privacy
Privacy
What this site collects, what it does not, and what happens when you submit a form. Written to be read, not to be skipped.
Last updated 22 September 2026
The short version
- No analytics. No Google Analytics, no Plausible, no pixels, no heatmaps.
- No cookies. This site sets none at all, which is why you were never asked about them.
- No third-party scripts. No ad networks, no social embeds, no external fonts.
- No accounts, no mailing list. There is nothing to sign up for.
- Nothing is sold or shared with anyone, for any purpose.
You can read this entire site without giving up anything. The only time information leaves your device is when you choose to submit a form or press a like button — both explained below.
What is stored on your device
Three small values are saved in your browser's local storage. They stay on your device. They are never transmitted to this site, to us, or to anyone else — there is no server that could receive them.
| Name | What it holds | Why |
|---|---|---|
| tst-reading | Which articles you have opened and how far you scrolled. | Shows your "read" badges and your progress count. |
| tst-theme | Which reading theme you picked (dark, midnight, light, sepia). | Keeps the site looking the way you left it. |
| tst-stars | Which subjects you starred in the Learn menu. | Decides which subjects the home page shows you. |
Because this is per-device, your reading history on your phone is separate from your laptop, and clearing your browser's site data erases it permanently. We cannot restore it, because we never had it.
When you submit a form
There are two: the contact form, and the "Request a correction" form on each article. Both work the same way — your submission is filed as an issue in this site's GitHub repository, and GitHub's own notification is what reaches the owner. There is no separate mailing system and no database of enquiries.
Read this before typing your email address. If the repository is public, the issue your submission creates is public too — including any email address you put in the form. The email field is optional on both forms, and everything works without it. Leave it blank unless you want a reply.
What is sent
- Contact form: your name, the subject you picked from the list, your message, and your email if you supplied one.
- Correction form: what you say is wrong, what it should say, an optional source link, and your email if you supplied one.
Your IP address
Your IP address is used only to stop the forms being flooded — one submission per address per minute. It is held briefly in a temporary cache to count that limit and then expires on its own. It is not written to any database, not included in the issue, and not used to identify you.
When you press like or dislike
A vote has to be counted once per person, which normally means identifying people. This site does it without storing anything that identifies you.
Your IP address and browser name are combined with the article's address and a secret key held only on the server, then put through a one-way cryptographic hash. Only that hash is stored. Your IP address is never written down.
Because the article's address is part of the hash, the same person produces a different value on every article. The stored votes therefore cannot be grouped back together into one person's reading history — not by us, and not by anyone who obtained the data.
Downloads and outside links
Downloadable files are served directly and are not counted, gated or tracked — no email is ever required to get one. Links to other sites are exactly that; once you follow one, that site's own privacy policy applies and this one does not.
Companies involved
Two, and only because the site has to run somewhere:
- Cloudflare hosts and delivers the site. Like any web host it necessarily handles your IP address to send you pages and to block attacks. See Cloudflare's privacy policy.
- GitHub receives form submissions, because that is where they become issues. See GitHub's privacy statement.
Your choices
- Erase what is on your device: clear your browser's site data for this site, or use the "Clear history" control on the Learn page. Immediate, and it needs no request to us.
- Remove something you submitted: ask through the contact form and the issue will be edited or deleted.
- Ask what is held about you: same route. In practice the answer is whatever is in issues you chose to file, because nothing else is kept.
This site is not aimed at children and asks for no personal information to read anything.
Changes to this notice
If what the site does changes, this page changes with it and the date at the top moves. There is no mailing list to notify, so the date is the honest signal — check it if you want to know whether anything moved.
Questions about any of this go through the contact form.