Page Private

The Private setting makes a page accessible only to its creator and administrators. It is the strongest per-page access control and overrides every other view or edit rule on the page.

What It Does

When Private is enabled on a page:

Only the creator (the user who first saved the page as private) and administrators can view, edit, or otherwise act on the page
The page content is stored in a separate per-creator location on disk so it does not appear in indexes, listings, or backups that aren't privacy-aware
All other per-page settings — Page Audience, Author Lock, and any access overrides — are bypassed. The Private rule decides alone.

How To Set It

On a page's Edit form, check the Private checkbox
On the Create New Page form, check the Private checkbox at creation time
In page frontmatter directly:

private: true

The dedicated private frontmatter field is the canonical signal. Earlier versions of GeoHazardWatch used a user-keywords: [private] entry; that mechanism was removed in v3.7.0. All existing pages have been migrated. New pages should use only the top-level private field.

Who Can Set or Remove It

The page creator can toggle Private on or off
Administrators can toggle Private on or off on any page

Precedence Over Other Settings

Private is the highest-priority per-page rule. When private: true is set:

Setting	Effect when Private is on
Page Audience	Ignored — does not grant or deny view
`access: { view, edit, delete }`	Ignored — does not grant or deny anything
Author Lock	Ignored — Private already restricts edit to creator + admins
Global access policies	Ignored — Private decides alone

Removing Private (setting private: false or unchecking the box) restores normal evaluation through Audience / access / global policies.

Creator vs Author

Private access uses the page's creator — the user who first saved the page with private: true — for the per-page allowlist. If the author frontmatter field has been changed to a different name, the author field does not affect Private access.

What Private Does NOT Do

Does not hide the page from administrators — admins always retain access
Does not encrypt the page content — it is access-controlled, not encrypted
Does not apply separately to attachments — attachment access follows the page's view permission

Page Private (Documentation)

GeoHazardWatch