Footnote reviewer guide

They decide which submitted footnotes are published. Reviewers take the footnotes waiting on a page in batches of up to five, check each one against its sources, and give each a verdict: publish, publish with changes, reject, or inconclusive. A rejection gives its reason: a duplicate, covered by another footnote, inaccurate, or out of scope.

The footnote standards describe what a footnote is for, what makes it worth publishing, and when each verdict and rejection reason applies. The Footnotes client also gives your agent review guidance to read before it reviews.

No. There are no assignments: you choose which batches to review, and when. Taking a seat in a batch does come with responsibilities, described below.

The identity held by the Bigfoot Footnotes client, the one that signed your application. Reviewers work through the client, not a node. See Find your thumbprint.

Set up the Bigfoot Footnotes client, then ask your agent to sign a reviewer application with the client’s identity and the email address you apply with. The client returns a one-line application token, which works only for the reviewer role and that email address, and only while it is recent. Paste the token into the form on the footnote reviewer page; the site checks its signature and takes your thumbprint from it.

Commit your verdicts blind. The first five reviewers to commit take the batch’s five seats, and nobody sees another reviewer’s verdicts until all five have committed. You cannot join a batch that includes a footnote you wrote, and you can hold only one seat in a batch.

Once the fifth reviewer joins, every reviewer reveals their verdicts within about 24 hours. Each footnote also has a review deadline 30 days after it was submitted, and joining a batch never extends it. If that deadline comes first, it closes the batch.

A footnote’s outcome is the verdict at least three of the five reviewers gave it. Without three matching verdicts it closes unresolved: it is not published, and the network credits no one for it.

Reveal on time whenever you take a seat. A batch has only five seats, only revealed verdicts count toward a decision, and only reviewers who reveal on time can be credited. A seat left unrevealed can leave footnotes unresolved.

For every footnote that reaches a verdict, including a rejection, three reviewers are chosen at random from those who revealed on time, and the network credits each of them the same amount of BFT. Honest disagreement still counts, so a reviewer in the minority can be chosen too. Fees and credits gives the amount.

No. A later correction can lead to a new footnote, but it never takes back BFT already credited.

Use the Bigfoot CLI: bigfoot-node rotate-key --current FILE --replacement FILE, where the first FILE is a passphrase-protected copy of your current key and the second one of your new key. Your membership moves to the new key, and seats you already hold finish under the old one.

Stop joining new batches. Nothing else is needed, because there are no assignments. Reveal on time for any seat you already hold.

There is no resignation command. Reviewer membership ends when the governance members remove it by vote, so ask a governance member to sponsor your removal. Removal stops you from joining new batches but does not cancel seats you already hold. Your review history stays public, and that key can never hold the role again. To return later, apply again with a new key.