Privacy

Your privacy, in plain words

We collect only what the site needs to work, we do not sell or share it, and you can take it with you or delete it at any time.

Last updated October 23, 2026.

What we collect, and who can see it

Your account: a display name, your email, and your password, which is stored only as a salted hash and cannot be read back. Your email is never shown to other members.
Your growing spaces and journal: what you type into My Soil, including your plan and your observations. Only you can see it. We never store a map pin or an address for a growing space.
Soil quests, your streak and badges: a finished quest is saved as a journal entry, so it is private like the rest of your journal. Your streak of months and your badges are worked out from your own records each time you look, are shown only to you, and are not ranked against anyone. The guess you make before a quest is not saved.
The Exchange: a post shows your display name, a general pickup area and a rounded location (about a kilometer), never an exact address. A message can be read only by you and the person you wrote to. If someone reports a message, an admin can read that message.
Projects, events and challenges: when you sign up, press "I plan to go", or press "Count me in", the public sees only a total. Whoever posted an event, and site admins, can see who plans to go. Site admins can see who joined a challenge, so they can thank people.
Reports: if you report something, the reason you write is seen by admins.
Sign-in attempts: we count failed sign-ins for an email for a short time, so we can lock an account after repeated guesses.

Site admins can see each person's display name, email, role, when they joined and how many posts, events and projects they have, so they can manage accounts. They cannot browse anyone's journal or growing spaces, and can read a message only if it has been reported. If an account is suspended, the person is signed out and cannot sign in, and a record of the admin's action is kept: who did it, when, and a short note. If you delete your account, your name is removed from that record.

The person who runs the site can technically open the database. We use that only to run, fix and moderate the site.

Your location

"Use my location" in the directory works inside your own browser. It is never sent to us or saved.
The soil map lookup sends the spot you click, once, through our server to the USDA soil survey to find the soil map. We do not save the spot. We keep only a note that you made a lookup, and when, so nobody can send too many.
The soil page works the same way without an account: the spot goes to the USDA and is not saved. If you then create an account, only your soil answers (such as "silty" and "drains normally") are carried over, never the spot.

Cookies and tracking

One cookie keeps you signed in. It is marked so scripts cannot read it, and it lasts about 30 days. We use no analytics services, no advertising and no tracking, and the fonts are served from this site. We do keep a few daily totals, such as how many soil lookups were made and how many accounts were started from the soil page, and how many times each soil quest was opened and finished. They hold no location and nothing that says who did what.

Emails we send

A password reset link, only when you ask for one. It works once, within an hour.
An alert when someone messages you on the Exchange, at most one an hour for each conversation. It names who wrote and which post, but not the message itself. You can turn these off on your account page or with the link at the bottom of any alert, without signing in.
A seasonal reminder once a month, starting in March, only if you choose it at sign-up or on your account page. It is off unless you turn it on, and every reminder will have a link to stop them. We note when you said yes.

We send nothing else, and never advertising. We keep a note of when we last sent you a message alert, so we do not send too many, and reset links are stored only in a scrambled form that cannot be turned back into the link.

Other services involved

Cloudflare hosts the site and its database, and sends our emails. Like any host, it processes requests and may log technical details such as your IP address to keep the service running.
OpenStreetMap provides the map pictures. When a page shows a map, your browser asks their servers for those pictures, so they can see your IP address.
USDA receives the spot you choose, if you use the soil map lookup, as described above.

We do not sell your information, and we do not share it with anyone else.

Your choices

Take it with you. On your account page you can download everything we hold about you as a file.
Delete it. You can delete your account there too. Your growing spaces, journal, posts, messages and sign-ups go with it. Things other people rely on, such as a project, an event, volunteer hours or a finished exchange, stay but are changed to "Former member", so nothing identifies you.
Change your password on the same page, or reset it with an email link from the sign-in page.
Turn off email alerts on the same page.

Questions

Ask through the site, or see the About page. If this page changes in a way that matters, the date at the top will change.