Wiki Administration
The intent is to allow everyone associated with the SokweDB project to contribute to and improve the wiki. But the wiki is configured so that the public at large ("anonymous" wiki users) cannot create or edit the wiki's pages. So when a new person becomes involved in SokweDB someone must give them a login, a user account, on the wiki. This section documents how the wiki permission system works. It also describes the process that needs to take place to ensure that everyone involved with SokweDB can contribute to the wiki.
For more information see the book on wiki administration, with links to related books on wiki usage, etc., or the MediaWiki Manual.
[Skip to Creating Wiki Users]
Concepts
The wiki's permission system contains various groups. Users (aka "user accounts") may be put into one or more of these groups. Each group has a set of associated permissions, the details of which are not always interesting.
What's important is to give people their own, individual, user accounts because accounts and passwords should not be shared. Also important is to put wiki users into appropriate groups to facilitate the use and administration of the wiki.
Ordinary uses need not be added to any groups, just create them.
The wiki has been customized so that every user is allowed to create other users, the idea being to make it easy to give everyone associated with SokweDB a wiki login.
Some users are to be given special permissions to help administer the wiki, "bureaucrat" rights. Bureaucrats are allowed to put users into and take users out of groups, and thereby to change the rights of other users; notably, to create new bureaucrats by putting otherwise ordinary wiki users into the bureaucrat group. Ordinarily, this is a useless feature. But at some point it may be desirable to make various advanced adjustments to the operation of the wiki as a whole, and therefore necessary to grant some uses special permissions. Without bureaucrat permission a Unix login would be required for this. It is likely to be much more convenient to manipulate the wiki's interface via a web browser than to work at the Unix command line level.
There should always be 2 people (wiki users) that are bureaucrats. That way when a bureaucrat leaves the project there remains a person who can create new bureaucrats. The list of bureaucrats can be found at [Special:ListUsers/bureaucrat].
There are 2 groups that are of interest when creating users that are bureaucrats.
Wiki Groups
- sysop
- (Also known as "administrator".) Users in this group can create new users, delete and undelete pages together with all the page edit history, block and unblock users, etc. Should the customization that gives ordinary users the right to create new users ever be removed, it is important that all bureaucrats belong to sysop so that they can create new users.
- bureaucrat
- Members of this group can assign/unassign users to/from groups, thereby changing the users' permissions.
Maintaining Wiki Users
After logging on to the wiki, any user can create another user by going to the user creation page: Special:CreateAccount The wiki has been customized (edited in the wiki actually) to add a "Create User" link to the sidebar appearing on every page. It is highly recommended that every account have an email address entry.
Bureaucrats can use the Special:UserRights page to put uses into the sysop and bureaucrat groups to make a user a bureaucrat that also has the special powers of a wiki administrator.
- Create a wiki login
- Change a wiki login's authority
- List the wiki logins
- Password reset
- Disable a wiki login
Other actions are available via the Special Pages.