Forum privacy & data

What is public

Your username, your posts, your public User ID, your join date, your post count and any profile tag you set. Public forum pages can be indexed by search engines and copied by other people. Please do not post health details that identify you.

What stays private

Your email address, your password (stored only as a one-way hash), short salted identifiers derived from your IP address, your direct messages, and your account and moderation status. Direct messages are visible to the people in the conversation; moderators see a message only when it is reported.

When something is not working for you, a site administrator can view the site as your account sees it, read-only, for up to 30 minutes, to find the fault. They cannot post, change your settings or mark anything as read, and your direct messages are not shown. Every such view is recorded. Moderators cannot do this.

Signing in with Google

If you join or sign in with Google, Google tells the forum your email address, that Google has verified it, and an account ID Google uses for you. The forum keeps the email address and that ID, and you choose your own username. It does not receive your Google password or anything else in your Google account. You can remove the forum’s access in your Google account settings at any time; your forum account stays, and “Forgot password” on the sign-in page sets a password for it.

Health information

CERNERE never asks about your health. If you choose to mention your own health in a post or message, that is your choice, which you confirmed when you joined, and posts are public. To take something back, delete the post yourself (the Delete link under your post), ask us to remove posts or messages (Report, or email privacy@cernere.xyz), or delete your account; after deletion your posts stay under “Deleted member”, so ask us about any that could still identify you by what they say. Please never post someone else’s health information.

Notifications, follows and settings

The forum keeps your notifications (for up to 180 days after you read them), who you follow (never shown to anyone else), the discussions you watch, your direct-message setting and your email choices. It also keeps a record of when you agreed to the rules and, if you opted in to announcement emails, when you did.

Why it is kept

Email is for verifying your account, resetting your password, the notification emails you choose in Notification settings, and announcements if you opted in. Every notification or announcement email has a one-click unsubscribe. Salted IP identifiers and rate-limit records fight spam and abuse without storing raw IP addresses in the forum. Reports keep a private snapshot of what was reported, and earlier versions of edited posts are kept for moderators, so that moderation decisions can be reviewed.

Cookies

The forum sets fc_forum when you open the sign-in or registration page, to protect those forms and then keep you signed in until you close the browser. If you tick "remember me", fc_forum_remember keeps you signed in on that device for 30 days. Neither is used for analytics. Every cookie is listed in the cookie policy.

Analytics

Forum pages report page views and outbound link clicks to the site's own analytics log, the same as the rest of the site. Your forum account is never attached to those records, so the log cannot link you by name to what you read. Moderation and direct-message pages are never reported. Nothing goes to a third-party analytics or advertising service.

Backups and email

Private database backups are kept above the public web folder. An older backup can still hold data that was later changed or deleted until that backup is removed. Emails the forum sends pass briefly through its mail queue; old queue rows are cleared automatically.

Your controls

From Your account you can change your email, block members from messaging you, or delete your account. It closes at once; once the deletion has been dealt with, it removes your private account details and direct messages. Public posts stay, shown as Deleted member, so other people's conversations still make sense. If you need a specific post removed, report it or email privacy@cernere.xyz.

No website can recall an email already delivered or erase copies of public text that someone else has saved, quoted or indexed.