[ckan-dev] Privacy of user activity in CKAN 2.0

Thu May 30 09:51:43 UTC 2013

> My assumption as a naive user is that every edit goes in the activity
> stream, but that I am only ever shown activity relating to datasets
> I'm authorised to see (either because they're public, or because I'm
> in the relevant Organization). If a dataset is made public then so is
> its history. After all the history is really just more metadata.

Right. IIRC, we wanted to have private activities for private datasets
as you describe, but we didn't have time to do that change (at the "last
second" before releasing 2.0, this was in January iirc! :) so we just
made a simpler change instead: no activities from private datasets.

If and when we do have private activities for private datasets, then I'm
not sure about the question of what happens to private activities when
their dataset becomes public. Do the activities become public as well as
you say? Or do the activities remain private (but any further activities
that happen while the dataset is public are public)?

I think the more conservative option of private activities always remain
private, is maybe safer.

The same question comes up when a public dataset becomes private: do the
dataset's public activities now become private and disappear from
activity streams? Or do public activities always remain public?