Context notes
Notes that held
Nothing has held yet. A note appears here only after readers who usually disagree both rate it helpful and it holds for 14 days.
How a note gets here, in the same guide the extension shows, word for word. Two of its three chapters are things you can try rather than read.
How context notes work
A context note is about the page itself: an article, a video, a podcast episode. It is never about someone’s annotation of that page. Once it clears, everyone who opens the page sees it. To answer an annotation, reply to it.
The card — the five parts of every note, and its three states
Examples — five real notes, and why each reads the way it does
What gets shown — a demo you can try of how a note becomes public, and how to report one
The card
The 41% figure at the top of this page comes from a 2019 survey of 300 people. The study at example.org ↗ reports 12% for the same question, in table 2.
Every note is made of the same five parts. Step through them.
Examples
A context note adds what a reader would need to judge the page for themselves, with a source they can check.
The 41% figure at the top of this page comes from a 2019 survey of 300 people. The study at example.org ↗ reports 12% for the same question, in table 2.
It is specific, it can be checked, and it addresses the page rather than the person who wrote it. A reader can open the study and settle the question themselves.
What gets shown
A note is not shown because enough people liked it. It is shown when readers who usually disagree with each other both rate it helpful. That is a harder bar than a simple majority, and many notes never clear it.
Nothing is decided until a note has at least 5 ratings. Until then it waits where only signed-in readers can see it.
Two fixed sides is this page’s simplification. The real system does not sort readers into camps. It estimates where each reader stands from everything they have rated, and a note’s score rises only when readers far apart on that estimate agree. Scores are recalculated about every ten minutes. A note’s status becomes permanent 14 days after it is first decided. A note still undecided 28 days after it is written stays undecided for good, and is never shown publicly.
Most pages have no notes. That means no note met the bar, not that the page was checked and found fine.
Any signed-in reader can rate a waiting note, and ratings are what decide it. Nobody is shown how anyone rated, and no tally is ever displayed.
A note can argue the page is fine instead of flagging it. Raters see it while they weigh the other notes, but it is never shown publicly, even when readers rate it helpful.
Any signed-in reader can rate notes. Writing them unlocks once your ratings have helped decide other notes: a rating made early, while the note was still undecided, counts toward unlocking when it matches the eventual outcome, and against it when it does not. At 5, writing opens and stays open.
Checking a page for notes sends no address. The panel hashes the address on your machine and asks the server about the hash instead. Writing a note is the exception: a note has to name the page it is about, so proposing one sends the address.
If a note breaks the law or targets a person, email privacy@annotatedbounty.dev with the address of the page it is on and what is wrong with it. Every notice is read by a person, and a note that is unlawful or abusive is hidden everywhere it appears.