Permanence

Publishing to the public layer is a lasting step, and CensusIO treats it that way on purpose.

There is no un-publish

Once a record is published, it stays public. There is no button to take it back. The public layer follows an archive model, like a released dataset: a public record that others can find and cite needs to be stable, not something that can quietly disappear.

Publish when the data is ready

Because publishing cannot be reversed, CensusIO asks you to confirm before it happens, both when you make a survey type public and when you approve a record under a published survey type. Treat that confirmation as the moment of consent: publish when the data is reviewed, correct, and ready to stand as a public record.

What this protects

The combination of review before publishing (only approved records go public) and curation (only attribution fields are shared) means the public layer holds data your team has signed off on, shown the way you intend. That is what makes it safe to be permanent.

Related

• Publishing
• What is shared