Gregory Szorc's blog

My Sins Against the Wiki Community

Last December, I was contacted through the grapevine to explore the possibility of using the Case Wiki to host the discussion for the 2006 Academic Happy Hour. Organizers wanted a piece of technology that could be used during and after the event for collaboration. I told them it is possible to do this with the Case Wiki, but other products, such as forum.case.edu or this blog system might be better suited, depending on the discussion format and desired output. Earlier this month, I was informed that the deciding powers had chosen to use the Case Wiki and the format for discussion was well within the abilities of MediaWiki. So, I thought all was well.

I went to obtain the implementation details so I could see what skeleton pages I would need to create. There, I was told something I wasn't expecting: the administration have decided that they want the wiki postings from the Academic Happy Hour to be restricted to just the Case community. First, I was shocked, as this was the most remote possiblity imaginable after the past discussions about the usability of the Case Wiki. Secondly, I started second-guessing the decision. Why would they want to protect content? It is not like they are checking ID's at the door. Anyway, I am a worker bee. I needed to make this work.

So, here we are. I have just committed a page restriction patch to the Case Wiki. Only certain users (currently just me) can "restrict" pages. Once a page is restricted, only a logged-in user can view it. Let me assure the community that as soon as the administration deems the content on the Academic Happy Hour page worthy of public consumption, I will remove the page restriction feature. What is the point in having an encyclopedia where certain volumes are behind lock and key? I don't know either.

You can ping this entry by using http://blog.case.edu/gps10/mt-tb.cgi/5542 .

In my last post, I talked about my guilt for applying access restrictions to the Case Wiki. That post demonstrates...

Earlier this month, I was informed that the deciding powers had chosen to use the Case Wiki and the format for discussion was well within the abilities of MediaWiki. So, I thought all was well.

I went to obtain the implementation details so I could see what skeleton pages I would need to create.

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