What we keep, and what we don't.
The short version: Skein doesn't need an account and doesn't store your name. Everything you add is anonymous. This page explains what little we do collect and why.
Information we collect
As little as possible, and never your name — there are no accounts. Each word you send is stored with the chapter it joined, alongside the opaque per-browser id described below and, at the moment you vote, the two-letter country code our host derives from your connection — kept only as a per-chapter tally for the writers’ map, never against your word. If you sign up for the daily reminder we store that email address and your browser’s timezone, so the mail arrives in your morning rather than the middle of your night. If you send a note through the feedback page we store the note, plus the address you give with it if you would like a reply. Your IP address is never written to our database — it is used in passing, by our host, to tell which country a vote came from.
How we use it
To run the game and show live stats — tallying votes, drawing the writers’ map, and counting who is present right now for the “writing now” figure (open connections and recent requests; presence itself is never stored, though the round’s vote tally is kept as a plain running count, never anything about a person). The per-browser id is what lets the archive show you which words in a closed chapter were yours, and what our rate limits count against so that one browser cannot flood a round, the feedback page, or the reminder list. An email address is used for the one thing you gave it for: the daily nudge you asked for, or a reply to your note.
Where the story text goes
The story so far is sent to Anthropic’s Claude API for the parts of Skein that are generated — its opening seed, its punctuation, and each chapter’s title and illustration among them. What leaves our systems for that is the public story text and nothing else: no email address, no browser id, no country. Words that lose a round are never sent anywhere.
Cookies & local storage
One cookie is set the first time you write: skein_aid, a random id with no name or address attached to it. It is httpOnly, so no script can read it, it expires after a year, and it exists to highlight your own words in the archive and to make rate limits possible. If — and only if — you accept the analytics question, Google Analytics sets its own first-party cookies (_ga and _ga_…) so that a returning browser can be told from a new one; they are written at the moment you accept, never before it, and they are deleted again the moment you switch analytics off at the bottom of this page. Your light/dark and colour choice, and your answer to that question, are kept in your browser’s local storage and never sent to us. There are no advertising or cross-site tracking cookies: Google’s ad signals and ad personalisation are switched off in our configuration, so nothing here follows you to another site. You can clear all of it any time in your browser — clearing skein_aid means your past words stop being recognised as yours.
Third-party services
Cloudflare hosts Skein and stores its database, which makes it the one processor that necessarily handles every request; its request logs, which can include your IP address, are retained by them for a few days for reliability and abuse handling. Anthropic receives the story text, as described above. Resend delivers the daily reminder, so if you sign up your address is stored with them too, for that one purpose. When a chapter closes, its text and illustration may be posted as a short video to Skein’s own Instagram and TikTok accounts — the chapter is public either way, and no writer is named. Google Analytics counts visits, but only for readers who accept it: until you do, its script is never even loaded, so Google receives nothing from you at all — not a page view, not an IP address. Accept, and what it records is which pages you opened and a handful of plain milestones: that a word was voted, that a reminder was signed up for, that a chapter was shared, that a note was sent. Never the word, the address, or the note. We don’t sell your data or share it with advertisers.
How long we keep things
Closed chapters and the words in them are permanent — they are the point of the archive. An address that signs up for the reminder and never confirms is deleted within a week. If you unsubscribe we keep the address flagged rather than deleted, which is what stops a later sign-up form from mailing you by mistake; ask and we will remove the row entirely. Feedback notes are kept until we have dealt with them. Presence and the live round are never written down.
Data security
We protect the limited data we hold, but no online service can promise perfect security. You use Skein at your own risk.
Children's privacy
Skein is for a general audience and isn't directed at children under 13. We don't knowingly collect their data; if you believe a child has sent us an email, contact us and we'll delete it.
Your rights & choices
The reminder is never sent to an address until someone opens the link in the first email, so nobody can sign you up for it. Once you are on the list, every email carries an unsubscribe link, and your mail app’s own unsubscribe button works too. Analytics is off until you accept it, and the switch at the bottom of this page turns it back off whenever you like — that also deletes the cookies Google set. You can write to us to ask what we hold or to have it deleted. Two honest limits: a word already in a closed chapter stays there, because it is part of a public story other people wrote around it, though we can unlink it from your browser id on request; and if you have cleared that cookie we have no way left to tell which words were yours.
Changes to this policy
We may update this page from time to time. When we do, we'll change the date below.
Analytics
Analytics is off for this browser. Nothing about your visits reaches Google.
Contact
Questions about your privacy? Email contact@skein.fun or use the Feedback page.