Privacy
Effective 2026-10-16. This page describes what the running code does. It is written by the operator and has not been reviewed by a lawyer.
Who
Phlogiston is run by one individual in the United States (unpingable) who decides what it stores, why and for how long. Your Bluesky account, posts and identity stay with Bluesky; Phlogiston does not host them.
What Phlogiston keeps, and for how long
| What | Why | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Your sign-in session (your account identifier, a form-protection token and the permissions you granted) | Keep you signed in | 8 hours, then swept within the hour |
| Bluesky sign-in tokens | Read your timeline and act when you ask | Until you sign out, or 8 hours after your last session ends. Then Phlogiston asks Bluesky to revoke them and deletes them |
| Unfinished sign-ins | Complete the sign-in | 1 hour |
| Personal feeds, conversations you hid here, your conversation-control history, which community conversations you have read | Features you use | Until you delete them or use Delete my Phlogiston data |
| Submission drafts and write journals (the exact record being created or deleted, including post text, so an interrupted write can be reconciled without duplication) | Submitting to the Cabinet and optional content interaction | Submission drafts expire after 30 days. Each finished journal operation, including its post text, is kept until it finishes plus 30 days. Unfinished operations remain until they finish or you use Delete my Phlogiston data |
| Cabinet submissions and the moderator’s decisions, including any private reason for a decline or removal | Running the community and accounting for moderation | As long as the Cabinet runs. Ask to have a private reason deleted |
| A mirror of public Bluesky records relevant to the Cabinet | Showing the collection and conversations | As long as the Cabinet runs; it is public data and can be rebuilt |
| Your display theme | Light or dark mode | A cookie in your browser, 1 year |
| Your pane layout | Side-by-side reading | Your browser’s local storage only, until you clear it or use Delete my Phlogiston data |
| Your account-specific grouping Labs choice | Optional reading comparison | Browser local storage until reset, cleared, or Delete my Phlogiston data |
Phlogiston does not log your requests or keep an access log, and it has no analytics, trackers, ads or third-party scripts. System logs on the server last a few days and contain errors, not browsing. Phlogiston makes no backups of the data above, so deleted data is not restored later.
Cookies: community_session (sign-in, 8 hours), community_login (during sign-in, 10 minutes) and phlogiston_display (theme, 1 year). All three are strictly necessary for what you asked for, so there is no cookie banner.
Who else sees what
- Bluesky (your account provider and its app view): your sign-in, the reads you ask for, mutes you set, submission records, and any likes, reposts, posts or replies you explicitly ask Phlogiston to write or undo.
- Bluesky’s image and video servers: your browser loads post images and videos directly from them, so they see your IP address. Phlogiston sends no referrer.
- Bluesky’s public API and the PLC directory: Phlogiston’s server looks up public profiles, posts and account identities. These lookups don’t carry your identity.
- Labelwatch (same operator): Phlogiston’s server asks it for labels on account identifiers, including yours when you view your labels. Labelwatch does not log these lookups.
Nothing is sold or shared for advertising. Nothing is decided about you automatically, apart from the fixed limits described in the Terms.
Public by nature
Posts, likes, reposts and submission records live in public Bluesky repositories. Undoing a social interaction removes its repository record, but copies may remain with other services. Removing a post from the Cabinet only changes that assembled view; it doesn’t delete the post from Bluesky. Delete my Phlogiston data erases app-local journals, not public records—delete those explicitly here when offered or in Bluesky.
Your choices and requests
- Delete: Settings → Delete my Phlogiston data. It works immediately, for everything listed above except the Cabinet’s moderation records.
- See, correct or delete moderation records, or anything else: open an issue at github.com/unpingable/phlogiston/issues saying what you want, without personal details. You’ll be asked to prove the account is yours by posting a short code from it.
Phlogiston isn’t aimed at any particular country. The operator honours these requests from anyone, whether or not a particular privacy law applies. Where the EU or UK GDPR does apply, the basis for processing is providing the service you asked for, plus a legitimate interest in moderating the community and keeping the service secure. You can complain to your data protection authority.
Phlogiston is for adults: you must be 18 or older to sign in.
Changes and incidents
Changes to this page change its effective date and are recorded in the public source history. If a security incident exposes your data, the operator will say so on the About page.