Ashar Voultoiz wrote:

Hello,

For the next 3 days I will be able to spend my full time on MediaWiki development.

There's something to envy :-)

I am really willing to code an administration interface that will superseed the install script and manually editing localsettings.php. My idea so far is that the install script will just deal with things like database and path, everything else will be available in the admin interface.

I am also willing to completly rewrite the rule system. Instead of anonymous / logged in / Sysops / Bureaucrate, I am willing to assign users to groups, each group having rights like "edit, move, special page, site administration, mediawiki, protecting page ...".

Is there any dev already working on one of those two topics ? Do you have any specific idea to share ?

Now that you ask...

Two database tables: * list of user <=> group association * list of possible groups, maybe a description field, and a "can-be-assigned-by" field ("sysop" can be assigned by "admin,sysop")

Also, for those that would like to keep parts of their wikis private, how about a "cur_can_view" field? Empty=everyone can view, otherwise only the listed groups (comma-separated).

Make sure noone can create group names that contain commas!

Finally, should I start it now for the 1.4 release or wait for a later release ?

Last I heard, time for 1.4-release is running out (Brion?).

Magnus

Very good plan!

I am also willing to completly rewrite the rule system. Instead of anonymous / logged in / Sysops / Bureaucrate, I am willing to assign users to groups, each group having rights like "edit, move, special page, site administration, mediawiki, protecting page ...".

My question here is: How do you plan to manage the target pages?

Do you want to assign permissions of a group to each page? I think putting pages into groups is more practical than treating them individually.

There are already the concept of category in wikipedia. We may use category name as the natural group name for a page and assign user group's permissions to the page's category rather than the page itself.

I surveyed and tested other wiki software these days and found Tikiwiki may be the best for user permission management. eGroupware is good also for this. Some of them even have interfaces to access LDAP sever. You may refer their work to design and implement the right one for wikipedia.

Another thing I want to mention is Mambo Server at mamboforge.net. I almost get addicted to trying it those days. It is something like an web based operating system and you can install and uninstall components(poll, forum, pic gallery, doc management, online-shop) conveniently. Some people there are also trying to port wiki into this flexible framework.

Anyway, keep our eyes open is good for wikipedia for a long run.