On 8/30/05, Dave Brewster dbrewster@guidewire.com wrote:
We would like to be able to control permissions, specifically edit, of a page per namespace.
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Does this sound feasible and if so does it sound like something other want?
I think a proper permissions concept would be a great leap in mediawiki's evolution.
I, for one, can't see many places where I can't fit mediawiki in.. except when it comes to private stuff The lack of permissions eliminates many business uses. I can't even put up my private notes.. I have to use another tool, which saddens/sickens me.
Yes, my philosophies are very different.. privacy supposedly isn't a wiki characteristic.. but sooner or later wikis have to grow up.
This problem is something a lot of people have been making various hackish solutions for. There are some interesting ones listed on meta.
Stuff to think about for a "complete" solution:
Make this function off by default and checking a LocalSettings.php to turn it on, to give it a chance to be included into the mainstream code.
Make the permissions editable in some kind of [[Special:Permissions]]-type page in-wiki. It would be a human-readable list but the special page would be smart enough to use/edit your user_groups table.
Summon voodoo to create a new tab if the permissions concept is turned on in LocalSettings.php, which redirects to a special page-generated page to set the permissions of the page. Or perhaps even have some checkboxes and a dropdown box for groups right there.
Extend the functionality to the various views and not just edits, to allow privacy.
Keep in mind that templates are a wacky breed, and may completely break your concepts. I don't think you could force privacy on a template if it gets viewed in the contents of another page which isn't private..
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