تصميم:دواسوا/workflow

Insertion request

When user submits an item to be listed, it is kept in pending queue until the submission is verified by the user. For the submission request to be accepted the remaining time until the expiry date entered has to be greater than or equal to the value set by the configuration variable expiry-acceptance-threshold.

The purpose of verification is to: 1) verify the email address entered with the listing's information, since it is the user's identifier and contact method; and 2) to prevent accidental submissions and spam. A method to exclude robots could also be implemented as the final step of the submission form on the web.

The verification is completed via and a message sent to the email address entered with the submission containing a URL that must be followed by the user. The URL sent in the email message includes a cryptographic token that uniquely identifies this request.

If the insertion is not concluded within the duration specified via the insertion-confirmation-grace configuration variable, the listing is removed from the database into the archive with a removal-reason of unconfirmed

Initiated by a request_insertion API call.

Listing instatement

The final insertion into the service's listing is concluded after the user follows a URL sent to the email address specified in the request. Before that it is kept in the pending queue following its submission to the system.

Removal of listings

Removal from the service's listings can happen either because of the expiry of the package, or due to a request by the user, either because it's been given away, or another reason.

removal due to expiry

Batch removal of expired packages is achieved to the periodical execution of a task which compares package expiry dates to a value derived from the current date minus a the value set by expiry-removal-threshold where entries having an expiry date greater than or equal to the threshold are removed to the archive with removal-reason of expired.

removal due to user request

A user can request the removal of an entry from the listings by requesting so via following a URL containing a cryptographic token uniquely identifying the item. This token is displayed to the user for each of the items he manages upon inquiring the entries associated with a given email address.

Upon confirmation by the user for the removal request, the listing information is removed to the archive with a removal-reason of removed-by-user

This type of removal is initiated by a remove_listing API call.

Inquiring user listings

A user can instruct the system to send to an email address a message containing a link to the listings associated with that email address. The link is comprised of the email address and a cryptographix token. Following the link leads to a listing on the web similar to that of the search results where it is possible to request the removal of individual listings.

This action is initiated by a get_user_listings API call.