A wiki policy is a set of guidelines explaining how the wiki should be used. Here are my recommendations for how the wiki should operate. Feel free to comment/critique.

Anyone, including the public-at-large, should be able to create an ID on this wiki. By default, they won't be able to edit pages. But they will be able to:

• browse all public pages
• view the page index
• update their profile
• subscribe to page updates (i.e. get notified by email when pages change)
• use misc. wiki features:
  • see the recent change list
  • view the source code for wiki pages
  • see old revisions of a page

Many scout and parents will fall into this category since all they want is to be notified when certain parts of the wiki change.

Each user will be assigned one or more roles. Its best if these match our org structure to some degree. My suggested list is:

• User = default group for anyone that creates an ID
• Leader = registered adult with permission to edit pages
• Scout = youth with a login
• Parent = adult known to the troop

There might be a need for more roles later, but this list illustrates the point.

Wiki pages should be stored in meaningful directory names (called namespaces in wiki terminology). This is just a good practice for any computer. But namespaces also lay the foundation for good security. More on that later.

Here is where the fun begins. With proper access controls, we can restrict who can view or edit in certain namespaces. Let me use an example… Assume that we have 3 main namespaces:

• Troop - would likely contain high-level information that is readable by everyone, but only writable by people with a role of leader.
• Patrols - would likely have more namespaces inside of it–one for each patrol. People with a role of scout could edit here. And for child safety reasons, viewing these pages would be restricted to users with a role of scout, parent, or leader.
• Resources - would contain miscellaneous information about camping, merit badges, photo galleries, etc. Its likely that members of the troop committee would be able to write here, and possibly scouts with specific jobs like SPL, QM, etc. Everyone could read here, but noone else could write.

So you can see that we have a range of security controls available to us. All we have to do is carry it out.

There should be 3-5 people who understand the wiki policy as defined here. Further, the policy (policies) should be documented as the site is rolled out so that new administrators can understand the system setup easily.

Again, this is only an illustration. I hope it serves as a basis for discussion.