Policies

Scope.

ARK-form identifiers under our assigned NAAN resolve at:

Behavior.

• Root = latest. The root ARK resolves to the most recent version of a Work.
• Pinned versions. Versioned ARKs (.vN) are immutable and permanently citable.
• Tombstones. Withdrawn items display a clear tombstone with a brief, non-identifying reason.
• Canonicalization. Resolver pages set <link rel="canonical"> to the root or the specific version. nobleblocks.org acts as a permanent alias and redirects to nobleid.org.
• HTTP semantics. Root pages respond 200 (HTML) for latest; pinned versions respond 200; withdrawn may respond 410; legally restricted may respond 451.
• Discovery. Resolver pages publish JSON-LD; sitemaps list canonical resolver URLs; OAI-PMH is available for harvesters.
• Change management. If infrastructure or legal name changes, resolution remains stable with forward-compatible redirects and an updated notice on this page.

Purpose.

Preserve high-quality, interoperable metadata for long-term citation, discovery, and verification.

Collection (minimum).

title; creators; type (e.g., article, dataset, software); abstract/description; date; license; identifiers and links. Recommended. affiliations (ROR), ORCID, keywords, funding, related works.

Validation.

• Identifier syntax is normalized and unique within our NAAN.
• Versioning uses explicit .vN.
• Licenses recorded using standard identifiers (e.g., CC/SPDX).
• Relationships mapped via sameAs, isPartOf, isBasedOn, supplements, and grant relations.

Formats & exposure.

• Human: Resolver HTML with version switcher and citations.
• Machine: JSON-LD (ScholarlyArticle/Dataset/SoftwareSourceCode), CSL-JSON, BibTeX, RIS, and OAI-PMH (Dublin Core).
• SEO: canonical links, sitemaps, structured-data validation.

Preservation.

• Each version emits a Knowledge-Proof Receipt with content and metadata digests, timestamps, signer reference, and storage pointers.
• Metadata and receipts are mirrored to an independent, decentralized store (BNB Chain Greenfield; object URIs + public gateway) for integrity checks; nightly fixity compares digests and flags anomalies.
• Optional public anchoring: daily bundles of receipt fingerprints may be time-anchored on chain (Base and/or BNB) for independent timestamping.

Corrections.

• Metadata corrections are logged; content changes require a new version.
• Duplicate or conflicting records may be merged with clear audit notes.

What can be disputed.

Authorship, rights, privacy violations, illegal content, harmful misuse, or serious factual misrepresentation.

How to file.

Email info@nobleid.org with the disputed ARK, a description of the issue, and supporting evidence. We acknowledge receipt promptly.

Process.

• Intake & banner. A dispute banner appears on the resolver page during review.
• Review. Evidence is collected from submitters, authors, and publishers as needed.
• Outcome. Restore, annotate, withdraw/tombstone, or block. A short non-identifying audit line is recorded.
• Appeals. An appeal may be requested with new or clarifying evidence.
• Value flows during disputes. Support/licensing flows tied to a disputed Work may be paused and held in escrow until resolution.

Abuse controls.

Repetitive or bad-faith complaints may be rate-limited or rejected.

What we collect.

• Information you provide (account/contact, Person sign-in and claims, public profile fields you choose, Work metadata, and optional Support/licensing details).
• Information collected automatically (standard web and API logs; integrity/fixity telemetry; strictly necessary cookies). We do not use third-party advertising technologies and do not sell personal data.

How we use data.

Operate resolvers, identity and claims, and public metadata; generate Knowledge-Proof Receipts; mirror for durability; run fixity; show the Update-Checker; process optional Support/licensing and split distributions; prevent fraud/abuse; meet legal requirements; send important service notices.

Sharing.

Hosting/storage/CDN, email delivery, logging/monitoring, Support/licensing providers (if used), and decentralized mirror providers under appropriate data-protection terms; legal disclosures where required.

Transfers.

Data may be processed in multiple countries with appropriate safeguards.

Retention.

Scholarly metadata, version history, Knowledge-Proof Receipts, and tombstones are preserved as part of the scholarly record. Operational and Support/licensing records follow documented schedules (see Data Retention).

Your rights.

Depending on your location, you may access, correct, delete, restrict/object, or obtain a copy of your data. For public scholarly records, deletions result in a tombstone. Contact: info@nobleid.org.

Controls.

Encryption in transit and at rest; key management; least-privilege access; WAF and rate-limiting; vulnerability management; backups and multi-region redundancy; continuous monitoring and alerting.

Incident response.

Detection, triage, containment, remediation, and post-incident review with appropriate user notifications.

Vulnerability reporting.

Report suspected vulnerabilities to info@nobleid.org. Include steps to reproduce and affected components. Good-faith research is welcomed; do not access non-public data or degrade service.

Integrity.

Nightly fixity compares mirrored and primary objects; discrepancies are investigated and remediated.

Scholarly record.

Works and versions (public metadata), Knowledge-Proof Receipts, and resolver tombstones are preserved permanently for citation and provenance.

Accounts & verification.

Retained while active and for two years after termination, then deleted or anonymized.

Operational records.

• Access logs: 90 days hot; 12 months encrypted cold storage.
• Security logs: 12 months.
• Audit logs (admin actions, dispute outcomes): 7 years.
• Support/licensing records: retained as required for accounting and compliance.

Legal holds.

Records may be retained beyond schedules when required.

Scope.

Venues (journals, publishers, conferences, repositories) may enable rewards for accepted contributions (peer reviews, editorial milestones, production/copy-editing, moderation) and configure Support split distributions.

Verification & release.

Editors/venues verify completion/acceptance in their own systems. NobleID releases rewards only after a verifiable acceptance signal (signed assertion or explicit release). Disputes pause distributions; outcomes are recorded.

Privacy.

Contributors choose disclosure mode (anonymous, pseudonymous, named) subject to venue policy. Rewards and Support use fresh or relayed addresses; base addresses are not exposed.

Public record.

The Work page shows a non-identifying receipt of reward claims/releases and Support splits; named claims may display Person and/or ORCID.

Guidelines to include on venue sites.

Interoperability.

JSON-LD, CSL-JSON, BibTeX, RIS, OAI-PMH (Identify, GetRecord), and accepted identifier relations (sameAs, DOI, ROR, ORCID, RAiD).

Accessibility.

Resolver and policy pages are developed with WCAG 2.1 AA in mind.

Resolver information.

This page constitutes our resolver and permanence statement for ARKs under our NAAN.