YOUR PLACE AT THE TABLE
Privacy & account choices.
Just BBQ is a community for sharing recipes, conversations and gatherings. This page explains how the site currently handles information. Contact the site administrator at hello@justbbq.org with privacy questions or requests.
Information we keep
- Accounts: your name, email address, a hashed password, verification status, and your acceptance of the community rules.
- Community activity: profile details and photos you provide, recipes, comments, forum posts, events and addresses, likes, friend requests, blocks, invitations, responses and messages. Content edits may have earlier versions saved.
- Support and safety: contact-form messages, reports, moderation decisions, restrictions and related records.
- Technical information: session identifiers, IP addresses, browser information and request/error logs used to operate the site, protect accounts and investigate abuse.
We use this information to provide community features, deliver account emails, respond to requests, prevent spam, moderate the community and recover the site from backups.
Who can see what
Public profiles, recipes, comments, forum discussions and public events can be read without an account. They may be copied, shared or indexed by search engines. Your account email is not displayed as part of your public profile.
Invite-only event details are limited by the site to the host and invited members; reported event details may be reviewed by moderators. Your event response is visible to you and the host. People who can view information may still copy or share it outside the site.
Private conversations are available through the site to their participants. Reporting a message shares that message with moderators. Messages are not end-to-end encrypted: authorized administrators and service providers may access stored information as needed for operation, support, security or recovery. Moving a conversation to Archived hides it from your inbox; it does not delete the messages or the other participant’s copy.
Optional member feedback
Verified members can privately rate the site and leave an optional comment. Feedback is linked to your account and reviewed by administrators and moderators; it is not published or sent to Google Analytics. We remember when your account has received or dismissed the invitation so it does not keep appearing. Your browser tab temporarily stores active browsing time to delay the invitation. You can use Give feedback in the footer at any time. Feedback is removed when its member account is deleted, subject to backup retention below.
Cookies and location
We use cookies for sign-in, session security and preferences. Your appearance choice is stored in your browser. Event browsing may remember a selected city or approximate location in your session. Browser location is requested only when you use the location feature and your browser allows it; you can choose a city instead. Nearby-search coordinates are rounded and expire from use after approximately one hour. Event addresses you publish are stored with the event.
Services that help run Just BBQ
- Hostinger: website hosting, database hosting and email delivery.
- Cloudflare: Turnstile bot checks and private R2 backup storage. See Cloudflare’s privacy information.
- Maps: OpenStreetMap supplies map tiles. Address and city lookups may send the entered location to the US Census geocoder or Photon (Komoot), including addresses for invite-only events. Google Maps receives the destination when you open a directions link.
- Fonts: some pages load fonts from Google Fonts or Bunny Fonts. Like other browser-loaded services, these providers can receive your IP address and browser request information.
The current site has no advertising or advertising-tracking integration. If that changes, this notice and any necessary choices will be updated before the new features are enabled. External sites and providers have their own privacy practices.
Optional website analytics
With your permission, we use Google Analytics to measure visits to public recipe, forum and event pages, traffic sources, devices and selected clicks such as printing a recipe or opening event directions. Google receives browser and network information when analytics loads and uses cookies to distinguish visits. We send public page paths without query strings, generic page labels and counts of selected actions. For our advertising test, we also send approved campaign labels and anonymous account-created and email-verified events. Campaign labels are kept in session storage for up to 24 hours after consent, within the current browser tab. We do not send names, email addresses, form contents, search terms, private messages or invite-only event details. We do not track account-page views, member profiles, messages or moderation pages. After account creation or email verification, analytics may load once to send that milestone if you have allowed analytics; it uses our home-page address rather than an account address or verification link. Staff accounts are excluded. Advertising personalization and Google signals are disabled.
Analytics is off until you choose Allow analytics. Choose No thanks to keep it off; the site works either way. Use Analytics preferences in the footer to change your choice. Your preference is saved in this browser for approximately six months. Declining after accepting stops future collection and removes this site's Google Analytics cookies, but does not remove data already sent. Browser blockers and consent choices mean visitor totals are estimates. How Google uses information from sites that use its services.
Keeping and removing information
Account and community information is kept while it is needed to provide the site. Closing an account with contributions requires an administrator to review public contributions, conversation copies and safety records rather than automatically deleting other members’ discussions. Some records may need to be retained for security, dispute handling or applicable obligations. Ask us about the information involved in your request.
Backup copies normally rotate out after approximately 14 days on the server and 30 days in cloud storage. Removed information may remain in those copies until rotation completes; a failed backup or cleanup can delay that process. Backups are used for recovery rather than normal public access.
Your choices and account closure
You can edit profile information and your own contributions using the site’s controls. You can block members, report content and clear notifications. These actions have different effects from deleting an account.
An unused ordinary member account can be deleted from account settings after confirming its password. Accounts with contributions, conversations or moderation responsibilities require administrator assistance. Use Contact us and select Account help, or email hello@justbbq.org, to request closure, correction, a copy of your information or other privacy assistance. Tell us the account email and what you want changed. Do not send your password. We may ask you to verify control of the account before acting.
We will update this page when our practices change. Questions about a particular record or request are welcome at the same contact address.