Privacy & data
The forum keeps the minimum account and moderation data needed to run a small public discussion community.
What is public
Your username, forum posts, public User ID, join date and total post count are public while the account is active. That total can include posts made in a protected Members room; the room itself still exposes no aggregate counts, thread/activity metadata or content to outsiders. Public forum pages may be indexed or copied by search engines and other people.
What stays private
Your email address, password hash, short salted IP identifiers, direct messages, YouTube verification handle and account/moderation state are not public. Direct messages are visible to their participants; moderators only see message content when a message is reported rather than through a general DM browser.
Why it is kept
Email is used for verification, account recovery and forum notifications. Short salted IP identifiers and rate-limit records are used for abuse control without storing raw IP addresses. Moderation reports, audit records and prior post revisions exist so account actions, reported behaviour and later edits can be reviewed by staff. A report stores a private snapshot of the reported post, DM or user identity at the time of reporting so deleting the source later does not erase the moderation evidence. Post revision history is a staff-only moderation surface rather than a public edit log.
Backups and mail
Forum backups are private compressed database snapshots stored above the public web root. An older backup can contain the historical state that existed when it was created, including data later changed or deleted, until that backup itself is removed. Transactional email may briefly exist in the forum mail queue for delivery and troubleshooting; old sent/cancelled queue rows are removed by housekeeping.
Your controls
You can change your email, block another member from DMs, or delete your account from Your account. Account deletion removes the private account identity, DMs and saved account state. Public posts are retained as Deleted user so deleting one account does not destroy discussions and replies written by other people. Moderation/audit history may retain the fact that an action occurred, but the deleted account's stored identity/detail payload is stripped.
No website can recall an email that was already delivered or erase copies of public text another person has already saved, quoted or indexed.