Hello,
I have just upgraded our corporate Wiki to MediaWiki 1.9.3. Almost a year ago when I first installed the Wiki here, I was looking around for some access control solutions. I was wondering if any work has been done recently to have per-page access controls or if the situation is still like it was before.
If nothing is built into 1.9.3, are there any good compatible extensions to use for this?
What my users are looking for is a way for some pages themselves to be only editable by a handful of people but the discussion page is editable by anyone.
I think I heard once before about a plug-in or extension that would mark off certain pages as approved. This doesn't fit the request above but seems like it could be nice. I'm not sure how this compares to the "Patrolled" thing built in.
It would be real nice to have both of these kinds of controls if they don't step on each other's feet. I can picture a real nice "Approval" extension where a page that is under this kind of control always displays the current version but has a block on the top of the page telling you that the page may contain unapproved information and provide a link to the latest approved version. Of course, the block telling you all of this should not be able to be removed.
If someone is aware of either of these kinds of extensions, please let me know.
~Eric
I was wondering if any work has been done recently to have per-page access controls or if the situation is still like it was before.
First of all, Rob's standard disclaimer / "Use a proper CMS" whinge: You are advised to install an appropriate document management package. MediaWiki was not written to provide per-page read access restrictions, and almost all hacks or patches promising to add them will likely have flaws somewhere, which could lead to exposure of confidential data. We will not be held responsible should a password or bank details be leaked, leading to loss of funds or one's job. (cf. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Robchurch)
That being said, Fernando has written a PageSecurity extension that works quite well, though there are some issues still (e.g. only limited ability for users themselves to define access restrictions, no proper protection for uploaded files). Take a look at it here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:PageSecurity
If you really want a wiki with access control, you might look into the MoinMoin wiki engine; they apparently have proper Access Control Lists, though I don't know how well that works as I have yet to try MoinMoin...
I think I heard once before about a plug-in or extension that would mark off certain pages as approved. This doesn't fit the request above but seems like it could be nice. I'm not sure how this compares to the "Patrolled" thing built in.
I know very little about this, but I think there's an extension called StableVersion... However, the issue has been discussed before: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-l/2007-January/017269.html (RTFA ;) )
HTH.
-- F.
On 19/03/07, Frederik Dohr fdg001@gmx.net wrote:
If you really want a wiki with access control, you might look into the MoinMoin wiki engine; they apparently have proper Access Control Lists, though I don't know how well that works as I have yet to try MoinMoin...
We use it at work. The ACL stuff is OKish, though I haven't kicked it really hard or tried to break it.
Moin is way underfeatured compared to Mediawiki, though, and CamelCase fundamentally sucks.
(We use it because for under ten people, the guy who installed it considered Mediawiki waaaaay overengineering :-)
- d.
I've considered installing MoinMoin for a small team at the office, so I'm glad you brought up the issue of its shortcomings. (If anyone objects to discussing MoinMoin here, please let me know; we might continue this discussion in private then.)
We use it at work. The ACL stuff is OKish, though I haven't kicked it really hard or tried to break it.
"OKish" sounds not very convinced; is it too complicated maybe? Or is it good at what it does, extreme security concerns aside?
Moin is way underfeatured compared to Mediawiki, though
In what way? It's missing MW-like templates (e.g. no parameters), that I know about - what else is there?
CamelCase fundamentally sucks
I'm not a fan of CamelCase either. But I think it can be avoided by simply using what in MoinMoin is called ["free links"] - and then either ignoring or !ManuallyEscaping the rare accidental CamelCase occurence. Also, CamelCase can be disabled altogether by replacing the default parser with a modified one (not sure whether there's any catch in that though): http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/ParserMarket/NoCamelCase
-- F.
Frederich, Eric P21322 wrote:
Hello,
I have just upgraded our corporate Wiki to MediaWiki 1.9.3. Almost a year ago when I first installed the Wiki here, I was looking around for some access control solutions. I was wondering if any work has been done recently to have per-page access controls or if the situation is still like it was before.
If nothing is built into 1.9.3, are there any good compatible extensions to use for this?
What my users are looking for is a way for some pages themselves to be only editable by a handful of people but the discussion page is editable by anyone.
If you only want to restrict by namespace, it's much easier. You could code an an extension for it or even use the builtin $wgNamespaceProtection (including everything but Talk namespace).
If you only want to restrict by namespace, it's much easier. You could code an an extension for it or even use the builtin $wgNamespaceProtection (including everything but Talk namespace).
Hmm, the manual page* says $wgNamespaceProtection was introduced in v1.10, which has not been released yet... !? Sounds interesting though!
-- F.
* http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:%24wgNamespaceProtection
Frederik Dohr wrote:
If you only want to restrict by namespace, it's much easier. You could code an an extension for it or even use the builtin $wgNamespaceProtection (including everything but Talk namespace).
Hmm, the manual page* says $wgNamespaceProtection was introduced in v1.10, which has not been released yet... !? Sounds interesting though!
It's on SVN. You can download a full install from there http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download_from_SVN
You can also patch your current version. $wgNamespaceProtection was included in r19110 http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki?view=rev&revision=19110
Another posible solution would be using the Talkright extension http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talkright_extension
I can't seem to find too much documentation for these extensions.
It seems to do what someone had asked for. I would be able to have anybody post on the talk page but only a certain group on the main article.
The only problem is that I don't want this globally. Just on a handful of pages which need that type of protection. Procedural stuff.
-----Original Message----- From: mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Platonides Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2007 9:08 AM To: mediawiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] access controls in 1.9.3
...
Another posible solution would be using the Talkright extension http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talkright_extension
...
This sounds like a good use for "protecting" pages -- a built-in feature that lets only sysops edit a page.
You would have to review sysop powers to check that the users who would be editing your "procedural" stuff can be trusted with them.
-- Joshua
On 3/20/07 7:43 AM, "Frederich, Eric P21322" eric.frederich@siemens.com wrote:
I can't seem to find too much documentation for these extensions.
It seems to do what someone had asked for. I would be able to have anybody post on the talk page but only a certain group on the main article.
The only problem is that I don't want this globally. Just on a handful of pages which need that type of protection. Procedural stuff.
-----Original Message----- From: mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Platonides Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2007 9:08 AM To: mediawiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] access controls in 1.9.3
...
Another posible solution would be using the Talkright extension http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talkright_extension
...
MediaWiki-l mailing list MediaWiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
Does using $wgNamespaceProtection give me the option to restrict editing anything in a namespace (except the talk pages) to a particular group? I'm guessing I can create a custom group of people and don't have to use the default sysop / bureaucrat stuff.
-----Original Message----- From: mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Platonides Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 5:38 PM To: mediawiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] access controls in 1.9.3
If you only want to restrict by namespace, it's much easier. You could code an an extension for it or even use the builtin $wgNamespaceProtection (including everything but Talk namespace).
Frederich, Eric P21322 wrote:
Does using $wgNamespaceProtection give me the option to restrict editing anything in a namespace (except the talk pages) to a particular group? I'm guessing I can create a custom group of people and don't have to use the default sysop / bureaucrat stuff.
Yes, it requires the user to have a permission (which you can give to a custom group). Talk pages are not affected, as Talk_X is a different namespace than X
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