Sources
Docs: Personal, Primary, Publishing, Pinging, and Peeking Web App: Open Collaboration in Ponder. Active Participation Mode sits beside Problem above the chat prompt when publishing is enabled.Story
A Parable has a Collaboration Mode: Personal or Published Versions. This setting decides where edits are saved and whether publishing and participation are enabled. Your responsibility still determines which actions you may perform. Active Participation Mode describes how you are working right now: Publishing, Pinging, or Peeking. It can reduce the controls on screen without changing your responsibility or granting access.Structure
Choose Collaboration Mode
New composed Parables start Personal. The dropdown beside Problem stays visible,
shows Personal, and offers Publishing when you can change Collaboration Mode.
The Release control and the Refresh actions stay hidden: a Personal Parable has no
Releases, and its Refreshes, when it has any, open without actions.
The Primary can choose Publishing in the dropdown or Enable Publishing & Pinging
in the Collaboration tab to start versioning. This
creates their first set of Changes; it does not publish a Version or send a Ping.
In Deployments, choose All Workspaces or Selected Workspaces to configure
where future publishes go. Choosing these destinations does not deploy anything now.
The Publishing gear menu offers Disable Publishing. It returns the origin to
Personal, keeps the main content, and removes the other participants. Open Changes
are pocketed so their work is retained. Saved Versions and existing Workspace copies
remain available; disabling does not withdraw earlier publishes. A Workspace or Role
that holds Primary must first assign a Person as Primary before returning to Personal.
The Collaboration icon follows this saved policy: a lock for Personal and people for
Published Versions. The authoring view opens or reuses My Changes and addresses its
actual draft ref. Historical Versions remain explicit readings, and the selector never
offers a No Changes entry.
Choose Active Participation Mode
Personal is not a participation choice. In Personal mode the author keeps the
editing controls their responsibility permits and does not need to choose Publishing.
In Peeking and Pinging, the bottom editor drawer is hidden. An open document
that cannot be changed shows one read-only badge in its panel header, with the
reason in its tooltip and accessible name; code editors keep that explanation
for screen readers without repeating it below the code.
Refresh actions are hidden in Personal mode. With Published Versions enabled, a seat
that may work in Publishing sees them in every participation mode, and choosing one from
Peeking or Pinging moves to Publishing before it runs. Choosing a set of Changes in the
Release menu does the same. A seat that cannot work in Publishing sees no Refresh actions:
it reads Releases, Refreshes and every set of Changes that is not pocketed, read-only.
View as shows the same for the person viewed: no Refresh actions and none of your
pocketed sets.
Every participation choice remains visible in its dropdown. An unavailable choice
explains which responsibility it needs. Primary and Publishing actors can choose all
three; Pinging actors can choose Pinging or Peeking; Peeking actors can choose Peeking.
Security
Participation mode only narrows. The server independently checks Workspace access, Parable responsibility, and the requested action. A wider mode cannot grant a permission or reveal a protected Parable. In a mode below your responsibility, a Page’s Panes show what that mode’s responsibility can do. In Peeking, a Publishing author sees a Page’s controls as a Peeking participant does: a control that shares a setting with the Parable, such as creating a category, is unavailable: the Pane hides it or shows it disabled. A Pane that shows it disabled can say “Switch to Publishing to change this.” because it is told what your own responsibility allows (seatCapabilities).
The server refuses such a change. Your own settings still save. Data reads stay at
your responsibility.
Stability
The participation choice is encoded in the address, where Peeking keeps its earlier value,mode=peeping. Missing or invalid choices open in Peeking, and a
choice above the recipient’s responsibility is clamped to one they can use.
Personal policy takes precedence over this temporary view choice.
Disabling publishing retains work rather than merging someone else’s pending Changes
into main. Re-enable publishing to reach pocketed work through the normal history controls.