Rails - Apr 2006 - DESIGN question: We do not need damned publishers

Here is the actual design of my CMS :

each Item is secured by 3 (+1) elements:

readers group
writers group
publishers group
owner

readers = people who can find the item in the database and .... read it.
writers = people who can add new content (create new versions or 
sub-pages) without making their changes visible (they can propose 
content).
publishers = people who can change what readers read = validate proposed 
content + move/delete...
owner = can read/write if page is private

My question is : why the hell should a CMS need publishers ? (I added 
them after an advice saying "Bosses want to keep in control. There 
should be a validation process.")

I think validation can come latter... You give people the right to add 
content, then so be it. If they mess up putting silly, ill-formed stuff, 
then ... you cleanup the mess and they cannot write anymore.

So the design should be :
readers = can read
writers = can add/modify/delete/move (version based modifications = 
rollback possible)
owner = can destroy (no turning back)

What do you think ?

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Gazoduc wrote:
> Here is the actual design of my CMS :
> 
> each Item is secured by 3 (+1) elements:
> 
> readers group
> writers group
> publishers group
> owner
> 
> readers = people who can find the item in the database and .... read it.
> writers = people who can add new content (create new versions or 
> sub-pages) without making their changes visible (they can propose 
> content).
> publishers = people who can change what readers read = validate proposed 
> content + move/delete...
> owner = can read/write if page is private
> 
> My question is : why the hell should a CMS need publishers ? (I added 
> them after an advice saying "Bosses want to keep in control. There 
> should be a validation process.")
> 
> I think validation can come latter... You give people the right to add 
> content, then so be it. If they mess up putting silly, ill-formed stuff, 
> then ... you cleanup the mess and they cannot write anymore.
> 
> So the design should be :
> readers = can read
> writers = can add/modify/delete/move (version based modifications = 
> rollback possible)
> owner = can destroy (no turning back)
> 
> What do you think ?
It just depends on the model you want to use for your system.  A lot of 
online publishing separates those who write the content from those who 
administrate and/or moderate the content on the site.   Your blog or 
article or review or copy writers might not want the responsibility of 
moderating comment threads, proofreading or copy editing, and handling 
things like publishing deadlines, pushing content live on the 
appropriate dates, and so on.

Depending on the size and model of your organization, it could make 
perfect sense to give those roles to the writers'' group, but
it''s also
perfectly valid not to.

Jeff Coleman

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Jeff Coleman wrote:
> 
> Depending on the size and model of your organization, it could make 
> perfect sense to give those roles to the writers'' group, but
it''s also
> perfectly valid not to.
> 
> Jeff Coleman
So I could just leave my design as it is, use clever defaults... (access 
rights are inherited, so they are not set that often).

I started to create this CMS basically for my own needs : culture with 
different partners (tech people from the theaters), participants 
(musicians, actors, etc), different languages (french, german, english). 
In this mess, I would never need publishers.

I know there should be people needing publishers, but who ? Could anyone 
give me some examples ? School, with students proposing articles ? Small 
company ?

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Gazoduc wrote:
> Jeff Coleman wrote:
>> 
>> Depending on the size and model of your organization, it could make 
>> perfect sense to give those roles to the writers'' group, but
it''s also
>> perfectly valid not to.
>> 
>> Jeff Coleman
> 
> So I could just leave my design as it is, use clever defaults... (access 
> rights are inherited, so they are not set that often).
> 
> I started to create this CMS basically for my own needs : culture with 
> different partners (tech people from the theaters), participants 
> (musicians, actors, etc), different languages (french, german, english). 
> In this mess, I would never need publishers.
> 
> I know there should be people needing publishers, but who ? Could anyone 
> give me some examples ? School, with students proposing articles ? Small 
> company ?
I''m not necessarily advocating having another layer of administrative 
permissions that you don''t feel you need, but it''s often the
case with
an online community or content site that the people who write the 
content either don''t want to or can''t be relied upon to
moderate
themselves and/or others.

If you''re talking about a small system with a few reliable writers,
then
it could make sense to do away with the abstraction of an 
administrator/publisher level.  But unless your writers'' pool is
heavily
filtered and demonstrably reliable, you could end up with people posting 
invalid, inflammatory or inappropriate content and not have an easy way 
to deal with it.

The latest A List Apart has an article on this subject:
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/identitymatters

You give good examples yourself, a school organization or a small online 
magazine that has content posted by users might want a moderator or two, 
to free the writers of those responsibilities.

Jeff

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Jeff Coleman wrote:
> You give good examples yourself, a school organization or a small online 
> magazine that has content posted by users might want a moderator or two, 
> to free the writers of those responsibilities.
> 
> Jeff
You have convinced me : an administrative layer effectively frees the 
low level users from the fear of doing bad things. It is important that 
the upgrade from simple reader to writer be as easy as possible. If 
there is no moderator, the jump from reader to publisher could be too 
big for the users themselves (not talking about people breaking things 
on purpose).

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Gazoduc wrote:
> Jeff Coleman wrote:
>> You give good examples yourself, a school organization or a small
online
>> magazine that has content posted by users might want a moderator or
two,
>> to free the writers of those responsibilities.
>> 
>> Jeff
> 
> You have convinced me : an administrative layer effectively frees the 
> low level users from the fear of doing bad things. It is important that 
> the upgrade from simple reader to writer be as easy as possible. If 
> there is no moderator, the jump from reader to publisher could be too 
> big for the users themselves (not talking about people breaking things 
> on purpose).
That''s a good point, you don''t want to overburden your writers
with
administrative details when all they want to do is write!

Good luck with your project!

Jeff

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Jeff Coleman wrote:
> Good luck with your project!
> 
> Jeff
Thanks for the good advices.

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

On 8-apr-2006, at 21:50, Gazoduc wrote:
> Here is the actual design of my CMS :
>
> each Item is secured by 3 (+1) elements:
>
> readers group
> writers group
> publishers group
> owner
The less prohibitive cruft you can put in our app, the better.

Julian ''Julik'' Tarkhanov wrote:
> On 8-apr-2006, at 21:50, Gazoduc wrote:
> 
>> Here is the actual design of my CMS :
>>
>> each Item is secured by 3 (+1) elements:
>>
>> readers group
>> writers group
>> publishers group
>> owner
> 
> The less prohibitive cruft you can put in our app, the better.
I am not a native english speaker, what does "prohibitive cruft" mean
?

Keep most users and especially low level users away from the worries of 
setting complex authorizations ?

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

It''s about whether you want to make mistakes/vandalisms easy to make
and easy to correct (no publishers), or difficult to make and a little
more difficult to correct (with publishers). If you look at Wikipedia,
they demonstrate a model which follows the former philosophy, but
there are plenty of successful examples of the latter too.
-Nathan

On 08/04/06, Gazoduc <gaspard@teti.ch> wrote:
> Julian ''Julik'' Tarkhanov wrote:
> > On 8-apr-2006, at 21:50, Gazoduc wrote:
> >
> >> Here is the actual design of my CMS :
> >>
> >> each Item is secured by 3 (+1) elements:
> >>
> >> readers group
> >> writers group
> >> publishers group
> >> owner
> >
> > The less prohibitive cruft you can put in our app, the better.
> I am not a native english speaker, what does "prohibitive cruft"
mean ?
>
> Keep most users and especially low level users away from the worries of
> setting complex authorizations ?
>
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
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