Tech Forum

This was originally posted on the Wiki Meetinghouse Technology Feedback page. Has anyone else had similar problems? Are there any other solutions to this problem?

If we could have stake-specific wiki pages we could document our LANs, equipment, keys, procedures and other local building information. When we log in to LDS.org, the database obviously knows our stake unit number. That could be used to limit the visibility of stake-specific wiki pages to just those of our own stake. Right now we use Google Docs, we have to manage manually who has access rights, and we get push-back from the few that don't have and don't want a Google account. Stake-specific wiki pages solves a lot of that.

Thoughts?

amelianydia wrote:If we could have stake-specific wiki pages we could document our LANs, equipment, keys, procedures and other local building information. When we log in to LDS.org, the database obviously knows our stake unit number. That could be used to limit the visibility of stake-specific wiki pages to just those of our own stake. Right now we use Google Docs, we have to manage manually who has access rights, and we get push-back from the few that don't have and don't want a Google account. Stake-specific wiki pages solves a lot of that.

Thoughts?

The security model for MediaWiki (upon which the LDSTech wiki is based) doesn't make it very easy to create stake-specific wiki pages. Although it's true that the LDS Account authentication system knows information about the member, and the Church has internal systems and webservices that can connect the member to his or her stake, that doesn't mean that the MediaWiki instance has ready access to this information. And even if this information were available to the MediaWiki instance, there would have to be a way to secure pages as well as uploaded files at the time of their creation. That capability is not built into MediaWiki, and so would have to be provided by a custom-built extension.

So although I am sympathetic to the motivation behind this suggestion, I don't think it's a very practical implementation.

I have no idea what the implementation of the new Ward and Stake Websites will be, but we have been told that there will be a new implementation of the News and Information section by the end of 2011. Will that include areas visible only to people with certain callings? I don't know, but if so, that might be a better solution.