Since Wordpress is supposed to be a 'publishing platform' it would make some sense that one would try and go with the idea of other published works (i.e. a newspaper) but we should really remember what the final product is: a web log. In the spirit of K.I.S.S., I think we should really forget about the whole idea of Editors-in-Cheif, Managing Editors, etc. and think about what should be the simplest and most basic form that wordpress should have while allowing for variations that others may need for their own personal sites.
So based on that, what are the roles that should be present? To determine that, you'd need to really define some terms. When you talk about 'roles' rather than 'ranks', you are really considering a different mindset, maybe something that the person who thought of the idea hadn't envisoned but unfortunately (maybe) for them, we really need to think about it. A role is a position that is given to a user that has certain capabilities. This is the idea that we try to abstract when we say that the role of a Copy Editor is to edit the posts of everyone else. In that sense, a Copy Editor doesn't write any posts at all. He (he/she, whatever, I'm not going to be P.C. for the sake of simplicity) is purely responsible for making sure whatever the Authors have produced isn't written poorly and also will fit the 'dimensions' (loosely defined here) and the syntax (may it be grammar or actual content) of the publication. The same way, the Editor-in-Cheif has certain capabilities (and here's where I use another word which seems to fit it more: jobs). His job isn't to edit for 'syntax' (loosely defined) but rather for content. See what a role is? Then what's a rank? A rank is a hierarchial position that's given to a user. that *contains* roles. Since I already defined roles, that should be enough of my useless banter about that. The rank is the idea that we used to follow with WP1.x and was great for what it was. My personal opinion is that the rank system is really just too repetitive. By saying you're a rank 10, that means you're a rank 0, 1, 2, ... , 8, 9, and 10. I think the current Roles system is something that's in between a pure role system and a pure rank system. If that's what everyone wants, so be it. I'll go back to my corner and sulk, heh. But what I envision would be a pure roles system. So what roles you ask? Well here's a very very basic list. I think this would be a required list for the base installation. Administrator: purist definition. Really just the person who has all rights to all the backend. This means anything that involves actual code and/or configuration but is exclusive of themes, certain visual plugins, etc. This role can also create/modify/remove roles (except of course his own which would be just silly). Author: Writes entries and can edit their own entries. (The latter part just for the fact that Murphy is always around and you always want to be able to go back and tweak.) Subscriber: Reads all. Anything else like a section editor, editor-in-chief, copy editor, art & layout editor or whatever your brilliant minds can think of would be things you would have to define with a pretty little interface. (Apologies in advance for random typos) Cheers, Abhay _______________________________________________ wp-testers mailing list [email protected] http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-testers
