Accounts & privacy
Signing in, what is saved, and usage limits.
Who can use Specula
Specula is for adults aged 18 and over. Everyone confirms their date of birth before using it, and it's only used for that check.
Signing in
Specula uses Google sign-in. You can try research without an account, but signing in lets you:
- Save conversations to your History and reopen them on any device
- Keep your Reports and researched Players
- Attach images and documents
Memory
When you're signed in, Specula remembers useful things across conversations — your preferences (leagues, positions, formats, level of detail), your club or role, players you follow and standing instructions. Say remember that… to save something, or forget that… to remove it. Once a conversation has read web pages, files or other outside content (or you've stopped an answer partway), Specula doesn't save anything itself, so a page can't put words in your memory: it shows you the memory (and anything it would replace) as a card, and you press Save if you want it. Forgetting works the same way: you press Remove. Vision and Xavi always work this way.
Review, edit or delete memories any time under Settings → Memory, clear them all at once, or switch memory off. Guests have no memory.
Export or delete your data
Under Settings → Privacy & data you can download everything Specula holds about you as a file, or delete all of your research. Settings → Account → Delete account permanently removes your account and everything in it.
Your data is private
Conversations, reports and attachments belong to your account and are never shown to other users unless you share a report privately. You decide whether a shared link is view only or can edit, can protect it with a password and an expiry date, and can revoke it at any time. Every conversation is saved to your account in full, messages and answers included, so it opens from History on any device and after signing out and in again. Deleting a conversation from History permanently removes it together with its reports and their links.
Your Xavi notebook — boards with their step-by-step history, match screenshots you upload, snapshots, problem progress and your conversation with Xavi — is saved to your account when you're signed in, so it follows you to any device. It's private unless you create a link for a board (optionally with a password, expiry and download turned off); the uploaded screenshot is never part of a shared link. Deleting a board removes it for good, and the data download and account deletion include your notebook. As a guest, nothing in Xavi is saved.
Feedback and model improvement
Ratings and notes you give on answers are reviewed to find and fix mistakes. Reviewers see a pseudonym, never your name or email, and see the question and answer only if you chose to share them with that feedback. Separately, Settings → Privacy & data has an optional switch, off unless you turn it on, that lets Specula use your reviewed feedback (and the exchanges you shared with it) to improve its models. Turning it off, removing feedback or deleting the conversation takes it out of anything prepared afterwards. Your private conversations are never used for training on their own.
Usage limits
To keep research fast for everyone, each account has a message allowance for 10 hours from its first message; then it starts again:
- Guests: 3 messages
- Signed in: 10 messages
The allowance is shared by research messages and Xavi: every message to either counts, and when you reach the limit both pause until it resets. Specula shows how many you've used and exactly when they reset, and Settings lists your allowances.
What counts: an answered message counts once, even if your connection drops and the message is sent again. A message whose answer fails is given back. A message you stop partway still counts, since the research was already done. Match screenshots on your Xavi boards are saved to your account up to 200 in any 10 hours. Only a new screenshot counts: keeping the one a board already has doesn't. A new one counts once storage accepts it (or doesn't answer), even if saving the board then fails. At the limit Specula tells you when there's room again, and your boards stay on this device until then.