If I was redesigning Wikidot I'd replace moderators and admins with custom user groups. The site MA is always special.

But obviously we're stuck with admins, mods, and members as existing hard-coded groups.

In the list of features to be considered for a future version, would it be possible for me to put down a feature request that the permissions for a private category can be assigned to specific members (perhaps added manually in the same way as you enter an addressee for PMs) or all site members. It would be more complex but would give huge added flexibility.

Thanks.

Rob

e.g. setting pages in the "admin", "system" and "sandbox" categories so that they can't be found through search and can only be accessed using a link or directly typing in the URL.

to hide the fact that they exist at all?

This is why. In a normal site, you never see such things. Visitors do not need to know that such pages exist.

Semi-private, sometimes private, almost private… these concepts are unclear, complex to understand, complex to make, and will cause errors and confusion. So, as a designer, I reject them.

You can today protect included pages from being edited, using permissions. I do not understand what the benefit would be of making them private… is it to prevent people seeing the source, or to hide the fact that they exist at all?

My proposal for that would be that optionally, hidden pages (starting with underscore) cannot be viewed, edited except by admins/mods/members accordingly, or included in visible pages. So you can include somecat:_thispage in somecat:_template.

Only the page's source code is included, so the redirect module that is inherited from the _template page won't be included.

Are you sure? How come that redirect module is not visible in including page, if there is nothing to "tell" the include module what part of include page to include and what part to ignore?

Pieter will have to answer on whether making a category private when viewed directly, but public when used in an [[include ...]], is a viable option.

To me, "private" means private always :S

• You can still include the page and as long as the redirect is in a live template and not the actual page itself, then the redirect won't take effect when using [[include …]]

You put the redirect module into the live template (which is exactly the same as you're suggesting - making a category only semi-private).

Only the page's source code is included, so the redirect module that is inherited from the _template page won't be included.

Or does that over-complicate things?

Allow me to add cloning to the design spec.

Besides, including a page with redirect module means that this module will be visible also in a page in which I am including the include, which means that I have to add codes for "include a part of a page only", which is also too complicated, since I already have many pages with many include codes, which means that I would have to spend months in adding "include a part of a page only" codes to all pages in which I already have includes… No. I don't think so…

But — you can imitate this, to a certain extent! (so it might not be necessary) For example, what you can do now is to add a redirect module to the page or live template so that whenever someone tries to view it, they are redirected elsewhere (e.g. start page)

• You can still view the page by appending /noredirect/true to the page URL (and so can anyone else that knows about that feature, though)
• You can still include the page and as long as the redirect is in a live template and not the actual page itself, then the redirect won't take effect when using [[include ...]]

As a matter of fact, I need private categories for all the pages that are NOT articles, and serve that those article pages look well…

• The community site could do with using a private category just for moderators and administrators, to replace the current separate wiki that is linked to from the "Internal" menu
• Several users that have requested this on the community forums do so because they want to have a forum visible only to moderators and administrators. Using the advanced forum and creating a separate thread-private category would satisfy this, if usual members could be excluded from viewing the private category.

Instead of:

Pages are visible to: (__) Everyone (__) Site members only

I propose:

Pages are visible to: (__) Everyone (__) Site members

If both are left unchecked, then moderators and administrators are the only ones with viewing rights.

Furthermore, if both are left unchecked, but 'create page' permissions are allowed for site members, that would mean that site members are able to create pages in the category, but cannot view or edit them at a later stage. This has many advantages:

• Data forms can be used instead of the MailForm module, and submissions can be commented on by those with access to the private category, as well as using the existing 'watch this category' notifications structure to let people know about a new page creation
• It is a long-awaited feature of mine =)

• Would they receive an error message, saying that the wiki couldn't be cloned?
• Would they receive a clone of everything except the private sections?
• Would they receive a clone of all public and private content (which is a privacy concern) ?