Who we are

This is the website of the Otherwise Award, an award for speculative fiction that explores and expands our ideas of gender: https://otherwiseaward.org. You can contact us by writing to info@otherwiseaward.org, or 6130 Phelan Ct., Santa Cruz, CA 95060, USA.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

General

The website is built on WordPress (Privacy Policy), which does not collect personal data. Web hosting is provided by DreamHost (privacy policy), which is GDPR Compliant, and based in the USA.

Non-personal, anonymized information (web server log files) is automatically collected and deleted. For more information, see the DreamHost privacy policy.

Analytics

We don’t use analytics.

Recommendations

When you submit a recommendation, we collect the data shown in the recommendation form, as well as IP address and browser user agent string (to help with spam detection).

After approval of your recommendation, some of the information you provided is visible to the public in the context of your recommendation.

Contact forms

We use the WordPress plugin Ninja Forms (Privacy Policy) for all contact forms on the site. Ninja Forms is GDPR compliant. All information you provide is stored in the site’s database and forwarded to Otherwise email addresses.

Cookies

If you submit a recommendation, you may opt in to saving your name, email address, and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another recommendation. These cookies will last for one year.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, we set a temporary cookie to determine whether your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select Remember Me, your login persists for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies are removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie is saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (such as videos from YouTube or Vimeo, images from Instagram, articles, and so on). Embedded content from other sites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other site.

Those other sites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

How long we retain your data

If you submit a recommendation, or use one of the contact forms, the information you submit is retained indefinitely.

For users that register on our site, we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have submitted recommendations, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

How we protect your data

To protect the security of your data during transmission, we encryption techniques such as HTTPS (provided via DreamHost by Let’s Encrypt).

All registered users are required to use Two-Factor Authentication (2FA).

In addition to website-specific security, DreamHost provides a range of security services.