Editing Authors

A Slash Author account is simply a user account that has been granted additional privileges. Versions of Slash before Release 2.0 had separate accounts, in which an Author had to log on first as a user and then as an Author. Current versions of the software removed this distinction, turning Authorship into a user attribute. This is much more convenient.

Each user account within Slash has an assigned security level or seclev. This is an integer between 0 and 10,000. Regular users start with a seclev of 1, and the Anonymous User has a seclev of 0. Authors must have a seclev of at least 100. In addition, a special Author flag is set on their accounts. In a fresh Slash installation, there is only one Author. The administrative account created during the site installation stage will have a user ID of 2 and a seclev of 10,000.

Think of a 10,000-point seclev as the root account on a Unix machine. Its wielder is allowed to do powerful things because he is not prevented from doing stupid things. Consequently, the initial administrative account has full access to every function of the web interface, including promoting and demoting other Authors and modifying site configuration variables. A seclev can exceed 10,000, but this bestows no additional privileges. You’re either omnipotent or you’re not.

Only the most trusted Authors should be allotted this power. In particular, Authors at seclev 10,000 can change their security levels—and those of other Authors. Be very cautious. ...

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