Docs / Follows and saved problems

Follows and saved problems

A follow tells you, in the site, of what happens to what you follow, on your Notifications page. Saving a problem only keeps it on a private list. Nobody is told whom or what you follow or save, and nothing is counted: no page shows a follower or a save count.

What you can follow

You can follow up to 500 problems, 200 topics, 20 fields and 200 people. When you reach a limit, unfollow something first.

• You follow a problem with "Follow this problem" on its page, a topic or a field with the button on its page, and a person with "Follow ORCID ..." next to their iD on a problem or a result they signed. Your follows are listed under Following, each with Unfollow.
• Following a problem needs an account with a linked ORCID iD, or a confirmed email address. Topics, fields and people can be followed by the same accounts.
• Only the comments, contests, appeals and decisions of a problem you follow reach you. A follow of a topic, a field or a person tells you only of new problems, accepted topics and new results: never of comments, contests, appeals or reviews.
• A person can be followed only while they are the author of a public problem or result. They are never told. Problems from the seed collection have no person to follow.
• The Follow button is absent next to the iD of a deleted account. A deleted account's name is already replaced on its records, so the missing button tells nothing new. Follows of a person are deleted when that person's account is deleted.
• A follow of something hidden or removed is dormant: it is not listed and tells you nothing until it is public again. So is a follow of a person whose account is suspended, until the suspension is lifted; the follow itself stays.

Notifications in the site

Notifications are shown in the site, on your Notifications page and by the bell. No e-mail is sent for each one; you can choose an email digest of them instead.

• Once per event. An event reaches you once, through the first of: your own work or a follow of the problem, then a follow of its topic, of its field, of its author. A notification that reached you through a topic, a field or a person says which, for example "you follow ORCID ...".
• Only after you followed. You are told only of events that happen after you started following.
• Fixed when it happens. Who an event reaches is decided when it happens. A problem moved to another topic after it was published does not reach that topic's followers for its publication.
• Unfollowing. Unfollowing closes the notifications that follow brought, and only those. If a problem was moved into two topics you follow and you unfollow one, the notification about the other stays.
• Shown only while it still applies. A notification is shown only while the follow that brought it is still there, and while its item, and what you followed, are public.
• How many, and for how long. At most 200 stay unread; older ones are marked read. Notifications are deleted 180 days after their last change.

Notices that are never sent

• Nothing about what you did yourself. The author of a new problem is not told of it, whatever they follow.
• Nothing to the person you follow: they are never told that you follow them, and no page counts followers.
• Nothing about comments, contests, appeals or reviews through a follow of a topic, a field or a person. Those reach only the followers of the problem itself.
• Nothing about a problem or a topic that is not public, and nothing about the problems of the seed collection being added.
• Nothing when you save a problem or remove it from your saved problems: nobody is told.

Email digests

An email digest lists your unread notifications once a day or once a week. You choose off, daily or weekly in the Email section of your account page; digests are off until you turn them on.

• Periods. A daily period runs from 06:00 UTC to 06:00 UTC the next day; a weekly one from Monday 06:00 UTC to the next Monday. The digest of a period is mailed after it ends. A period with nothing unread mails nothing.
• After an outage. If PubPhys could not build digests for a while, one digest covers everything since the last one, instead of one digest for each period missed.
• What it needs. A confirmed address (the sign-in address, or the contact address of an ORCID account) and the current terms of use accepted.
• No backlog. Turning digests on starts from that moment: nothing that happened before is mailed. The same holds after a suspension is lifted: nothing from the suspension is mailed. While an account is suspended, no digest goes.
• Only what is still unread. A notification you read before the digest goes out is left out; if nothing is left, no digest is sent. Each notification appears once, with the number of events of that period.
• Only what your Notifications page would show. A digest is checked when it is sent, with the same rules as the page: a notification that reached you through a follow of a person who has since been suspended, or of a topic that is no longer public, is left out, neither named nor counted.

What a digest never contains

• No comment text, reasons, names or ORCID iDs of other people, and nothing a moderator or an editor wrote.
• A line names a problem, a topic or a result only while it is public, and links to it. Everything else, such as a held result or a review waiting for a decision, appears only as a count, for example "2 items for the editors of your field" or "1 notice about your own item", with a link to your Notifications page.
• A notice that a seal of yours is about to lapse appears only as "a notice about your own item".

Delivery

• Just before a digest is handed to the mail service, PubPhys checks once more that you still want it at that address: turning digests off, unsubscribing, a new address, a pause of the address, a suspension or deleting the account stops it up to that moment. After a failure, a digest may arrive twice. A digest already handed to the mail service cannot be recalled, even if you turn digests off just then.
• If the admin switches email digests off for the whole site, digests already made wait, and go when digests are switched on again; turning your own digests off stops them for good.
• PubPhys sends up to 60 digests a day in all, oldest period first. Past that, digests wait for the next day; nothing is lost. Digests also stop for the day once all mail PubPhys sent that day reaches 70, and for the month at 2400, so mail about accounts, such as confirmation links and security notices, keeps its own share. Digests never use the part of the day's and the month's mail kept for security notices and password resets (Limits).
• A digest that cannot be delivered is tried up to five times, then given up.

Unsubscribing

Every digest has an unsubscribe link, and mail programs show a one-click "Unsubscribe" for it. Opening the link shows a page with a button; only the button turns digests off. Unsubscribing needs no sign-in. A new address, an unsubscribe, or turning digests on again makes every earlier unsubscribe link stop working. Removing the contact address of an ORCID account turns its digests off.

When mail to your address is paused

• If a message to your address bounces for good, or is reported as spam, PubPhys pauses all mail to that address: no digests, no notices, not even a password reset. Your account works as before.
• That includes the security notices about changes to your account, with their "This was not me" link: while the address is paused, none reaches it, until the pause is lifted (Accounts).
• Your account page says so. If the address works again, you can ask there for one confirmation link to it; confirming it within 24 hours lifts the pause. The admin can also lift it.
• If you cannot sign in, for example because the reset link cannot reach you, ask the admin. Without a reset, a pause of password checks after wrong passwords ends only when its hour is over (Accounts).
• The confirmation link that lifts a pause works once, for 24 hours, and only for the address and the pause it was sent for: if the pause was lifted and the address was paused again later, an earlier link does not lift the new pause. Like the unsubscribe link, it opens a page with a button, and nothing changes until you press it.
• A report of a bounce or of spam that the mail service sends again, even after the pause was lifted, does not pause the address again.

Saved problems

Any account can save a public problem with "Save this problem" on its page, at most 1000 problems. Saved problems are listed newest first on your Saved page. They are private: nobody else sees them, nobody is told, and nothing is counted. A saved problem that is hidden or removed stays saved but is not listed until it is public again. Deleting your account deletes your saved problems and your follows.