Notifications

Democratia notifies you about things that happen while you are not looking: a poll opening for voting, a deadline approaching, results being published, an invitation. Everything is kept in one place — the bell in the top bar, which shows how many you have not read.

Two different things

It is worth separating them, because they behave differently on purpose.

Notifications are a record. They arrive when something happens, wait on the bell until you read them, and stay in your list afterwards. Nothing marks itself read because time passed.

On-screen cards are the short-lived messages that appear in the corner after you do something — claim a daily reward, unlock an achievement. They are for things you just caused, so you are already looking at the screen. They are filed in your list as already read, because the card was you seeing it: they should not also sit unread on the bell demanding attention you have already given.

The cards appear over the page without moving anything, disappear after about five seconds, and have a close button. Hovering or focusing one pauses its countdown so it cannot vanish mid-sentence. If your system asks for reduced motion, they appear and disappear without movement.

What is sent, and to whom

Each of these is sent once per poll and never repeated, however many times the poll is opened or however long the platform was away. Nobody is pestered about a deadline they have already met: the reminder goes only to people without a ballot in.

Participants from before accounts were required receive nothing at all, because Democratia has no way to reach them — a cookie is not an address. See Accounts and participation.

Reading

Opening your notifications does not mark them read. This is deliberate: a list that clears itself the moment you glance at it cannot be used to keep track of what still needs attention. Reading is always something you choose — either on one notification, or with Mark all as read.

You can also filter the list to unread only, or to a single category: polls, achievements, points, or system.

Deleting

Deleting a notification removes it from your list permanently. It does not undo anything the notification was about — deleting "results published" does not unpublish results.

Language

Notifications are stored as what happened, not as a finished sentence. The sentence is built when you read it, in whatever language you are using now. So if you switch from English to Portuguese, your whole notification history switches with you, including notifications from before the change.

Housekeeping

Read notifications are deleted automatically after 180 days. Two things are never deleted by age:

• Anything you have not read. Deleting an unread notification would silently lose it. If one is still unread a year later, it will be waiting when you come back.
• Achievement unlocks. They are a record of something you earned, not a passing alert.

Email

Some poll notifications also arrive by email — the ones about deadlines, where not seeing it in time has a real consequence. Achievements and daily rewards never do. They belong in the interface, and putting them in your inbox would be the wrong weight entirely.

What you will not find

There is no live updating. Notifications appear when you load a page, and the bell count is correct as of the moment the page was drawn. If you want to check for something new without leaving what you are doing, use the refresh control on the page — see poll pages. Nothing polls in the background, and nothing pushes to your browser.

There are also no read receipts and no per-notification settings. Whether a notification is sent is decided by the poll you are involved in, not by a preference panel.