TWC Wiki:Privacy policy

Privacy Advice Specific to the TWC Wiki

See here for the Privacy Policy applicable to the Total War Center forums.

The TWC Wiki is stored on the same servers as the Total War Center and the same general policy applies, however there are additional privacy issues applicable to the TWC Wiki due to the way the MediaWiki software functions. See the MediaWiki Privacy Policy for more advice specific to MediaWiki software.

The most important thing to note is that if you make an edit to the TWC Wiki without being logged in your IP address is automatically recorded on the articles history page. That information is available to any viewer. The following advice is taken from the MediaWiki Privacy Policy:

When you publish a page in the wiki, you may be logged in or not.

If you are logged in, you will be identified by your user name. This may be your real name if you so choose, or you may choose to publish under a pseudonym, whatever user name you selected when you created your account.

If you have not logged in, you will be identified by your network IP address. This is a series of four numbers which identifies the Internet address from which you are contacting the wiki. Depending on your connection, this number may be traceable only to a large Internet service provider, or specifically to your school, place of business, or home. It may be possible that the origin of this IP address could be used in conjunction with any interests you express implicitly or explicitly by editing articles to identify you even by private individuals.

It may be either difficult or easy for a motivated individual to connect your network IP address with your real-life identity. Therefore if you are very concerned about privacy, you may wish to log in and publish under a pseudonym.

When using a pseudonym, your IP address will not be available to the public except in cases of abuse, including vandalism of a wiki page by you or by another user with the same IP address. In all cases, your IP address will be stored on the wiki servers and can be seen by Wikimedia's server administrators and by users who have been granted "CheckUser" access. Your IP address, and its connection to any usernames that share it may be released under certain circumstances (see below).

If you use a company mail server from home or telecommute and use a DSL or cable Internet connection, it is likely to be very easy for your employer to identify your IP address and find all of your IP based Wikimedia project contributions. Using a user name is a better way of preserving your privacy in this situation. However, remember to log out or disconnect yourself after each session using a pseudonym on a shared computer, to avoid allowing others to use your identity.

You do not need to provide an Email address or any other personal information in order to create a user account on the TWC Wiki. Most users of the TWC Wiki are also existing forum users and many use the same user name as on the forum, this is helpful but not compulsory. You may find that your forum name and password is already valid for use on the wiki, the system attempts to make all forum accounts useable on the wiki as well, but this may not work for some types of username. If you cannot get your existing forum username to work on the wiki please feel free to create a separate account here.