[Mediawiki-l] Organizing Department Wikis (Namespaces, Access Control)

[Reinhard Brandstaedter]

Hi,

I'm currently trying to organize a common wiki for multiple departments
with the following requirements:

1. Parts of the wiki should be restricted to different user groups
(departments), so that only these users can edit or read them.

2. maybe some single pages sould be restricted so that only a few users
can read them

3. There should be a common area all authenticated users can access
(read/write)


Now I've come to two possible solutions (A and B) how to solve this:

A.)
1.) I can use some custom Namespaces and restrict those Namesapaces to
predefined user groups.
Described here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Preventing_Access#Setting_permissions_for_a_Group_on_a_whole_new_Namespace

The caveat is that if I place these articles into categories the
category page always shows the article (alphabetically ordered) under
"Z" (if the namespace starts with Z).
Furthermore even though I've access to the Namespace (and article) the
Article is not found in a search?
$wgNamespacesToBeSearchedDefault is set correctly
It only seems that the article is found as soon as i put a link into it.
Is this normal? 

2.) I could use the PageProtection extension:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/PageProtection

3.) this would be all pages in the Default Namespace "Main"

B.)
1.) I create a wiki family with one wiki for each department and use
interwiki linking. For each wiki I would use a group configuration that
allows/disallows edit/access.

What I haven't found out so far is:
- is it possible to search across a wiki family? (e.g. if someone enters
a query in the department wiki, would he get results from the other
departments?)
- how can a single sign on be realized, so that users that sign on to
one department don't need to authenticate in another one again? Can a
common wiki user/groups database be used?

2.) same as in solution A.

3.) This would be either a pool wiki (as used for media files) described
here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Wiki_family or not necessary
at all (all articles go into department wikis)

Thanks for you ideas on this,
Reinhard