[[tron]] suggests that non-developers should be able to post content
to a staging area, to be approved (possibly after editing) by
developers. [[schmonz]] likes this idea a lot.

> what about to make a sub-page called e.g. User contributed
> documentation an give non-developers rw access there while editing
> other parts(TNF contributed) of wiki will require developers account
> or possible some sort of bless from a developer. --[[haad]]

>> From ikiwiki's PoV, this is equivalent to the Discussion-subpage
>> approach (merely a tweak to a PageSpec). From the human PoV, it's
>> a tradeoff. If we make a whole hierarchy world-editable, users will
>> be able to directly edit any page in that hierarchy, but we'll wind
>> up with two pages on every topic of interest and readers will have
>> to check both. A discussion subpage isn't the page itself, but the
>> relation of the two is never ambiguous.
>>
>> Neither approach is ideal. A possible improvement: in addition
>> to making making Discussion pages world-editable, use the
>> [[!iki ikiwiki/directive/inline]] directive on each main topic page to
>> include the relevant Discussion subpage below, with a disclaimer
>> about the provenance of that content. Then both developers and users
>> can effectively edit the page, and the reader can easily discern
>> what's what.
>>
>> Best if this inlining could be automated somehow, rather than
>> requiring someone to add a directive to each page. --[[schmonz]]

>>> I don't understand why we are making user editing so hard, with
>>> discussion pages there will be little or no user contribution which
>>> is wrong because main point of wiki is to give users power to share
>>> information not give this power to developers. Let's make part of
>>> wiki editable by users to let them contribute their documentation.
>>> If user will want to make his own page about e.g. using NetBSD as
>>> xen server how he will done it with discussion pages ?
>>>
>>> From other POV I looked at FreeBSD wiki and they have developers
>>> only wiki which can be edited by developers and some small number
>>> of non developers. --[[haad]]

>>>> Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. Each page "Foo" will call `inline` to
>>>> insert its Discussion subpage into itself. The Discussion subpage will
>>>> continue to exist separately, but its contents will also be included
>>>> in the Foo page. The Foo page will then have two sections: one
>>>> that's only editable by developers, and another that's editable by
>>>> anyone. Developers will use the "Edit" link as normal. For ease of
>>>> user editing, we'll want to provide an "Edit" link within the
>>>> user-editable section of the page which leads directly to editing
>>>> the corresponding Discussion subpage where that content is stored.
>>>> Either kind of edit will result in an immediate update of the Foo
>>>> page.
>>>>
>>>> With this approach, once the relevant
>>>> [[!iki bugs/anonok_vs._httpauth desc="ikiwiki bug"]] has been fixed,
>>>> the `opendiscussion` plugin should suffice to enable users to edit
>>>> content in a direct way, while also making clear to readers which
>>>> content comes from developers and which does not.
>>>> 
>>>> Things to think about when the time comes:
>>>>
>>>> * automating the `inline`, disclaimer, and user-edit link (in
>>>> [[!iki wikitemplates]]?)
>>>> * whether `anonok` is okay or we should require e.g. an OpenID
>>>> * treating non-developer edits properly in `log_accum` messages
>>>>
>>>> --[[schmonz]]

_For non-developers using [[anonymous CVS|wiki/todo/push_wikisrc_to_anoncvs]]_:
submit a diff to `netbsd-docs@`.

_For non-developers using a web browser_: the ikiwiki discussion
subpage and/or [[!iki plugins/comments desc="comments plugin"]] may
point toward the solution.

One of the reasons we [[chose ikiwiki|wiki/todo/choose_wiki_software]]
is the ability to edit via CVS directly, as well as via the web.
As long as every wiki editor is a developer, controlling access
consistently is simple. In order to open up wiki editing to
non-developers, we have to think carefully about both the CVS case
and the web case.

In the short term, to start getting non-developers involved, I intend
to [[push wikisrc to anoncvs]] and
[[hook up wiki commits to www-changes@]].

In the long term, ikiwiki has a few ready-made web authentication
options (a locally managed user database, OpenID, and HTTP auth), and
if they don't suffice for some reason, it's easy enough to write an
auth plugin. The hard part is deciding the workflow: where is a
sensible place for non-developers to make their edits, and what is a
sensible way for developers to review and "bless" the changes? Two
ikiwiki-native possibilities are listed above.

Ideas welcome! Edit this page and add your comments. --[[schmonz]]

One idea (which needs to be considered by board@):

7. Enable Discussion subpages.
7. Mark very clearly on the Discussion page template that content may
have been written by anyone at all and has not been vetted by any
member of TNF.
7. Enable the `anonok` plugin and set the `anonok_pagespec` to allow
anonymous editing of Discussion subpages (and of no other pages).

> This doesn't actually work, though. Trying to create or edit a
> Discussion subpage yields the HTTP auth dialog. And this is
> equivalent to the `opendiscussion` plugin. Joey says:
> "it's a bug, not sure how to fix it right now". --[[schmonz]]

The resulting workflow:

7. Non-developer finds a page to which to suggest changes.
7. Non-developer edits its Discussion subpage and writes the suggested
changes.
7. Developer who follows [[RecentChanges]] (or the commit mails)
notices the changes.
7. If the changes aren't acceptable, developer edits the Discussion
subpage and explains why not.
7. If the changes are acceptable, developer applies them to the
page and removes them from the Discussion subpage.

> This can be work flow for a TNF contributed pages but as I said
> above this is not acceptable for as normal wiki workflow. We had
> almost similar discussion about comments on a blog software for
> NetBSD. There were developers who thought that there will be too
> many comments and we do not have man power to read/approve them
> all. After setting blog we have found that we have barely 1-2
> comments in every third article. I don;t thing that there will be
> too many real editors on our wiki from non-developers and therefore
> we need to make it easy not hard to do. --[[haad]]

>> And yet, we already had spam on the blog. I'm not much pro
>> distributing spam, and would strongly suggest some kind of auth
>> that at least brakes spam down a bit. That also speaks against using
>> "any verifying OpenID" (ie users may opt to use OpenID but we still
>> need to put their ID into some sort of list of good IDs). --[[spz]]

>>> This sounds reasonable. Getting oneself added to a whitelist
>>> isn't too much to ask a prospective contributor. The whitelist can
>>> be implemented using [[!iki plugins/lockedit]]. --[[schmonz]]

>>>> spz: How much spam we had there ? Because during our initial
>>>> talks about blog there were huge expectations about number of
>>>> spammers and comemnters on our blog for now I don't think that we
>>>> have more then 30 uniq commenters/spammers that is so low number
>>>> that we should block user non auth editing because of it. -- [[haad]]

>>>>> Not speaking for spz, but the current holdup is a more general
>>>>> interaction with [[!iki plugins/httpauth]] combined with any other
>>>>> type of auth (including [[!iki plugins/anonok]]). Once it's fixed,
>>>>> it's about the same amount of work for us to whitelist the OpenIDs
>>>>> of actual human contributors as it is for us to allow fully anonymous
>>>>> editing. So the question becomes, what's best for this wiki that admins
>>>>> feel is reasonably manageable and responsible? Even if the risk of
>>>>> opening ourselves for editing by the whole Internet is small -- and
>>>>> we can't know that -- I'm not comfortable putting TNF at that risk
>>>>> unless there's a very compelling argument for it. --[[schmonz]]

>>>>>> There's [CAPTCHA](http://ikiwiki.info/todo/require_CAPTCHA_to_edit/)
>>>>>> work in progress. That might be palatable, when done, as an option
>>>>>> in addition to OpenID. --[[schmonz]]

After a bunch of work by Joey, we're much closer:

* With httpauth, you can (still) edit any page.
* With an OpenID we've whitelisted, you can edit discussion subpages.
* Otherwise, you can't edit via the web.

What's left:

* Extract the OpenID whitelist to a separate file for ease of maintenance.
* In `log_accum`, properly parse and display OpenID edits.
* In `page.tmpl`, inline discussion (if it exists) into its parent page.

--[[schmonz]]

-----

Whew, this is a long discussion. To recap, every wiki page will
have two sections:

7. Content editable by developers only, followed by
7. Content editable by anyone who has told us their OpenID.

This way, every wiki page will be editable (in whole or in part)
by everyone, while making the content's provenance clear to the
casual reader.

I will implement this by abusing any and all of `inline`, templates,
and/or Discussion subpages.

There were problems combining `httpauth` (how developers log in)
and other authentication methods. The ikiwiki author has fixed these
problems.

I have working code to check OpenIDs against a whitelist. We need
to streamline the task of "registering" an OpenID as much as possible,
so non-developers can get involved with the wiki quickly and easily.
We will also want to delegate whitelist management to `www@`.

The wiki copy of `log_accum` needs to be taught to parse OpenID
edits (and set `Reply-To:` to the committer, not `wiki@NetBSD.org`).
To avoid skew, we should then carefully merge it back to the main
`log_accum`.

Non-developers will want [[wikisrc in anoncvs|push_wikisrc_to_anoncvs]].

In the future, if and when ikiwiki has more fully baked anti-spam
measures, it would be nice to be able to allow anonymous editing.

--[[schmonz]]

[[done]]