User.init method inside User.rb. Is this good practice?

I’m sort of conflicted here. I’m using CanCan and it automatically load and authorize User/Create.

My Facebook/Init is as follows. I’m tempted to do something similar and call User/Init from User/Create method. This way I hide the implementation in the UserController so User/Create and User/Update will still call the User/Init method. The problem starts when I need the Controller to know whether it is a new record or just an update.

Would you do this differently?