[Discuss] wiki suggestion?

[dbarrett at blazemonger.com (Daniel Barrett)]

On August 1, 2014, Bill Bogstad wrote:
>So if I understand what you are saying, MediaWiki gives either zero access
>or 100% access?   Sort of like having a login on a Unix/Linux system where
>every file/directory is Read/Write world.   You still need a login to
>do anything, but once you have one you can do practically anything.

Nope, it's better than that. :-)

You can define groups of users, each with different rights: read,
write, edit, delete, rename, and a few dozen others. Here's
Wikipedia's configuration in this regard:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ListGroupRights

To grant a particular right to a particular group of users, you simply
assign to a PHP array:

  $wgGroupPermissions['user']['read'] = true;

You can also create arbitrary new types of rights, like "the right to
turn pages blue" or "the right to delete articles whose title begins
with X." The core MediaWiki software won't know and respect those
rights, but you can create extensions that do.

Once you have your list of rights and the users who have them, you can
apply those rights at the namespace level:

  $wgNamespaceProtection['my-namespace'] = array( 'right1', 'right2' );

or at the "whole wiki" level.

What you cannot do is assign rights around an INDIVIDUAL article or
other collections of articles. This is where MediaWiki falls down
compared to certain other wiki software.

--
Dan Barrett
dbarrett at blazemonger.com
Author, "MediaWiki" (O'Reilly)