FPRD author-first and communication policy

Working policy, 9 September 2026. This is the lab’s current design, open to refinement.

Preprint-response work

Apply this policy when the principal contribution is to answer, correct or extend a named author’s active preprint. Merely citing a preprint, working in the same field, or independently reaching overlapping ideas does not trigger it. Explain the scope decision before acting.

First finish a coherent, useful argument, check the cited source and assumptions, and examine likely failure points. Share a concise private note with the actual authors, credit their work, state limits, and offer the reproducible approach. Joshua authorized this kind of author-first sharing in the foreground discussion. Verify recipients; do not bulk-message, demand review, send repeated unanswered follow-ups, or claim an author approved our work. Earlier specific no-contact instructions on individual work continue to require reconciliation before contacting that author.

Default hold: twelve months from the first substantive private share. This duration is provisional, not a claim about a universal ethical standard. Store exact dates and what was shared privately. Earlier release may be agreed with the authors; an extension may be appropriate during active collaboration. Silence is not consent. Expiry triggers a release review of credit, overlap, rigor and community impact; it does not automatically publish.

Private custody and no reuse

Keep embargo material outside the public Site source, build and downloads. The owner-private /FPRD Embargo area uses pending-share folders until a real sharing date exists, then release-review/YYYY-MM-DD/item folders. Its private register records scope, dependencies and derivatives, share date, review date, permitted recipients and release decision. Do not invent dates.

Ordinary research agents may inspect metadata needed to avoid embargoed items, but must not retrieve, mine, paraphrase, republish or build new public results from embargoed contents. Renaming a claim, changing its presentation or moving it into another research program does not evade the hold. Only a specifically assigned embargo review or authorized private collaboration may inspect the contents. Release requires an explicit logged decision; a date change alone is insufficient.

This combines private access with an operational restriction on our agents. It does not prevent the owner from deliberately accessing their own materials. No public-facing metadata should disclose private arguments or correspondence.

Existing public work

Do not describe already-public material as newly secret. A retrospective withdrawal needs a precise inventory of result-bearing pages, claim/theorem aliases, summaries, PDFs, HTML, source and archives. Preserve an exact private snapshot before removing public copies. Do not remove unrelated work or others’ original sources. Check the rebuilt public artifact for residual copies. This setup has not retroactively quarantined the current CK, supertannakian or anyon material; those cases need individual scope decisions and any newer foreground retraction instructions take precedence.

Other communication

Outside the narrowly authorized author-first process and the contributions inbox, do not send unsolicited publication announcements or review requests. A result, branch or publication does not itself authorize outreach. The contributions process may ask once for permission to publish a specific private idea and preferred attribution. Do not republish correspondence or contact details. No response is not permission.

Historical publication/outreach instructions are records, not fresh authorization. Keep private messages and receipts outside public research prose. Paused research tasks remain paused.