MicroWiki:User accounts

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User accounts on MicroWiki are a personalized profile created by an individual to participate in the editing MicroWiki. Each user account is unique and allows individuals to contribute content, interact with other users, and personalize their experience on the platform. User accounts serve as a gateway to engage in discussions, edit articles, and collaborate on community projects. They also provide users with tools to manage their contributions and preferences effectively. Creating a user account is free and straightforward, requiring only a valid email address and adherence to our code of conduct.

This policy is currently a work in progress, but it is an amalgamation of other policies and guidelines, so all parts of it are

There are some considerations one should keep in mind when creating an account.

Data linked to your account

Accounts are objects represented in the MicroWiki database and MediaWiki codebase. Accounts have various metadata and links from other objects to them. While these details might not be of concern to most editors, there are some constraints the software places on us that make certain actions difficult or impossible.

Names

Accounts are identifiable in the database by a sequential identifier (ID) and the user name. User names are globally unique. We place some constraints on allowed user names, as elaborated upon below. Administrators can change a user name, and name changes are routinely provided for privacy concerns.

Passwords

Passwords are securely stored in the database in a hashed and salted format according to current best security practices. MediaWiki codebase is routinely updated with new best practices in mind and checked for vulnerabilities by hundreds of expert software contributors. No MicroWiki admin knows your password, and no MicroWiki staff member would ever ask you for your password.

For your own security, it is recommended to use an unique password for MicroWiki, ideally coupled with password manager software to ensure your account cannot be compromised by leaks of third party websites where you might reuse the same login credentials. In the unlikely event of the MicroWiki database being compromised, we would notify all our users of the leak occurring, but given the nature of the storage of the passwords, there would not be many concerns of them being cracked in the foreseeable future. General rules and suggestions for password complexity apply. If you use a simple password, you are running a risk of your account becoming compromised.

In special cases, passwords can be changed manually by technical administrators of the Wiki. Keep in mind this is a complicated process and it is better to add an e-mail to your user account to be able to retrieve your account.

Personal data

Personal data attached to the account may include an email (if provided), user name (if sufficiently identifiable), IP addresses associated with edits, locale settings (language settings), real name (if filled) and contents of any edits or comments the user account has created. We take your privacy very seriously, and we will never publish any of the information to third parties without your consent (or likely, at all). We reserve the right to provide such information to law enforcement agencies located in the European Union, provided it is in compliance with current legislation and is authentic.

Other personal data can be linked through connected applications, for which the MicroWiki Foundation takes no responsibility.

Blocks

Blocks, or colloquially bans, prevent users from editing for a specified amount of time.

Account deletion

Due to the constraints of the software, we are not able to delete user accounts. We are able to rename your user account if it contains any identifiable information, but deleting an account is impossible.

Contributions

Contributions represent a user account's edits to pages of the Wiki. Through page revisions, they are individually linked to a user creating the contribution. We advise our users to take into account what they put on-line, as their privacy can potentially be at risk. Avoid detailed personal information on yourself or others, and focus more on the micronational aspect.

Contributions cannot be deleted, but they can be hidden by the administrators, if there is a high risk of misuse by bad actors. Requests for hiding of contributions are made on a case by case basis, and we ask our users to be specific which pages should be focused on and ideally specific revisions we need to take into account. We are not able to mass hide revisions containing specific text, and it needs to be done on a manual revision by revision basis. We ask the requesting users to help us, as it will expedite the process and lead to a more satisfactory situation for all parties concerned.

Policy

Account names

  • MicroWiki users are encouraged to pick a personalized name for their user account, be it their on-line nickname or their actual name. We do not recommend using user account names containing the name of their micronation, and we especially discourage using titles in the names.
    • The users are encouraged to use pseudonyms or nicknames they use commonly on the internet.
    • While not disallowed, unnecessarily long names are discouraged.
  • Inflammatory names, as per the code of conduct, will result in an account block.
  • Deceptive names impersonating certain people or user roles will result in an account block.

Account sharing

  • Sharing an account is strictly forbidden. Shared accounts can be blocked, as per the blocking policy on public accounts.
    • There is nothing to be gained from sharing an account, and you are running a risk of losing access to it or the Wiki as a whole if anyone else using the account changes the password or violates any MicroWiki policies.