Who can change what?

The MyCA pages are designed to encourage everyone to contribute but there are limits to what different types of members can see and change. For example, most content is limited to members only, but most pages can be given the visibility "Public Access" which means that anyone on the web can read it.

In any particular category, you will know if you can change a page if it has an "Edit" tab at the top of the page. Normally you can only change a page if you created it. If you want to delete a page, first click on Edit, then scroll to the bottom and you will find the Delete button there.

All members are given privileges based on the following names:

• Member
• Crewing
• Section secretary
• Regional Editor
• Committee
• Council

These are quite broad categories and control two main capabilities: whether you can see or change pages in various parts of MyCA. So, for instance, the Sections part of the site can only be changed by a Section Secretary and the Regional Pages (to be published soon) by a Regional Editor. In addition, some parts can only be seen by a limited group of people: for example the Council.

The Forums section of MyCA in general follows these but has a finer level of control, so that individual forums can only be seen by individuals and it is possible to "join" others. In the Forums, individual committees can be controlled, whereas in the rest of MyCA there is only the broad distinction between committee and Council (which for this purpose includes F&GP).

The major aim of this system is to prevent mistakes rather than keep out the malicious user, who we hope is dealt with by the "members only" limitation to any change. With the best will in the world, it is possible for someone who doesn't understand the organisation to delete something they shouldn't or to change something they don't fully understand. Most pages allow comments and if you disagree with something you can't change, this is the way to go about it. The editor of that section should be notified by email of your comment and will then be able to change the page and remove your comment or respond to it.

A secondary aim is to allow private discussion and postings where these are necessary, for instance by the Council and Finance committees.

Every user has a "log" (also called "blog") page by which they can add general pages to the site. These are normally "promoted" to the front page where they are displayed in a most recent first order but if you don't want that, you can change it.

How to control access

If you are allowed to edit a page in MYCA, then you will see an "Edit" tab just under the page title. When you hit that you will first see a list of "Categories" which control things for the page you are editing.

The first pull-down menu is called "Visibility" and controls who can see the page. There are four options and the main caution here is that you can create a page which you can't see. For instance, if you choose "Council" and you are not a Council member or related, then when you save the page you won't be able to see it or change it back!

The other key menu is "Edit by" and if it is set, then it will be at a level you can control. At present there are two others called Section and Regional Page. These do much the same for sections and regions and we are considering changing these so that those items appear under Edit by. One of the entries in Edit by is "Member" and this allows a section editor, for example, to create a page which their members can update, though not delete.

Do remember to Preview and then Submit to save any changes you want to make.