If you're using the Phase III software (the stuff in the "newcodebase" directory, then just use this SQL query: UPDATE user SET user_rights='sysop,developer' WHERE user_id=X; (where X is your user id, which you can determine with s SELECT query). In the Phase II software, replace "sysop" and "developer" with "is_sysop" and "is_developer". If you only want one or the other, omit the comma. In general, using "mod_rewrite" and "simple" in the same sentence is a non-sequitur. The full documentation is on Apache's site. The incantation used at wikipedia.org is this: RewriteEngine On RewriteRule ^/wiki/(.*)$ /w/wiki.phtml?title=$1 [NE] RewriteRule ^/w/wiki.phtml(.*) /w/wiki.phtml$1 RewriteRule ^/wiki$ /w/wiki.phtml RewriteRule ^/$ /w/wiki.phtml RewriteRule ^/wiki.phtml/(.*)$ /w/wiki.phtml/$1 [NE] RewriteRule ^/wiki.phtml$ /w/wiki.phtml This is with the software installed in the "/w" directory (I don't like installing stuff in the document root--it's too inflexible for later changes. But those last two lines make it look as if it's installed at root). If you install the scripts in a different directory, or want different URLs, modify the above appropriately.