9.3. Defining User-Generated Content.

When setting up your wiki you need to consider what sort of user-generated content you want. Do you want to let members of your community add new pages, edit existing pages, or just comment on pages? Or do you want to give various combinations of these privileges to different groups of users?

These decisions and privileges may differ from page to page, section to section, and user to user within a particular wiki. And, if you have multiple wikis, you may want to set different permission patterns for different communities.

Here are four basic levels of permission that you can consider:

• Create New Pages:  Users can create new pages. This is a great way to discover gaps in your information model. However, you have to be aware that it is almost inevitable that you will get duplicate pages. Also note that just because someone creates a new page, or a link to a new page, it does not necessarily mean that they will create the content for that page.
• Edit Existing Pages: Users can edit or add new content to an existing page. This is one of the most valuable aspects of having a wiki, after all in many ways it is the whole purpose of the wiki. You need to consider how you will review and manage that content. (See the next section for more on this subject.)
• Add comments: Users can add separate comments to a page, but cannot edit the contents of that page. Locking users into a comment-only mode can be useful when you have “approved” content that must never be changed, such as legal disclaimers, safety notices, etc.
• Delete Pages: Users can delete existing pages. This privilege is something that would normally only be given to the wiki gardener or a system administrator, and it should be used with great caution. Often it is better to delete or move the content, but leave the page in place with a note explaining why the content has been moved or deleted.