Docs / Posting a result

Posting a result

Anyone signed in with an ORCID iD can post a result on a problem in a field that takes results: progress, a solution, or a disproof. Every stage after you sign, and how the problem's status follows: the process, stage by stage.

During PubPhys's launch, results, contests and comments open in a field once it has one editor (the chief editor counts). With one editor, a decision cannot yet be contested or appealed to anyone else: contests and appeals are published and wait for a second editor, with no deadline. Referees are appointed as the site grows; a solution is verified only after two referees recommend it.

Editors and referees have no deadline. Your result's page shows its stage and what happens next, and PubPhys notifies you in the site when it is held, released, decided, recommended, contested or removed, and when someone comments on it (who is told what).

What you write

• Kind: progress (a partial result, a special case, a bound), solution (answers the precise question), or disproof (shows the question is ill-posed or its premise false).
• The result: plain text with formulas between $…$, at most 20,000 characters. Link a paper or arXiv preprint for a long argument.
• Source files: optional, at most 3, each a PDF or a plain text file (.txt, .md, .tex) of at most 10 MB, its type decided from its content. Each is uploaded when you sign and becomes an upload record that the result lists among its parents, so the signature covers it; the file name is not kept. It is public, as a download, exactly when the result is; removing the result withholds it too, and an editor of the field may withhold one file for copyright, personal data, abuse or spam (the result and its other files stay). An upload carries the AI choice made when it was uploaded, which must match the result's; with consent, the screening reads each file's text (what is sent), and a file it cannot read, or longer than it reads, holds the result for an editor. Uploads you do not use are deleted after 7 days (the record and its log entry stay, the file goes); at most 6 unused ones at a time, counted against the daily upload limit for new problems.
• References: optional, at most 4,000 characters.
• AI systems that helped: optional, at most 5 names, one line each. They are part of the signed record and public.
• Builds on: optional, up to 10 earlier public results on the problem or its parent problems (shown on its page under "Results on parent problems").

What you sign

Your browser builds the record and computes its fingerprint; one ORCID sign-in, which always asks for your ORCID password, signs it. The record names the exact revision of the problem you answer. If the problem's substance changed while you wrote, signing is refused and you read it again. Each ORCID iD can sign at most 5 results per UTC day (withdrawals are not counted). A result you prepared but did not sign is kept for 1 hour, then dropped. At most 20 prepared records of any kind wait at once for one account. Finish the ORCID sign-in within 10 minutes; after that, start signing again. The signed record is permanent: you can withdraw it, never delete it.

The receipt

After signing you land on your result's page. Its signed record (linked from the page) shows the exact record, the ORCID sign-in that confirmed it, its number in the public log and, once PubPhys has sealed and dated it, the proof file to download, which anyone can check without trusting PubPhys (what a record shows). Your results are listed under “Your results”.

AI screening

You choose whether an AI may screen your result before it is published. If you agree, only its kind, text and references are sent (details), and a confident pass publishes it within minutes. If you do not, nothing is sent and an editor of the field releases it by hand, which takes longer. The screening never judges whether the result is correct.

Your choice is recorded when you prepare the result for signing, before the ORCID sign-in: PubPhys stores it with the record's fingerprint, your account, and the version and fingerprint of the consent text you saw. It is not part of the signed record. Just before calling the AI, PubPhys looks at the latest such choice for exactly that record; if it is not a yes for the current text, the result is held instead.

Held results

A result is held when you gave no consent, when the screening doubts it or suspects an attempt to steer it, or when AI is unavailable (the hold reasons). You see the reason on its page; an editor of the field releases it or signs that it is not accepted at screening. A held result blocks substantive changes to the problem for 14 days from when it was held; after that it no longer does, and PubPhys's administrator is alerted. A result held again after a granted appeal counts the 14 days from the grant; its page shows both times.

What your result freezes

While your result is live (being screened, published and not rejected, or held for up to 14 days), nobody can change the substance of the problem's precise question, so your result keeps answering the question as it is shown. Changes of wording only are still possible and keep your result counting. A change of the question that was already waiting for an editor when you posted cannot be accepted any more (revising a problem).

What is public, and when

• From signing: the log entry (that a record exists, not what it says).
• From publication: the result, its record and every decision on it; a rejection stays public with its reasons.
• Never public: a result that is held or not accepted at screening, and the decision on it; only you and the field's editors see them. The screening report is for the editors only.
• After withdrawal: as before it; a removed result's text is withheld for good (stages).

After publication

The result counts for the problem's status at once. An editor of the field accepts or rejects it with signed reasons. Referees of the field then check an accepted solution or disproof in full and each signs a recommendation for or against it; two recommendations from different referees make a solution verified and a disproof disproven (referees). Progress is not refereed. Anyone may contest a counting result or a decision on it (contests); you may appeal a rejection of your result within 30 days.

Withdrawing

On your result's page, “Withdraw” signs a withdrawal record with an optional public reason. The result stops counting at once and is marked withdrawn; if it was published, it and the withdrawal stay public. It cannot be undone, and a result is withdrawn only once. A result that was rejected, not accepted at screening, or removed cannot be withdrawn (the stage).