Venue Request: unable to delete the readers on "Additional Submissions Fields"

[melisabok]

When a PC set an additional field with restricted readers and after that tries to remove it, the submission invitation is not updated correctly.

This is because when using the API 2, all the fields must be removed using { delete: true }.

I suggest to synchronize the fields of the invitation and the additional submission fields setting "delete:true" so the fields where readers are not present anymore.

[celestemartinez]

I think the issue also is that we were maybe not expecting the PCs to add readers to fields in the submission invitation (since we use hide_fields for the post_submission invitation, which sets the readers only as PCs and paper authors)

Two comments:

• adding readers (other than PCs and authors) at this point before the post submission is run won't make a difference because at this point papers are only visible to PCs and authors anyways
• even if we do add readers at this point (for example NeurIPS.cc/2023/Workshop/OTML/Submission${{4/id}/number}/Reviewers), these will be overwritten when the Post Submission stage is run:
  1. if the field was added to hide_fields, then the readers will be overwritten (to include only PCs and authors)
  2. if the field was not added to hide_fields, then the readers will be deleted

I think we need to find a way to make both readers and hide_fields work together and not overwrite each other, @melisabok what do you think?

[melisabok]

I see what you mean. hide_fields was created for the API 1 and it only supports field name, we could make the field a json and add more information, like the readers for each field we want to hide. This field could be initialized with the value from Additional Submission Fields"?

PCs should be able to set specific readers in the submission invitation and don't have to wait until the post submission stage to hide them. Post Submission is intended to run automatically.

Another option is to get rid of hide_fields and asks the PCs to specify the fields to hide in the "Additional Submission Fields".

To fix this issue, the "Additional Submission Fields" must be synchronized with the existing submission invitation and add delete: true when the field readers is removed.

How to reproduce this issue:

1. Submit a venue request
2. Deploy venue
3. Add additional submission fields like supplementary_material with readers: [PCs, Authors]
4. Submit a few submissions
5. Post a venue revision editing "Additional Submission Fields" where supplementary_material doesn't have readers.
6. The submission invitation shouldn't have readers on invitation.edit.note.content.supplementary_material

What happens with the submissions posted in step 4? I believe they remain with the restricted readers.