Chapter 13. Protecting Your Wiki
Understanding threats to your wiki
</objective> <objective>Running your own change patrol
</objective> <objective>Controlling editing access
</objective> <objective>Preparing for and recovering from disaster
</objective> </feature>The whole idea of protecting a wiki seems like a contradiction. Aren’t wikis supposed to be open and free? Isn’t the idea of wikis to avoid putting up barriers while encouraging everyone to share and participate?
To be sure, wikis are all about openness and sharing, but you must face facts. If your wiki is out in the open, always remember that the Internet has some bad neighborhoods. A small number of people with malice in their hearts will vandalize anything that they can for no good reason. Malice isn’t the only danger, though. Even if your wiki is within the boundaries of a trusted community, people make mistakes. In their zeal to share and contribute, vast portions of your wiki could be erased by a naive and well-meaning beginner — or even a seasoned user who is in a hurry or having a bad day.
The solution to wiki security is not to erect barriers and undo the ease of use and free expression that make wikis what they are. More than a decade of experience has evolved into a prudent approach to wiki protection as a threefold defense:
✓ | Be able to roll back damage. Many wikis come with a reversion capability — that is, you can revert a page to an earlier version of itself. Being ... |
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