Privacy Policy

Your account: your email address, the name and handle you write under, and your password (stored only as a one-way hash; nobody at Taleweave can read it). If you add them: a photo, a short bio, the genres you like, and how you want to take part.

What you write and do: stories you open, continuations you submit, drafts in the Writing Studio, comments, votes, recommendations, likes, the writers and stories you follow, writers you block, and reports you send. We keep the last chapter you read in each story so you can pick up where you left off.

Sign-in and safety: for each signed-in device, its IP address and browser (so you can see and end your sessions in Settings), and short-lived counts of requests per IP address to stop abuse.

Your settings: notification and email preferences and privacy choices, on your account. Appearance and reading settings, recent searches and safety copies of drafts stay in your browser, on your device; they never reach us.

Photos and covers you upload are re-encoded when they arrive, which drops their hidden details (camera, place, time).

Only to run Taleweave:

• to sign you in and keep your account secure;
• to show your stories, chapters and comments, and to run rounds and count votes;
• to send the emails you need (confirming your address, resetting your password) and the ones you choose;
• to keep the community safe: reviewing reports, and limiting spam and abuse.

No advertising, no selling or renting your data, no profiling for anyone else, and no tracking across other sites.

Your profile (name, handle, photo, bio) and what you publish are public: stories, canon chapters, comments, and continuations once a round’s ballot is drawn. Writers stay anonymous on the ballot until voting closes, then each continuation shows who wrote it.

Private: your email address, drafts, how you voted, what you’re reading (unless you choose to show it on your profile in Settings), who you’ve blocked, and what you’ve reported. A writer is never told who reported them.

Moderators can see what’s needed to review a report, including content that’s been taken down.

Taleweave runs on its own server: the database, uploaded images and email are all hosted by us, not by a third-party service. Two outside parties are involved:

• Cloudflare sits in front of the site to protect it and deliver it quickly. Every visit passes through it, so it sees your IP address and the pages you request (its privacy policy).
• Your own email provider receives the emails we send you.

We share data with others only if the law requires it.

One cookie keeps you signed in. Cloudflare may set a cookie to tell people from bots. That’s all: no advertising or analytics cookies, so there’s nothing to accept.

Your browser also keeps your appearance and reading settings, reading places, recent searches and draft copies. You can see and clear them in Settings → Account & data.

• Your account and what you publish: until you delete them.
• Signed-in sessions: up to 30 days, or until you sign out.
• Notifications: 90 days once read, a year at most.
• Request counts used against abuse: about a day.
• An account whose email was never confirmed, with nothing written: 30 days.
• Backups of the database: overwritten on a rolling schedule.

• See and download it: Settings → Download your data gives you everything on your account, your writing included, as one file.
• Correct it: edit your profile, email and settings at any time.
• Delete it: deleting your account removes your profile, photo, sign-in, drafts, follows, votes in open rounds, notifications and settings straight away.

Stories are written by many people, so some of your writing stays when you leave: canon chapters, stories you opened, and entries in rounds that have closed remain part of other people’s stories, credited to “a former writer” instead of you. Comments with replies stay as “[deleted]” so the conversation still makes sense. If you want something specific removed, write to us.

You may also have rights under the law where you live (for example in the EU, UK or California): to object, to restrict use, or to complain to a data-protection authority. Write to [email protected] and we’ll answer within 30 days.

Everything travels over an encrypted connection. Passwords are hashed, the database isn’t reachable from the internet, and sign-in attempts are limited. No system is perfect: if something goes wrong that affects your data, we’ll tell you.

Taleweave is for people aged 13 and over (16 in places where the law requires it). If you believe a younger child has an account, tell us and we’ll remove it.

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we’ll tell signed-in writers on the site or by email before it takes effect. Questions about your data: [email protected].