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Participants

Participants are the people, Roles, and Workspaces assigned a responsibility on a Parable. The assignments say who is answerable for the outcome, who does the work, who is consulted, and who is kept informed. They exist so everyone can see who owns what, and so Parable actions and Policies can be granted to the right seats instead of to whoever happens to be asking. Each assignment holds one of four participation permissions, and each higher one includes everything below it. Primary is accountable: it answers for the outcome and makes the decisions reserved to that seat. Publishing is responsible: it authors, coordinates, prepares evidence, and runs the publication and recovery actions the Parable allows. Pinging is consulted: it reads, clarifies, answers Pings, and works in Problems without editing Pieces. Peeking is informed: it reads Pages, chooses a Version, Changes, or Report reading, and can send Messages to Ponder in a Problem it can see. A Ponder turn runs with the sender’s permissions, so a Peeker’s turn saves no Changes. Primary can be a person, a Role, or a whole Workspace; when a group holds it, everyone in that group is accountable together. Participants are managed in Collaboration under Participants, which has an actor picker and one row per assignment. Participants apply when the Parable is in Publishing mode; a Personal Parable has only its author. Responsibility and access are separate. An assignment records accountability; on its own it gives nobody Workspace membership or access to a protected Parable, and a Workspace administrator is not automatically Primary. A protected action runs only when the person can use the Workspace surface, their participation permits the action, and current Policies allow it; Primary does not bypass a denied Policy. A Parable always keeps a Primary. Publishing can assign Publishing, Pinging, or Peeking to others but cannot change the Primary or take it. Moving Primary to a person, Role, or Workspace requires an existing Primary. Renaming a Role does not change its permissions. Returning a Parable to Personal removes the other participants, and a Role or Workspace holding Primary must first hand it to a person. A mention, Ping, Power, or Ponder Message never assigns a responsibility. Participation permissions are different from the Active Participation Mode a person picks for the moment: Publishing, Pinging, or Peeking. The mode only narrows the controls on screen. Primary and Publishing can pick any mode, Pinging can pick Pinging or Peeking, and Peeking can pick Peeking.

1. Ask Ponder who is responsible for the Parable. It reads the current assignments before proposing any change.
2. Describe the change in plain words, such as making a Role the Pinging participants or moving Primary to a named person. Name the person, Role, or Workspace exactly; Ponder looks people up in the Workspace and asks when a name is ambiguous.
3. Ponder replaces the whole assignment list in one step, so it keeps every unchanged row, keeps a Primary, and presents the new list for your approval.
4. Approve only if the list matches your intent. The save fails if someone else changed the assignments first; read them again and retry.
5. If someone needs access rather than a responsibility, handle Workspace membership separately.

Good assignments name one clear Primary, a Publishing participant who does the work, and only the Pinging and Peeking participants who need them. Check the result by reading the assignments back and by confirming that each person sees the modes and actions their seat allows. A disabled action explains which responsibility it needs; read that explanation before changing anyone’s seat. Related Powers: Publishing, Policies, Pings, Workspaces. Find each by its title; do not guess stored names.