As before, this is in the category of refactoring/improvements once alberich and conductor have been integrated. In most cases, the before_filter approach doesn't work well with permissions since we often need other data in the controller (figuring out the current object, etc). For this controller, however, the before_filter might be appropriate. I guess it's as much a style question as anything else here -- Since the majority of permission checks are inline in the controller methods (since they need access to data not available in before filters) I was afraid it might be confusing to be inconsistent in these few cases if we used before_filters here, especially as it might give the impression we forgot them here. I don't have a strong opinion on this, but my feeling was that this way was less confusing and more readable.