What I keep, and who can see it

You can read every page here without an account and without telling me anything. This page is about what happens when you make an account or send me a note, and about how I count visits.

What an account keeps

Your email address.
The name you chose to show with your posts.
What you posted.
What you liked, unliked and reported.
Whether you ticked "Email me news from Liberty Politics", and when.
If you told me you make videos: that, and the link to your channel.
If you tapped Save on Call the Midterms or on a coalition calculator: that call, as it is written in the page's address, the page, and when you saved it.

I never see your password. It is kept scrambled, in a form nobody here can read.

Where it is kept

In Firebase, a service run by Google, in an account that only the people who run this site can open.

Who can see what

Everyone: what you posted, the name you chose, how many likes and unlikes a post has, and how many readers made each call on Beat the Betting Markets (counts only). Your own record there (your name, your score and your best calls) only if you switch it to public.
Nobody but you and the people who run this site: your email address, what you liked, unliked and reported, the calls you saved, the calls you made on Beat the Betting Markets while your record is private, and whether you ticked the news box.

Other readers cannot see who liked a post. The author of a post cannot see who reported it.

I do not sell any of this, and I do not pass it on to anyone.

Emails from me

One email when you make an account with a password, to check that the address is yours. One if you ask to reset your password. Nothing else, unless you ask for news.

Making an account does not put you on a mailing list. Ticking "Email me news from Liberty Politics" does. The box starts empty, and I keep the date and time you ticked it. News is one email a week at most.

To stop the news, untick it: tap your name at the top of any page, clear the box, and save. You are off the list from that moment.

The list is never shared with any other site.

What you send through the box

What you send through the box at the bottom of a page is a post. It shows on the page it is about, under the name you chose. That goes for a correction, a bug or an idea as much as for an opinion or a video, and for an answer to another reader.

A correction, a bug, something I missed or an idea also goes to a form that the people who run this site read, so that somebody acts on it. That copy carries the page you sent it from, your name, your email address and the number of your account, so that I can tell a reader from a machine. When you report a post, the reason you picked goes to the same form without your name or your email.

What stays on your own device

A note you have written and not sent yet, so that it is still there after you make an account. And the fact that you are signed in, until you sign out.

On the panel application: what you have typed and not sent yet, so it is still there when you come back with your video, and the day you sent it. Sending clears the draft.

An application to come on the show

The panel application needs no account. What you send (your name, your email, the link to your video and the answers you chose) is kept in the same Firebase account, where only the people who run this site can read it. Nobody can read it back from a page, you included. Armin Navabi, who hosts the show, reads it to decide, and the answer comes to the email you gave. Ask in the discussion on that page and I delete it.

Other places these pages load from

The pages are served by GitHub, which like any host sees the address your device connects from. The lettering comes from Google Fonts. A video that a reader shared shows its picture from YouTube; the video itself loads from YouTube, X or Instagram only after you tap it.

There is no advertising here.

How I count visits

I count how many people open each page, which site sent them here, and roughly where they are: the country and the city, never a street. Google Analytics does the counting.

It also counts a few steps, never who took them: a tap through to the show, the community, the newsletter or the gift page, a new account, a yes to the newsletter, a call saved to an account and an application to the panel.

I do not give it your name or your email address. Like any host, it sees the address your device connects from.

Google Analytics puts a small file, a cookie, on your device so that your second visit is not counted as a new person. If you are in the European Union, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein, no such file is set.

I use the numbers to see what to fix. I do not use them for advertising, and I have told Google not to either.

The two short addresses

The hosts give out two short addresses on the show: LibertyPolitics.com/join and LibertyPolitics.com/panel. Each time one is used, it adds one to that day's total, along with which of my own links was followed (the one under a video, for example). It is a number in the same Firebase account. It holds nothing about who you are, where you are or what device you use.

Deleting it

Tap your name at the top of any page, then "Delete my account". That removes what you posted, your likes, unlikes and reports, the calls you saved and made, and the account itself, there and then. A call on a market that has already closed, and your record on Beat the Markets, go within the hour.

The copies of corrections, bugs and ideas in the form are kept apart. Ask in the discussion about this site and I delete those too.

Reaching me

Post it in the discussion about this site and pick "Correction".