Architecture
How this site looks after you
What we keep
Your email address, so we can send you a sign-in link. Your name and a photo, if you add them, and which emails you have asked for. Which cards and lessons you have finished, and where you stopped in a lesson video. What you post on a card. Anything you send us through the contact form, and any address you give us for a printed copy. What you own, such as a course or a pack of cards. When you buy something, we keep what you paid and when, and any postal address it was sent to, for five years.
When you sign in or write to us, we also note the internet address you used, and your browser when you sign in, so we can stop misuse. A sign-in link's record goes after a day. A signed-in device's goes after 60 days without a visit.
That is all of it. From your account page you can download a record of it, or close your account. Closing deletes your sign-ins, progress, posts, photos and messages straight away, and your account itself after 30 days. A record that a course or pack was owned stays, with nothing linking it to you, as does a record of what you paid, without its postal address. Our nightly backups are encrypted and keep a copy until they expire.
What we don't do
No analytics, no ads, no tracking. We don't sell or share anything you give us, and we don't feed it to AI. Fonts and images load from this site, not from Google or anyone else.
Where it lives
On ursa.nz's own server in Sydney, on Eora Nation. The disks and the backups are encrypted, so a stolen disk or backup gives up nothing readable.
Three outside services help. Bunny delivers the videos, so a page with one of our videos on it loads Bunny's player. Migadu carries the site's email, which means sign-in links and the messages you send us. Stripe takes card payments on its own page, so your card details never reach this site. A YouTube, Vimeo or PeerTube video someone posts plays from that site, and only after you press play.
Signing in
There are no passwords. We email you a link that works once, and keep only a scrambled copy we can't read back. Photos you upload have their location data removed.
Open to anyone
The code is free software under the AGPL-3.0-or-later licence. Anyone can read it, check it, change it and run it at lab.ursa.nz. The site's design, and Michael's words, images and videos, are shared under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Who made it
World Founding was made with ursa.nz, a creative media lab and Indigenist research co-operative on Tūhoe and Arrarnta Country. Kōrero first, always.