Access Control

Access Control in CalSWIM

CalSWIM is a live digital document produced and continually updated by voluntary contributions. By opening up and decentralizing content creation, we remove the expensive technical and editorial work that plagues so many public service web sites.

Quality of the information is extremely important. As such CalSWIM is designed under some basic principles that promote quality contributions.

1. No Anonymous Contributions

Any anonymous web surfer can view the pages in CalSWIM. However, by design, anonymity of contributions is not allowed; all contributors must register with CalSWIM. From then on, all actions (editions, deletions, creations, etc.) are attributed to their contributors, and can be traced.

Registration is open and free: any person interested in contributing can get an account with CalSWIM (here). The registration process in CalSWIM is only pseudo-registration, i.e. real-world identity is not required. Therefore contributors may choose to use a pseudonym rather than their real-world names. For purposes of credibility, it is strongly encouraged that contributors use the name by which they are known in their professional communities.

2. Open Index vs. Open Content

All top-level spaces in CalSWIM follow the principle of open index. This principle ensures that any CalSWIM user is able to add their own pages to any section of the wiki, including pages discussing and counter-arguing pages created by other users. Hyperlinks within the CalSWIM Wiki and a powerful search feature support the discovery of related information.

Although some spaces in CalSWIM have open content, CalSWIM does not subscribe to the principle of open content in its most general form. Several spaces and a large number of pages can only be edited by their creators and by those explicitly given permission to edit the pages. Open content wikis such as Wikipedia allow all users, including anonymous users, to edit all pages all the time. That principle breaks the integrity of information that the original author(s) intended to have. This integrity is particularly important on the studies and reports made available in CalSWIM, which can be discussed and counter-argued, but not changed by anyone other than the author(s).