Small print
Privacy policy
This document explains what Xilarevoku does with personal information. It applies to this website and to letters sent to the writing room. It is deliberately short, because the honest answer to most privacy questions here is that we do not collect the thing being asked about.
Revised 12 July 2026. Earlier versions are kept on paper in the room and can be requested.
1. Who is responsible
Xilarevoku is an unincorporated writing room operated jointly by its five contributors. For the purposes of UK data protection law the contributors act together as the data controller. Correspondence should be addressed to the room rather than to any individual:
Xilarevoku, Second Floor, Hilton Street Works49 Hilton Street, Manchester M1 2EE, United Kingdom
[email protected]
We are not large enough to be required to appoint a data protection officer, and we have not appointed one. Letters about privacy are handled by whichever contributor opens the post that week, and answered within ten working days.
2. The short version
This site is a set of static files. There is no database, no server-side code, no login, no comment system, no advertising network, no analytics provider, no embedded video, no social media widget and no font or script loaded from anywhere other than this domain. Nothing you do on these pages is transmitted to us or to anyone else.
The only personal information we hold is what people choose to post or email to us directly, and the addresses of those who have asked to receive the Friday round-up.
3. What the site stores on your device
Two values are written to your browser's local storage. Neither is a cookie in the technical sense, neither is transmitted, and both can be deleted by clearing site data at any time.
| Key | Contains | Why | Kept until |
|---|---|---|---|
xr_notice_ack |
The word accepted or dismissed and the date you chose it | So the cookie notice stops reappearing on every page | You clear site data |
xr_read_tally |
A single number: how many pages you have opened on this device | Shown back to you on two pages. It exists because we wanted a reading counter that nobody else can see, including us. | You clear site data |
The cookie policy covers both entries again in more detail, along with instructions for removing them in the major browsers.
4. Forms on this site
The letters form and the round-up sign-up both run entirely in your browser. Because there is no server behind this site, pressing the button does not send anything anywhere — the form validates what you typed, shows a confirmation, and then forgets it when the page is closed. This is stated on the letters page itself so that nobody submits something sensitive on the assumption it has been received.
To reach us in a way that actually arrives, write to the postal address above.
5. Letters and correspondence
When you write to us by post, we hold what you sent: your name as given, your return address or email address if you provided one, and the content of the letter. We use it to reply, to correct the site where a correction is warranted, and to keep the public corrections log accurate.
Our lawful basis is legitimate interests: running a small publication honestly requires being able to receive and act on complaints and corrections. Where a letter is quoted publicly, we quote the name as given. If a letter asks to be anonymous, the corrections log records the entry as anonymous instead, and we have honoured that in three of the seven logged corrections.
Letters are kept for two years and then destroyed, except where they underpin a published correction, in which case the name and date are retained indefinitely as part of the public record.
6. The Friday round-up
If you ask to receive the round-up, we hold your email address and the date you asked. Nothing else — no name, no open tracking, no click tracking, no segmentation. The messages are plain text and contain no images or links back to this site.
The lawful basis is consent, which you give by asking and withdraw by replying with a single line. Withdrawal takes effect within three working days and the address is deleted rather than suppressed, because we have no reason to keep a list of people who have left.
7. Who else sees any of this
Nobody. We use no mailing platform, no customer relationship tool, no cloud form service and no analytics company. The round-up is sent from an ordinary email account with recipients on separate messages. Our hosting provider necessarily processes standard web server logs containing IP addresses; we do not access them, do not analyse them, and they are discarded by the provider on their own schedule.
We have never sold, rented, shared or transferred personal information to a third party, and there is no arrangement in place under which we could.
8. International transfers
Our hosting is located within the United Kingdom. The email account used for the round-up is provided by a supplier operating within the UK and European Economic Area. We do not deliberately transfer personal information outside these regions.
9. Your rights
Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation you may ask us for a copy of what we hold about you, ask for it to be corrected, ask for it to be erased, object to our use of it, or ask us to restrict that use. You may also withdraw consent to the round-up at any time.
Because our holdings are small and mostly on paper, these requests are quick to answer. Write to the postal address, tell us plainly what you want, and expect a reply within ten working days rather than the calendar month the law allows us.
If you are unhappy with how we have handled a request you may complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK supervisory authority for data protection. We would prefer you told us first, but you are under no obligation to.
10. Children
This site is written for adults reading about computer games. We do not knowingly hold information about anyone under thirteen, and we do not ask any reader's age because we have no reason to know it. If you believe a child has sent us something, write to us and we will destroy it.
11. Security, honestly stated
The site is static and therefore has very little to attack. Letters on paper are kept in a locked cabinet in the room. The round-up account uses two-factor authentication. That is the full extent of our measures, and we would rather describe it plainly than imply an infrastructure we do not have.
12. Changes to this policy
When this document changes materially, the revision date at the top changes and a line explaining what changed appears in the Friday round-up. We do not quietly amend policies, for the same reason we do not quietly amend old write-ups.