Requesting a removal
Anyone signed in may ask OSCR to remove something from a paper's record: the whole record, or only part of it. Published rules decide every request, and its answer comes back in words; what they cannot decide waits for the operator. There is no human moderator on duty at the moment.
Where to ask
Every paper's page links to its removal request — "Request removal" in its sidebar, "Request its removal" in its Contribute section — which opens /removal/?paper=… for that paper. You can also open the removal page and name the paper by its DOI. Signed out, the page offers to sign in (with ORCID, an author is recognized at once) and brings you back.
Who you are
One of: an author of the paper (marked verified when your account's ORCID iD is among its authors), the holder of the rights, a person named in the record, or someone else. Anyone may ask; who asks decides what the rules do (below).
What can be removed
- The whole record
- The paper's page, its entry in the lists, the lookup, the search and the open data.
- Only the copies of the authors' scripts
- Their text leaves the site and the open dataset, and the files OSCR does not copy are no longer shown from their source; the files stay listed, with their links to the source.
- One repository's copies
- The same, for one of the paper's repositories, chosen in a list.
- One file
- The same, for one file of one repository, chosen in a list.
- The tracing map
- Its matches, digest, validations and DOI leave the site and the open data; its Map section says it is withheld.
Why
Copyright or licence; personal data; wrongly attributed, or not your work; a retracted paper; an incorrect record — in which case the page first suggests correcting it, which is faster, but lets you ask all the same; or another reason. For your own data — the contact details the registry keeps privately, or your account — use your data and your rights instead: nothing of the record is removed, and access, erasure and objection are answered at once when you sign in with your ORCID iD.
The justification, the evidence, the confirmations
- A justification of 30 to 2,000 characters, in your words. It may not hold an email address: the request is answered in the site, never by email.
- An optional evidence link (https only): a licence, a notice, a statement.
- Two confirmations: that the information is accurate; and that you understand how requests are decided and what can follow — the rules may apply the request at once, hide copies at once pending review, or leave it to the operator, who may accept it, in whole or in part, refuse it, or reverse what the rules did.
Review, then send
The page checks the request with the site's own rules, then shows a summary of everything; nothing is sent before "Confirm and send". The receipt gives the request's number, its status (open) and what the rules will do with it. Coming back to the page shows the request: while it is open you may complete it (it keeps its number); once decided, it shows the decision and its words — the rules' or the operator's. Your account page lists your requests.
The decision, and when it takes effect
OSCR's machine reads each request within about 10 minutes and applies its published rules (how requests are decided; the removal policy):
- from a verified author of the paper (your ORCID iD among its authors, or your claim verified): applied at once, whatever it names;
- for the copies of a repository you maintain as its owner or a public member of its organization, on GitHub (or as a maintainer the operator made): applied at once — a contributor's request follows the rules for anyone;
- for copies of the authors' code, for copyright or personal data, from anyone: hidden at once, pending the review of the operator, who may restore them — at most 3 such requests an account and 30 in all a day; a justification sent with 3 requests or more in 7 days, or a request the operator already refused, waits instead;
- anything else — a whole record, a tracing map, another reason: nothing is removed; the request waits for the operator, 30 days at most, and is then closed without removal, with how to ask again — except a request made for personal data, which the operator answers within one month, as the GDPR requires, and which is never closed unanswered.
Accepted, what the request names leaves every public output at the next nightly publication (at 04:17, the operator's local time): the site, the DOI lookup, the search, the community's facts and the open data. The operator's computer keeps the record, marked withdrawn or withheld, so that the harvester does not bring it back.
What cannot be undone elsewhere: a copy already published in a Parquet block on Hugging Face stays in that block (a published block never changes) — the manifest that points to it is withdrawn, so no reader finds it; a map's DOI already given stays on Zenodo — a DOI is permanent — though the site no longer shows it.
Limits
- One request per account and record, which you may complete while it is open. Accepted, it is not asked again; refused or closed, it can be asked again only in a way the rules decide at once — as a verified author, as a maintainer of the code it names, or for the copies only, for copyright or personal data.
- A request names at most one repository or one file; for more, choose the paper's scripts or the whole record, or say it in the justification.
- At most 10 requests a day per account. Signing in is required until the site has a bot check of its own.