Privacy Statement

Who operates this site

Ask Bashmohandes is a personal questions-and-answers website operated by Mohamed Elsherif. This statement covers ask.bashmohandes.com and its installed web app. For privacy questions or requests, contact bashmohandes@gmail.com.

Your questions, identity and private context

We store questions, follow-ups, optional private context, clarification messages, submission dates and their status. Published questions and answers are public and may appear in search engines, shared links, social previews and notifications. Do not put confidential information or other people’s personal information in the question text.

You can submit without signing in. When signed in, we receive your account identifier, email address and display name through ChatGPT sign-in and store them with your questions. Choosing to hide your name hides it from public readers; it does not hide your account details from the site owner. If you choose to show your name, the supplied display name may be public. We do not receive your ChatGPT password or conversation history through sign-in.

Private context and clarification messages are not displayed in the public feed. They are available to the site owner, the authorized asker and the services that operate the site. A guest’s private tracking link gives access to their question and private conversation: anyone holding that link may access them. Keep it secret. “Private” does not mean end-to-end encrypted.

Activity and technical information

We store likes, account-linked bookmarks, notification preferences and related timestamps to provide these features. For signed-out likes and abuse prevention, the application uses and stores your IP address; signed-in actions use your account identifier. Hosting services also process connection and request information needed to serve and secure the site.

Our own analytics measure homepage and answer views, shares, searches with no results (including up to 120 characters of the search), language, referring website hostname and whether a visitor is signed in. A random browser identifier helps measure returning visits. We also record loading-performance measurements and operational errors to troubleshoot the site. Avoid entering sensitive information in search.

Cookies and storage on your device

The ab_visit analytics cookie lasts up to 30 days; the ask-locale language cookie lasts up to one year and is renewed as you use the site. The sign-in service may also use cookies for authentication. Browser storage remembers language, appearance, text direction and notification prompts.

Question drafts, including private context, are saved locally in your browser. The form restores drafts saved within the previous 30 days; this is not a guarantee that older data is immediately erased. Edit drafts and guest tracking credentials may also be kept in session storage. The installed web app uses a service worker and browser caching.

You can clear or block cookies and site storage in your browser settings, but this may remove drafts, preferences and access to guest tracking, or affect sign-in and other features. The site currently has no separate analytics opt-out control. It does not use advertising trackers or sell personal information.

AI-assisted answers

The owner can ask OpenAI to suggest a draft answer or tags. This sends the question text, relevant thread content, selected previous questions and answers, writing preferences, the current draft and any notes entered by the owner to OpenAI. Previous published material and edits may also be used to develop the site’s writing-style guidance.

The drafting feature does not automatically include your account email, account identifier, private-context field or clarification messages. Personal information written in the question or manually included in owner notes can still be sent. Drafts and related generation records are stored on the site. The owner reviews and chooses what to publish; AI does not publish automatically. OpenAI processes submitted material under its applicable service terms and data policies.

Notifications

If you enable push notifications, we store your account identifier, browser push endpoint, encryption keys, language and subscription choices. Delivery records help us retry and diagnose failures. Notifications pass through your browser or device’s push provider and can include a question excerpt visible on your lock screen.

Manage followed topics and all-answer subscriptions in My questions → Following. You can disable device notifications in the site’s notification control or browser/device settings. Turning off notifications does not delete your questions or account-related records.

Service providers and external content

The site uses ChatGPT Sites/OpenAI for hosting and sign-in and Cloudflare infrastructure for serving and storing site data. OpenAI also provides the optional drafting service described above. These providers process information to operate their services; information may be processed in the United States or other countries where providers operate.

The profile image loads from Gravatar. Embedded YouTube videos and externally hosted images or other media can send your IP address and browser/request information to their providers when loaded, even without an account there. External links and services have their own privacy policies.

Information may also be disclosed when necessary to comply with applicable legal requirements or protect the site and people from abuse. Private submissions are not intended for public distribution.

Retention and security

Published Q&A is kept as an ongoing archive. Questions (including withdrawn or hidden items), private context, clarification messages, account associations, likes, bookmarks and AI records do not currently have a fixed automatic deletion period. Withdrawing a question changes its status; it does not erase it.

Routine maintenance is configured to remove detailed analytics events older than 90 days, rate-limit records older than two days, and completed notification-delivery records and run logs older than 30 days. Cleanup is periodic and can be delayed. Aggregate analytics are retained longer. IP-based like records remain until the like or associated content is removed; the two-day rule applies only to rate-limit records. Provider logs and backups may follow separate retention periods.

We use HTTPS and access controls to protect information, but no service can guarantee absolute security. Public copies, search caches and content shared by others may remain outside our control after removal from this site.

Your choices and privacy requests

You can browse without signing in, choose whether to display your name, remove likes or bookmarks, manage notifications, and edit or withdraw eligible pending questions. To request access, correction or deletion of information associated with you, email bashmohandes@gmail.com with the relevant question links and a description of your request. Do not send passwords or private tracking tokens by email. We may need to verify that the information belongs to you; identifying a guest submission can be difficult.

Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have additional rights to obtain a copy of your data, restrict or object to processing, withdraw consent where processing relies on it, or complain to a privacy regulator. Requests are considered under applicable law and may be subject to identity checks and necessary legal or security retention. There is currently no self-service account-deletion feature.

Children and changes to this statement

This site is intended for a general audience interested in software engineering and is not directed to children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided personal information, contact us so we can investigate and address it.

We will update this page as the site’s practices change and revise the date above. Where required, we will provide additional notice or obtain consent before a relevant change. Contact: bashmohandes@gmail.com.