A reference list is flat text. CiteStamp turns each entry into a typed, signed, public claim — with a name attached and a permanent place on an append-only log.
Every answer CiteStamp gives carries a tier. Signed edges were put on the record by a named researcher under their ORCID iD, cryptographically signed, appended to a public chained log. Inferred edges come from machine sweeps of open scholarly metadata — useful coverage, clearly labelled as machine work. The two tiers coexist on every paper page, and nothing ever silently promotes one to the other.
Paste a DOI on the main page. The reference list is drafted from open scholarly data (OpenAlex, Zenodo), and you choose what each citation actually does: supports, refutes, extends, uses a method, uses data, or plain cites. Signing happens server-side under your researcher identity — there are no keys to download, manage, or lose. Each signed claim is public, CC0, timestamped, and chained to every claim before it, so the record cannot be quietly edited later.
Machine sweeps have already mapped citations for hundreds of thousands of papers. If one of them is yours, open its page and follow Claim with ORCID. You sign in with your ORCID iD, tick the citations that are genuinely part of your reference list, and sign them under your name. Signing in proves who you are; whether the paper is yours is checked against the work’s own public metadata — and when the metadata doesn’t list your iD, a human curator reviews the claim instead. Nothing is ever auto-approved on a name match.
Signed something in error? A retraction is itself a signed, public event on the same log — the original line stays, the retraction points at it, and every reader sees both. That is what an append-only record means.