Public or private petitions

The two choices

The setting is called Who can see and sign? and the form says it plainly: you can change this anytime.

Where to find it

1. On the create page, open Advanced settings at the end of the step Your petition.
2. Choose Public or Private under Who can see and sign?
3. Afterwards, change it from Settings in the petition menu.

A petition that starts private can be made public the day you are ready to campaign, without losing the signatures already collected.

Password protection

In the same settings you can switch on Protect the petition with a password and type the password you want to share. Only people who know it can view and sign the petition, and a protected petition is never shown in the petition lists or the site search.

A visitor who opens the link sees a short page, "This petition is protected with a password", a password field and an Open the petition button. Nothing of the petition itself is shown before the password is right, because the petition name may be private too. The password must be at least four characters. After ten wrong passwords from the same connection, that visitor has to wait fifteen minutes.

You can change the password later. Access then ends for everyone who had it, which is how you remove someone who should no longer see the petition. By default a visitor who types the previous password is told that the author has changed it, so they know to ask you for the new one. You can turn that off with the setting Tell visitors who enter the previous password that the password has changed.

Who it helps

A workplace petition that should circulate among colleagues before it reaches management. A housing company petition meant for the residents of one building. A members' petition inside an association. A draft you want two or three people to read before it goes out. In each case the petition works exactly like any other petition, with the same signature form, exports and updates, but it does not show up in the lists or in search results.

Limits and good to know

• Private means unlisted, not confidential. The link alone opens the petition unless you add a password.
• The web address is not behind the password, and it is formed from the petition name. Anyone who sees the link can tell what the petition is about. We ask search engines not to index password-protected petitions, but an address can still turn up if someone publishes it. You can choose a neutral address in the settings.
• The site's moderators can see the content of private and password-protected petitions, and the community guidelines apply to them in the same way.
• A petition is also left out of the petition lists if its signature form does not require a first and last name, because such signatures cannot be verified.