Plain-language summary. Bluelearn is a free, open, nonprofit education platform. To read, you don't even need an account. To contribute, you make an account and your contributions become part of a public, openly-licensed record. We don't track you across the web and we don't run ads.
1 · Who we are
This policy covers bluelearn.org and the Bluelearn platform, operated by The Bluelearn Project, which is in the process of incorporating as a California nonprofit public benefit corporation. Until incorporation completes, the project is stewarded by its founding maintainers. When the entity is formed, this policy will name it as the data controller.
2 · What we collect
Account & authentication
If you create an account, we store the email address and credentials you sign up with, handled through our authentication provider. We use this to sign you in and to attribute your contributions.
Contributions & activity
When you write or edit a guide, propose a method or alternative, or cast a vote, we store that content and the actions tied to your account, including the full, append-only revision history. Downvotes are recorded with the rubric reason you select. This is core to how the platform works and how editorial quality is maintained.
Technical data
Like any website, our hosting and content-delivery layer processes basic request data (IP address, browser/user-agent, timestamps) to serve pages, prevent abuse, and keep the service secure.
Volunteer hours (optional)
Our volunteer-hours tool encrypts contributor identity end-to-end (sealed-box encryption). The link between a logged hour and a person is not readable by us in plaintext. Logging hours is entirely optional.
What we don't collect
No third-party advertising identifiers, no cross-site behavioral tracking, no sale of personal data, ever. These are binding commitments in our governance principles, not just preferences.
3 · How we use it
- Run your account: authentication, sessions, and account settings.
- Attribute contributions: the public credit and edit history that open knowledge depends on.
- Maintain editorial quality: votes, verifier and moderator review, and dispute handling.
- Keep the service safe: preventing spam, abuse, and security threats.
We do not use your data to build advertising profiles, and we do not feed it to advertisers or data brokers.
4 · Public by design
Bluelearn is an open knowledge commons. Your published contributions, your public username, and the edit history of guides are a public record, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Vote totals are public; the detailed rubric breakdown behind them is visible only to moderators. Please don't put information in a guide, a profile, or a public field that you wouldn't want to be permanent and public.
5 · Cookies
We keep cookies minimal. We use an essential session cookie to keep you signed in, and a small like cookie (paired with your observed IP) so the blog's like button can't be spammed by the same visitor. We do not use third-party advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. Full detail lives on our cookie page.
6 · Service providers
We rely on a small set of providers to run the platform. Each processes data only to provide their service to us:
- Supabase: database, authentication, and storage.
- Cloudflare: hosting, content delivery, and edge functions.
- Sanity: content management for our blog.
- Discord: our community server (governed by Discord's own privacy policy).
We choose providers that let us honor the commitments in this policy and we keep the list as short as possible.
7 · Retention & deletion
We keep personal data only as long as needed to run your account and the service. You can request deletion at any time.
Because votes and edits affect a shared graph that other people rely on, deleting an account anonymizes your graph-affecting interactions rather than erasing them outright. Your name comes off; the structural contribution stays. In narrow cases, the law requires us to preserve specific content (for example, legally-mandated preservation orders); where that applies, we hold the minimum required for the minimum time and document it.
8 · Your rights
Depending on where you live (including under GDPR and CCPA/CPRA), you may have the right to access, correct, export, or delete your personal data, and to object to or restrict certain processing. We honor these rights for everyone, regardless of location, as far as we're able. To exercise them, contact us using the details below.
9 · Children
Bluelearn is open knowledge that anyone can read, but accounts and contribution are intended for users who meet the minimum age in their jurisdiction (generally 13, or higher where local law requires). We don't knowingly collect personal data from children below that age; if you believe we have, contact us and we'll remove it.
10 · Changes to this policy
If we make material changes, we'll update the date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, give notice in the community. Continued use after changes take effect means you accept the updated policy.
11 · Contact
Questions, requests, or concerns about privacy? Email privacy@bluelearn.org or reach us in #site-feedback on Discord. We read everything.