Created by: gwideman, Aug 8, 2010 1:45 pm
Revised by: gwideman, Nov 8, 2011 9:17 pm (7 revisions)

Overview

I'm trying to distill a proper idea of what, exactly, wikispaces offers in the area of access control, involving:

  • Users
    • and groups or roles
  • Objects
    • What functions are subject to permissions
  • How the granularity of access control varies according to subscription level.

Documentation

Wikspaces documentation:

This documentation and UI seems to distinguish the following roles:
  • Creator
  • Organizer
  • Member (of a particular wiki)
  • Wikispaces registrant (aka "member of wikspaces: Ie: person with a wikispaces login)
  • Guest; Public (not logged in)

Theme components distinguish:
  • IsNotLoggedIn = "guest"
  • IsLoggedIn
  • IsSiteAdministrator (Admin of Private Label site)
  • IsSpaceMember (member of current wiki)
  • IsSpaceOrganizer (organizer of current wiki)
  • IsEditor (user has perm to edit current page)
  • UserCanView (user has perm to view current page)
  • IsAdministrator (admin of current wiki = wiki organizer and site admin)

From this I conclude that in wikispaces terminology:
  • Site = Private label umbrella for multi wikis
  • Space = one wiki, whether part of Private Label "Site", or individual Basic/Plus/Super single wiki

What kinds of access can be contolled

This varies between subscription levels, but here's a start at it:

  • Page Features:
    • View
    • Edit
      • "Lock"
    • Delete?
    • Discussion
      • Enable
      • View
      • Moderation
      • Message
        • Add Message
        • Edit Message (not an available feature)
        • Delete message

Control of Navigation/TOC sidebar area

Can use theme components to create different TOC for different user roles, and logged-in vs not logged in. However, this will be only at a coarse level all or none TOC perhaps. No way I can see top get TOC to show/hide individual page listings according to user permissions.

Open questions

  • What is the significance of "creator", and can creatorship be handed over to new owner?
    • Creatorship associates a wikispace (ie: a wiki) with a Wikispaces user account
    • Creatorship cannot be given to another account. However, next best thing is to create a dummy WS user with which to create the site, and later hand credentials for that user to another user. Regular site editing privs can be granted to one or more regular wiki members, so the only function of the of the dummy user creator is to act as transferable ownership.