Appropedia:Page permissions: Difference between revisions

This page is a proposed Appropedia policy.You can edit or discuss it on the talk page or at the Appropedia policy discussion page. For now, this should be considered an essay by one or more Appropedians, and not as a policy or guideline.Read more...

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Appropedia has a different approach to permissions for editing and viewing different pages, from open editing to controlled authorship and private pages:

• Mainspace pages: These have the advantage of open editing, making it easy for anyone, including anonymous editors, to contribute. This is similar to Wikipedia, and helps to encourage people to get involved. Many topic pages will link to original content pages (described below).
• Original content pages: Original namespace documents (those pages whose title start with "Original:") are protected, and can only be edited by admins (and certain individuals given special permission when helping in porting, and/or the authors). As these page have a more clearly defined authorship, this may help with citing sources, and some people may just be more comfortable with this type of content.
• Proprietary pages: (Note that a MediaWiki plugin will have to be installed, to enable this feature.) Those who are concerned to keep control of their pages (which may include businesses, organizations, researchers, designers, and people writing up projects) may request that their pages be made proprietary, so that only they (and admins?) can edit the pages. This is not encouraged or discouraged. Such pages will be required to have an appropriate notice at the top (templates will be created for this) saying, for example: "This is a commercial, proprietary page. Content is the responsibility of XYZ" (where XYZ = name of organization or user, wikilinked). The notice will also clarify, in small font, that content here is not necessarily endorsed by Appropedia. However Appropedia (who exactly? The Appropedia Foundation? the admins? The review team that also marks high impact content?) will not tolerate misleading information and reserves the right to veto content as appropriate. Also, while businesses are encouraged to put information about themselves, their products and services, Appropedia is not a business directory or advertising site, to the main emphasis should be on information sharing.

• Note: {{305inprogress}} and {{OrgPOV}} currently serve a similar function, but rely on trust {"Please refrain from making edits unless you are a member of the project team") rather than restriction of editing. This will be a preferred option for pages which are specific to a group, but less sensitive in nature - it will be more convenient to manage, and still allows for others to do minor edits (such as adding categories, and fixing formating and spelling errors) if desired, by specifying in the notice that minor edits and formating edits are welcome.
• Note also that alerts can also be set up to watch all pages on a user's watchlist, by editing preferences, giving an additional check.

• Private pages: It will possible to set up private pages once the appropriate MediaWiki plugin is installed. (Peter, could you please add a reference if you have it?) Users can gain access to these pages once they are added to a list. Sparing use of this is encouraged - i.e. collaborate on the open or proprietary pages where possible, and only on private pages when there is good reason.

Installing finer permission controls

Note: With the current state of MediaWiki, this is not a serious option.

Priority: Medium-low

Full openness is almost always preferable but it would be nice to have the permission tools. We can do private pages on the Drupal site, but would it be better if they're integrated into the wiki?

• Pro: easier navigation for those with permissions, not switching between the two sites
• con: frustrating for someone who finds a link to a page, but finds they don't have permission to view it.

For links relevant to this, and some notes on why it's not fully doable in MediaWiki, see mw:Extension:Hierarchical Namespace Permissions.

Another thought - it might be possible to have finer control over who has editing privileges on certain pages. Some users would certainly prefer this - thinking particularly of businesses and other organizations that want to safeguard their reputation. Some people may want to set up groups where only members can edit their pages. But is it a good idea? Probably not - openness and shared editing are key principles of a wiki, and we haven't had significant problems so far. To prevent vandalism of sensitive pages, very occasional use of soft protection (preventing anon and new users from editing certain pages) has been more than adequate.