Cookies notice
A short, honest list of every cookie this site can set, why it exists, and how to turn the optional ones off.
What this means in plain English. One first-party cookie does the work for anonymous voting and edit suggestions. Analytics cookies only run if you accept them. Our self-hosted aggregate page-view analytics uses no cookies at all.
What cookies are
Cookies are small text files a website asks your browser to store. We also cover similar technologies here, like local storage, where they do the same job. The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR) require us to tell you what we set and, for anything not strictly necessary, to ask first.
What we use
| Name | Purpose | Type | Duration | Consent required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
kb-fingerprint | Pseudonymous identifier so you can vote once per article and your suggested edits aren’t double-counted. No IP, no user-agent, no cross-site link. | First-party, HttpOnly, Secure, SameSite=Lax | 365 days | No (strictly necessary for the feature you triggered) |
_ga, _ga_* | Google Analytics 4. Distinguishes users and sessions for aggregate reporting. | Third-party (Google) | Up to 2 years | Yes |
_clck, _clsk, MUID,SM, ANONCHK, CLID | Microsoft Clarity. Heatmaps, scroll depth, and session recording for understanding which page sections actually get read. Set on clarity.ms; some are also shared with Microsoft Bing. | Third-party (Microsoft) | Session to up to 1 year (_clck / MUID ~1 year, _clsk ~1 day, the rest session-bound) | Yes |
Cloudflare bot-management and Turnstile cookies (e.g. __cf_bm, cf_clearance, Turnstile transient cookies) | Bot detection on forms and at the edge. Set by Cloudflare on pages that load Turnstile (printable request, suggest-edit, contact, newsletter). | First-party via Cloudflare | Up to 30 minutes (__cf_bm) to up to a year (cf_clearance); Turnstile values are session-bound | No (strictly necessary for site security) |
| Cookie consent record | Remembers your analytics choice so we don’t prompt again on every visit. | First-party | willowfolio-consent; 180 days | No |
What we do not use
- Our self-hosted aggregate page-view analytics sets no cookies and does not fingerprint your device.
- We do not use third-party advertising cookies, retargeting pixels, or social-network tracking pixels.
- We do not load Google Analytics or Microsoft Clarity until you accept analytics cookies.
Managing your preferences
- Use the cookie banner the first time you visit, or reopen it any time from the footer link, to accept or reject analytics cookies.
- Most browsers let you block or delete cookies in settings. Doing this for the strictly-necessary cookies above will break the feature they support (you’ll be able to vote again, for example, but we’ll lose the dedupe).
- To opt out of Google Analytics across the web, install Google’s official browser opt-out add-on at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
- To opt out of Microsoft Clarity across the web, follow the instructions in Microsoft’s privacy controls at privacy.microsoft.com.
Changes to this notice
We update this notice when we add, remove, or change cookies. The Last updated date below shows the most recent revision. Material changes will be flagged at the top of the page for at least 30 days.
Contact
Email [email protected] with any question about cookies, or see the full privacy notice.
Last updated: 7 May 2026.