House rules & privacy
GeoMillCities is a small, volunteer-run homepage host for Greater Lowell. These are the rules for living here and what we do with your information. Last updated October 25, 2026.
Adults only (18+)
You must be 18 or older to have a homestead. When you sign up you confirm your age, and we save the date you did. If we learn an account belongs to someone under 18, we will close it and remove its pages.
House rules
- No hate speech, harassment, threats or targeting of people for who they are.
- No spam, scams, malware links or illegal content.
- Don't post anyone's private information (home addresses, phone numbers, ID numbers and so on).
- Use images, music and words you made yourself, have permission to use, or that are in the public domain. The built-in clip art library is free to use.
- No adult or sexual content.
- One homestead per person. Invite codes are for people you know.
Moderation and reports
Pages, blog posts, comments and guestbook entries are checked automatically for hate speech and spam. Clear-cut cases are held until a moderator looks at them, and borderline ones are queued for review. Moderators can hide content, suspend a homestead or stop someone commenting. Every moderator decision is logged.
Anyone can report a homestead with the Report this site link at the bottom of every member page. Reports go to moderators, not to the person reported.
Blogs and comments
Every homestead can have a blog. Only logged-in members can comment, and each comment waits until the blog's owner approves it, just like guestbook entries. Owners can turn comments off for their whole blog or for a single post. Comments that the automatic check catches go to a moderator first, and the blog owner never sees them unless a moderator lets them through. Please keep comments friendly; the house rules apply.
Templates
Members can share page templates in the template gallery. When you submit a template you confirm you made it, and you let anyone on GeoMillCities use and change it for their own pages. A moderator reviews every new template before it goes public; later updates are checked automatically. Pages people make from your template are theirs: they keep their copy even if you change or delete the template. Ratings and use counts are shown only as totals; nobody can see who rated what.
Canal Critters
Members can adopt eggs from the Canal Bank and raise them by showing them on their homesteads. Seeing a critter on a homestead counts as a view and opening its page counts as a visit, at most once a day per visitor; the owner's own never count. Critter names follow the house rules, and a moderator may clear a name. Each member's shelf shows their username and critters, nothing else. Critters are just for fun: they can't be bought, sold or traded for anything.
Privacy
What we store
- Your account: username, email address, password (stored hashed, never readable), neighborhood, topic and the date you confirmed you are 18 or older.
- What you publish: your pages, blog posts, uploads, guestbook entries and the comments you leave on other members' blogs. Uploaded images are re-saved on our server, which strips hidden location (GPS) and camera data.
- Visitor counts: hit counters, guestbooks and Canal Critters views use a scrambled code made from the visitor's IP address that changes every day. We never store raw IP addresses for these.
- Moderation records: short excerpts of flagged content are deleted 90 days after a moderator resolves them.
- Backups: nightly backups are kept for 14 days.
Cookies and analytics
- We set a login cookie when you log in, and a security cookie for forms. We don't use advertising cookies of our own.
- Public pages, including member homesteads, use an analytics counter from
counter.bullserv.devthat counts page views, time on page, scrolling, and clicks on outside links and downloads. It stores random IDs in your browser and never records what you type into forms. It isn't used on the login and signup pages, the member dashboard, the editor, the moderation console or the admin site. - The home page shows an ad from
bauval.org, which may set its own cookies. It appears only on the home page.
Search engines
The portal pages (home, neighborhoods, topics) can show up in search engines. Member homesteads are hidden from search engines unless the member turns on Let search engines like Google list my homestead in their File Manager.
Deleting your account
You can delete your account yourself from File Manager → Settings, or go straight to Delete my account (you'll be asked to log in first). You'll need your password and to type your username. Deletion happens one day later, so a mistake (or someone else using your login) can be undone. Until then nothing changes for visitors, and while you're logged in a banner across the top of GeoMillCities pages lets you cancel.
When the day is up we permanently delete your login and profile, your homestead with all its pages, blog posts, uploads and guestbook entries, every comment on your blog, and every comment you left on other blogs. Your Canal Critters stay behind without your name on them, so other members' family trees keep their ancestors: eggs drift back to the Canal Bank for someone else, and hatchlings and adults live on wild, with any names you gave them removed. Moderation records about your content are deleted too, apart from a log line saying an account was deleted and when. Copies remain in our nightly backups for up to 14 days and are then gone. Your username may later be taken by someone new.
We don't sell your data
We don't sell or share your information with anyone, except where the law requires it.
Contact and takedown requests
To ask for something to be removed (your own homestead, something about you, or something that uses your work without permission), or for any other question, email admin@geomillcities.com. Tell us the page address and what the problem is. We aim to reply within a few days.
You can delete your own account at any time (see Deleting your account). If you can't log in, email us from the address on your account and we'll do it for you.