[pmwiki-users] Is 'Page Creator' worth to discuss?

marc gmane at auxbuss.com
Sat Feb 23 04:57:40 CST 2008


Patrick R. Michaud said...

> I'm also a little concerned that adding 'cauthor' may then start
> a slippery-slope sort of demand for the ability to control page
> access and authorization based on page creator, which would
> complicate the security model a fair bit.  Not that it can't
> be done, but it's something to consider when implementing this.

Just to add to this point: This is also typically the type of 
functionality that folk coming to a wiki ask for; with their mindset of 
content ownership. They don't know yet that their current behaviour is 
counterproductive.

It is currently possible to encourage them to give it go, because the 
feature isn't there. Once 'cauthor' is available, then that goes away, 
and the discussion will be along the lines of, "We'll see how it goes 
with the way we currently work, and if it turns out we don't need it, 
then we'll ditch it"; but that will never happen, and one of the 
benefits of using a wiki to facilitate behavioural change has gone.

> Next, there's a part of me that feels that page text variables may 
> be superior to page attributes for keeping track of this sort of 
> information.  For example, if pages contain page text directives like
> 
>   (:Creator: Patrick Michaud:)
> 
> then one can use {$:Creator} to get at a page's creator.  We might
> want to add code that automatically adds the (:Creator:...:)
> markup to a page that doesn't already have it, but this could
> be easily done.  Furthermore, any changes in the creator designation 
> becomes part of the page's history, which can be useful.  I've already 
> decided that I'd like to migrate to using page text variables for 
> page titles instead of the special-purpose (:title ...:) directive, 
> and I'm wondering if page text variables may make more sense for 
> other "attributes" (such as page creator) as well.
> 
> This approach also preserves the potential for indicating multiple
> creators of a page, as in
> 
>   (:Creators: Patrick Michaud, Hagan Fox, and John Rankin:)

This is definitely the way to go, imo. But please, please don't make it 
part of the core.
 
-- 
Cheers,
Marc




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