Question statuses and allowed operations

[litebluecheese]

I believe only the following operations should be allowed for a question in a specific status: A Proposed question can be Modified, Deleted, Published. A Published question can be Archived and have its Publication data (I mean everything else that can be manually modified beside the text) modified, but not its text - as we've discussed in a previous thread. An Archived question can only have its Archival data (same as above) modified.

[lucianferoiu]

That's all well and dandy :)

But you're worrying too much about how strict and logically rigorous the admin side of thing should be; basically we'll have only a few trusted people handle all this anyway, we're not going to hand over the keys to the asylum to anyone. And it's good that you're providing specifications and testing and all but .. I think we should concentrate more on how we actually make it a success instead of fearing what huge success might bring in with itself...

[litebluecheese]

Well, I wanna make sure we have something neat and usable, and catch you to solve these issues whilst you're still at it, instead of coming back in 2 months or so when you might be busy with smth else/not in the mood etc :-)

[lucianferoiu]

I knew you had an angle :D

[litebluecheese]

I'm just being pragmatic here. Let's put things in order and (sort of) close this chapter. Right now it's the best/easiest moment to do it, that's all. :*)

[lucianferoiu]

I think these rules are best tackled with access rights: it should be possible, for example, to modify the text of a published question (say, you spotted a typo or a link in the text changed or other such exceptional cases), but not every partner be allowed to do it, only those selected few who we can fully trust not to tamper with the details in a malevolent way.. and who have these rights.

To get the protection that you ask I suggest introducing the following access rights:

• Can Edit Published&Archived Questions
• Can Delete Published&Archived Questions (and morph Can Delete Any Question into Can Delete Proposed Questions)

These rights will compose cumulatively... NB: these are not yet implemented - follow issue #5

[litebluecheese]

you were the one with the black or white approach before. now, some people can do it, others not, i forget to whom i gave the rights... dunno... it's tricky. have to think about it.

[litebluecheese]

I'm still not sure.

1. Why would we want to delete an archived/published Q?
2. Why would we want to edit an archived Q? I can understand the editing of the published Q, but even that should be an exceptional case. An erratum should be added in that case.

[lucianferoiu]

Trust me, if this is going to work and we'll ever going to have tons of questions, you'd want that feature. I don't know what, I don't know how, but things get messed up eventually...

[litebluecheese]

ok then. we print this one too for later reference? :-)

[lucianferoiu]

:)