Frequently asked questions
Short answers, each with a link to the page that explains it in full. If a word is unfamiliar, see the glossary.
The basics
Section titled “The basics”What is Cabdell?
Section titled “What is Cabdell?”An open system for publishing science on the Algorand blockchain. Publishing, reviewing, voting, commenting and flagging are public, signed and permanent records; articles are stored on IPFS. No editor decides what is published: votes and reviews weighted by reputation in the field do. See What Cabdell is.
Is Cabdell a journal?
Section titled “Is Cabdell a journal?”No. There is no editor, no submission queue and no acceptance decision: anyone can publish, and publishing is immediate. What tells reviewed work apart is the Peer-reviewed seal, which an article holds while qualified reviewers recommend it. Reviews, votes and reputation are all public. See The Peer-reviewed seal.
Do I need an account to read?
Section titled “Do I need an account to read?”No. Everything is readable without an account, without a wallet and without paying. You need a wallet only to act (publish, review, vote, comment, follow). See Wallets and your address.
Who pays for Cabdell?
Section titled “Who pays for Cabdell?”Cabdell runs on donations. It has no fees, no advertising and no investors. Donations pay for the server that runs the indexer, the website and a copy of every article, for the domain and storage, and for development and an independent security review before MainNet. You can support it.
Is it free to publish?
Section titled “Is it free to publish?”Cabdell charges nothing. You pay only Algorand’s costs for your own actions: a network fee of about 0.001 ALGO per transaction (a publication is at least three) and a storage deposit for the records you create, 0.2222 ALGO for a publication plus 0.0293 per declared co-author. On TestNet, ALGO are free, from the TestNet dispenser. Pinning your files is your own arrangement with a pinning service; with Pinata, the uploads the web app uses need a paid plan. See Costs and deposits.
How much do other actions cost?
Section titled “How much do other actions cost?”Deposits are small: 0.0289 ALGO to vote for an article and 0.0321 to vote for a review or a comment, plus 0.0189 for each person you vote for the first time; 0.0927 for your first review in a field (then 0.0658), 0.0834 for your first comment in a field (then 0.0565). A flag deposits 0.0297 plus a bond, usually 1 ALGO. Following, linking an ORCID iD and declaring a DOI cost only the network fee. The website always shows the exact total before your wallet asks you to sign. See Costs and deposits.
Do I get my deposits back?
Section titled “Do I get my deposits back?”No, with one exception. Deposits are not paid to anyone, the project included: they stay locked in the protocol for as long as the record exists, which is forever, because nothing else is ever deleted. The exception is a flag: once its round is over, its record is deleted and its deposit comes back to the flagger, and its bond goes back to the flagger or is lost (half to the article’s author and half kept by the protocol, or all kept), depending on how the round ended. The web app always pays the exact deposit, never more. The only amount that stays in your own account is the 0.1 ALGO kept there while you hold a claimed article token. See Costs and deposits.
Publishing
Section titled “Publishing”Can I delete an article?
Section titled “Can I delete an article?”No. Nothing is deleted from the record: every version and every action stays on the blockchain. You can retract an article (from preprint, under review, closed version or disputed): it stays readable, permanently marked as retracted, and reputation not yet claimed from it is lost. Reviews, comments and votes cannot be deleted either. See New versions, amendments and retraction. If an article holds your personal data, or breaks the law, Cabdell’s own site can stop showing it (the record stays on the blockchain): see What this site stops showing, and when.
How do I correct a mistake?
Section titled “How do I correct a mistake?”While the article is a preprint or under review, publish a new version; the previous versions stay on record. Once it is a closed version, publish an amendment: a separate publication that points to the article it corrects. See New versions, amendments and retraction.
Can I add or remove a co-author after publishing?
Section titled “Can I add or remove a co-author after publishing?”No. Co-authors are declared when the article is published (up to 25 addresses) and the list can never change. Each co-author confirms by signing from their own wallet. See Co-authors.
Do I need a pinning service?
Section titled “Do I need a pinning service?”To publish with the Upload tab, yes: Filebase or Pinata with your own key, or your own IPFS node, set under Storage (IPFS) on your profile and kept only in your browser. You can instead pin the folder yourself (on your own IPFS node or any pinning service) and paste its CID in I have a CID. Reviews and comments posted through the website are pinned with the same key. Cabdell’s indexer keeps a second copy of what it validates, but the first pin is the author’s job. See Publish an article and Storage: IPFS, pins and copies.
Why does my article show a warning?
Section titled “Why does my article show a warning?”The indexer downloads each article from IPFS and compares its header with what was declared on the blockchain. If the content cannot be read yet (for example, it is not pinned anywhere reachable), is too large, is malformed, or its header does not match, the article stays valid on the blockchain but is shown with a warning, never hidden. Disputed and retracted articles carry a warning too. See Articles and their statuses.
Which licence should I use?
Section titled “Which licence should I use?”You choose. The header has a recommended license key that takes an SPDX licence name; the template uses
CC-BY-4.0. The licence is not checked against the blockchain, and search can filter by it. Whatever the licence,
the article is public and permanent, and anyone can keep a copy. See
The article header (front-matter).
In which language can I publish?
Section titled “In which language can I publish?”The protocol specification names English as the language of publication, and the web app and these docs are in
English. The header has a recommended language key (for example en or es), which search can filter on; the
blockchain does not check it. See The article header (front-matter).
Can I publish data?
Section titled “Can I publish data?”Yes, with the type dataset. Every publication folder, a dataset included, can hold at most 20 MB, so material too
large for the article’s own folder goes in a separate dataset publication that the article links to. See
Publish an article.
Reviews, votes and the seal
Section titled “Reviews, votes and the seal”Who can review an article?
Section titled “Who can review an article?”Anyone with a wallet, from the first day, except the article’s confirmed authors. Each person reviews an article once, in any status except retracted. To count toward the seal, a review must also meet the seal’s rules (below). See Review an article.
Can I review anonymously?
Section titled “Can I review anonymously?”No. Every review is signed by the reviewer’s address and is public and permanent. An address is a pseudonym unless its owner shows a name (an NFD name or a verified ORCID iD). See Identity: addresses, names and ORCID.
Can I change a review or a vote?
Section titled “Can I change a review or a vote?”No. Reviews cannot be edited; a reviewer who changes their mind writes a comment. A vote can never be changed or withdrawn. See Comment, mention and vote.
How does the Peer-reviewed seal work?
Section titled “How does the Peer-reviewed seal work?”An article holds the seal while at least two reviews that count recommend it (accept or minor revision), they outnumber the reviews that count asking for major revision or rejection, and every author has a verified ORCID iD. A review counts when its author is not an author of the article, has a verified ORCID iD, knows the field (reputation 10 in the article’s primary or secondary field, or 3 works in its area on OpenAlex), has no conflict of interest with the authors, and writes at least 200 words. The article page lists every review with whether it counts and why. Later reviews can take the seal away; it is suspended while the article is disputed and gone if it is retracted. See The Peer-reviewed seal.
Does “closed version” mean the article passed review?
Section titled “Does “closed version” mean the article passed review?”No. An author can close an article (from under review) to stop new versions; it says nothing about review. Only the seal does. See Articles and their statuses.
Why can’t I downvote?
Section titled “Why can’t I downvote?”Cabdell has upvotes only. Weak work simply gets no votes and sinks; unacceptable work (plagiarism, spam, fabricated data) is handled by flags, which are not votes. See Reputation and vote weight.
What if an article is plagiarised, fabricated or spam?
Section titled “What if an article is plagiarised, fabricated or spam?”Flag it, if you have at least 10 reputation in its primary field and your reputation record there is at least 30 days old. A flag weighs like a vote, at most 10, and deposits a bond, usually 1 ALGO: you get it back if the article is retracted, and you lose it if the article is cleared (half goes to the article’s author) or if the dispute expires. When the flags of the current round add up to 30, the article becomes disputed: new versions stop while everything else continues, a jury of qualified people examines it, and governance clears or retracts it. See Flag an article and Flags, disputes and governance.
Identity and privacy
Section titled “Identity and privacy”What is public, and what stays private?
Section titled “What is public, and what stays private?”Everything you do through your wallet is public and permanent: articles (every file in the folder, including comments in the source), reviews, comments, votes, flags, follows, ORCID and DOI declarations, and public lists. Private lists, your pinning key and your display preferences stay in your browser. Cabdell’s server looks up NFD names and avatars, so your browser never contacts NFD. See Privacy and permanence.
Do I need an ORCID iD?
Section titled “Do I need an ORCID iD?”Not to read, publish, comment or review. But a review counts toward the Peer-reviewed seal only when its author has a verified ORCID iD, and an article holds the seal only when every author has one. Linking one also lets readers see your name, citations use it, and co-authors find your address by your iD. It never changes your reputation. With a verified iD, 3 works in an area on OpenAlex also meet the seal’s expertise rule for reviews in that area. See Link your ORCID iD.
Can my article have a DOI?
Section titled “Can my article have a DOI?”Yes, through Zenodo (run by CERN): Cabdell prepares a draft in your Zenodo account, you publish it there and declare
the DOI on Cabdell. A published Zenodo record cannot be deleted. On TestNet this uses the Zenodo sandbox, whose test
DOIs (10.5072/...) may be deleted at any time. A DOI from another repository can be declared directly. See
Get a DOI with Zenodo.
What if I lose my wallet?
Section titled “What if I lose my wallet?”Cabdell cannot help you recover it: it never had your key and there is no account to reset. Your articles, reviews and comments stay on record under your address, but only that address can act for them (publish new versions, change their status, claim their reputation). Keep your recovery phrase backed up offline and never share it. See Wallets and your address.
The future
Section titled “The future”What if cabdell.press disappears?
Section titled “What if cabdell.press disappears?”The record does not depend on it. The contract on Algorand cannot be modified or deleted, and the indexer and the website can be rebuilt by anyone from the blockchain alone. Articles are found on IPFS by their CID, so any copy, on any node, can be checked against the fingerprint on the blockchain; an article with a DOI also has a copy on Zenodo. See Verify without trusting cabdell.press and Run an indexer.
Who controls Cabdell? Can the team change the rules?
Section titled “Who controls Cabdell? Can the team change the rules?”Nobody can alter the past, including the people who run Cabdell. The contract has no update path and the account that deployed it has no privileges left. A single governance account has two powers only: registering new fields and resolving disputes (a retraction no sooner than 14 days after the dispute started, with published reasons); it can also propose a new address for its role, which takes over only when it accepts by signing. It cannot edit, hide or delete anything, and it cannot change the rules. It is a post-quantum account, and it is one signer until Algorand offers post-quantum multi-signature accounts. See Flags, disputes and governance.
When does MainNet open, and will my TestNet work move there?
Section titled “When does MainNet open, and will my TestNet work move there?”MainNet opens after an independent audit of the contract. TestNet and MainNet never mix: articles and reputation on TestNet carry no value on MainNet. You can publish the same content again on MainNet when it opens. See TestNet and MainNet.