Privacy

When you leave a comment I store the name you typed, the comment itself, your email address, the date, and which piece it was left on.

Your email address is never shown on the site and never given to anyone. It is there for one reason: a first comment does not appear until you open a link I send to that address, which is what keeps the page free of automated junk. The address is also stored as a one-way hash so I can recognise you the next time without looking it up.

The email you get carries a link that deletes your comment. That link works for 24 hours.

When you sign the guestbook I store the name you typed, the place if you gave one, your one line, your email address, the date, and the mark if you drew one.

Your email address is never shown. I read every entry before it appears, and I send you one email: the one that tells you your entry is on the page. Sign a second time from the same address and no second entry is added; if the first is already on the page, I resend its deletion link.

A mark is stored as a list of whole numbers — where the line went, and nothing else. No timing of any kind is recorded with it. It is a doodle, and it is not treated as a signature.

That email carries a link to your entry and a link that deletes it. The deletion link never expires, and using it removes the entry completely — nothing of it is kept.

The guestbook asks search engines not to index it.

What I will and will not publish:

• I don't publish entries about other people, entries claiming to be someone else, or entries with a link in them.
• I read every entry myself before it goes up, and I look at every mark at full size.
• I take any entry down when the person asks.
• Please don't sign this if you are under 16.

When you sign the statement at the end of the Wildfire essay, or on the petition’s own page, I store the name you typed, your mobile number, the language you signed in, the date, the page you signed on, the statement as you saw it, and the sentence about texts you agreed to, both word for word, with the time you agreed.

The ZIP code is optional. If you give one, I store it with the ward it points to, or with the ward you picked instead. The map on the petition is drawn from how many have signed in each ward: each dot is placed at random in its ward, never where anyone lives, and no ZIP code is ever shown.

Your number gets these texts from this site and nothing more. A six-digit code comes each time you ask for one, to show the phone is yours. If the sentence you agreed to included them, up to three messages come when the count passes 100, 500 and 1,000 signatures; people who signed under an earlier sentence get none. One message comes when Wildfire opens. After you sign, that is at most four texts.

All of them are sent from Wildfire’s own number, through Wildfire’s account with Microsoft’s Azure Communication Services, which is given your number and the words of the text, and nothing else. A reply to any of these texts goes to Wildfire’s number. Your name and your number are never shown on the site. The count and the map show how many have signed, never who.

The link in the message when Wildfire opens fills in your name, your ZIP code and your ward on Wildfire’s sign-up page, in a form only Wildfire can read, so you do not type them again. They reach Wildfire only if you open the link.

Your name and your mobile number are never sold, and never used for any campaign. Apart from the link to Wildfire, your name is never given to anyone, including the city or any elected official. Your number and your agreement to be texted are never shared with anyone for marketing or for anything but sending these texts.

The code itself is never written down by this site: only a one-way hash of it is kept, and that is deleted the moment you type the code. If you never type it, the name, number and ZIP code you typed are deleted automatically, about a day after the code runs out.

Once the message when Wildfire opens has gone, your number and your ZIP code are deleted. Your name, the date and your ward stay, still never shown, as the record of who signed, with a one-way hash of your number, so the same phone cannot sign twice and a STOP still finds your name.

The picture you can share after signing is drawn on your own phone or computer from what the page already has; nothing goes to this site or anyone else to make it. It carries the sentence, the count, the map, the day you signed, your ward if you gave one and a QR code that opens the petition, never your name or your number.

When you write to me from the About page, what you typed — your name, your email address, your office if you gave one, the line you chose and your message — goes to my own inbox by email. This site keeps no copy of any of it.

Your email address is set as the one my reply goes to. The site sends nothing back to you, and your address is never shown or given to anyone.

When you post a comment, sign the guestbook, write to me or ask for a code to sign the petition, your network address is turned into a one-way hash and only the hash is stored. It is used to count how often one person has posted, written or asked in an hour and in a day, and for nothing else. The address itself is never written down and never appears in a log.

When you open a page here, the page tells this site's own server that it was opened; on an essay it also says how far down you read and for how long, whether you shared a passage, which link you followed from the home page, whether you clicked through to Wildfire, and whether you started and finished signing the guestbook or writing a comment. If you opened the page by scanning the code on a printed poster, it also says which poster. Some copies are made for one particular place and carry their own code, so a scan of one of those also says the place. None of what you type is sent. With that the server keeps the page, the time, where the link came from if your browser says so, whether you are on a phone, and the country, state and city your network address points to, looked up from a file on this server and never sent anywhere. The address itself is turned into a one-way hash with a key that changes every day, is used only to tell one visitor from another on that day and to stop one address sending too many, and is never written down. No cookie is set and nothing is stored in your browser for this. The counts are kept for thirteen months and are read by me alone, with one exception: once the posters' codes have been scanned 25 times, the posters page shows how many times. Each person is counted once a day for each code, and the number says nothing about who scanned a code or where. That total, and the totals for each poster and each place, are only numbers and are not deleted after thirteen months. If you would rather not be counted, open any page here with ?me on the end of the address; your browser then keeps a note to send nothing, and that note is the only thing this puts in your browser. This site includes GeoLite2 data created by MaxMind, available from www.maxmind.com.

This site runs on Microsoft’s Azure. What it keeps is stored there, and its emails are sent from there. The petition’s texts are sent through Wildfire’s own Azure account.

A published comment or entry stays until you delete it or ask me to. Something you started and never confirmed is not published and is deleted when I next tidy up. A guestbook entry you remove is deleted there and then: the record of it goes, and nothing of it is kept. A comment you or I remove is marked removed and stops being served; I clear those out along with everything else.

The rate-limit counters hold a hash and a number and are meaningless after their hour or their day.

Use the link in the email — that is the fastest way, and it needs nothing from me.

To take your name off the petition, reply STOP to any of these texts. Your name, number, ZIP code and ward are deleted, and nothing more is sent to you from Wildfire’s number, Wildfire’s own texts included.

If you have lost the email, write to me and I will take it down. You do not have to explain why.

No advertising, no tracking pixels, no fonts loaded from anyone else's server, no embedded video, no social buttons and no cookies that follow you anywhere. The one cookie this site can set is the token that says your email address has already been confirmed, and it is only ever sent back to this site.

This site is not meant for children under 13. If I learn that a comment, a guestbook entry, a signature or a message came from a child under 13, I delete it.

Last changed October 1, 2026. When this page changes, that date changes with it. A change never applies to anything you gave me before it, unless I ask you first.