Re: WikiWebLogs and PartialLocks (was Re: [Phpwiki-talk] New jeffshacks snapshot. )

[Steve W. <sw...@pa...>]

On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Jeff Dairiki wrote:

> I think it was Reini who, some time ago, suggested a couple of ideas:
>   1. Append-only pages.
>   2. Partially locked pages --- only the part after the first <hr>
> ("--------" )
>      can be edited.  (Except by the page owner, of course.)
> Both seem like clean solutions to the partial locking problem.  (Of
> course
> they are of limited use until user authentication is implemented more
> completely.)

I think it's inevitable that we have append-only mode. It will have many
uses.

> Which brings us to user authentication.
>
> I recently had an idea: require every registered user to have a
> WikiHomepage.
> The user's userid would be the same as the pagename of their homepage.
> This accomplishes several things:
>   1. Each user has a homepage (which would be linked to from
> RecentChanges, etc..)
>      My guess is that most on wikis with authenticated users, each of
> the
>      authenticated users would have a WikiHomepage with personal
> thoughts,
>      contact information, etc. in any case.
>   2. We could store the users meta-data (password, e-mail, etc...) as
> part of
>      their homepages meta-data.  This eliminates the need for a
> separate
>      user database.

Hmm. As a serialized string? You might want to expand on this. I think the
idea of them having a home page on the wiki is a natural.

> Disadvantages:  Somewhat kludgy, perhaps.   Somewhat restrictive: if a
> pagename
> already exists, one must somehow usurp it (perhaps with admin
> assistance ?)
> to use it as a userid.
>
> Is this a crackpot idea or a stroke of genious?

Like I said, it just seems like a natural. I would use SteveWainstead or
just 'wainstead' as an ID and would want my name to hyperlink to a page
about me.

What I would really like to see added is user registration, where users
must have a valid email address to register with the Wiki. This would be
useful for a public wiki that only allows members to edit pages, and
guests can only browse. In corporate intranets this would be essential.

~swain


---
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