduce that that person is probably “Bob” even if “Bob” has not signed in and identified himself. So the moral of the story, and one I’m quite comfortable with on this website, is: “Don’t write on this website nasty things or things that might otherwise get you into trouble with your neighbours unless you’re prepared to back up what you say or stand up and say them in a meeting.” That seems like a pretty reasonable maxim to me for life in general, and on this website in particular I don’t want ad hominem attacks.
Summing up:
- Your email address will not be spammed, although you may get a rare email directly related to the operation of your account on this website.
Some parts of this website will become private to Owners and residents only by the middle of October.(See comments above.)- Please pick a user name that reflects your first name.
- Don’t post any private information (such as your full name, unit number, phone number, email address, bank account number, shoe size, etc.) in public parts of the website.
- Your IP address may be visible to some users if you post comments, but only to users who sign up and sign in.