Managing CMS Administration Groups

Best practices when creating groups

[nigassma]

I was looking for peer advice on what best way I should group content providers. I like how Wordpress has set roles with specific levels of access and want to mimic that on our Web site.

With our CMS we can manage group and individual rights. We have roughly 20 content providers and editors right now and I'd like to reign in the groups before they get out of hand. Here's what I was thinking:

Adminstrators
Group:: Everything is accessible
Individual:: Only one true "god" account (that is mine) and the rest have small restrictions depending on what they actually need

Editors
Group:: Restricted to what's necessary
Individual:: Editing rights to nearly 100% of the pages

Content Providers
Group:: Restricted
Individual:: Just to the pages they submit for

Media Providers
Group:: Restricted
Individual:: Access only to media portion of our CMS and the specific parts they are submitting to

Restricted
Note:: This is where our volunteer content providers would live when they weren't providing any actual content
Group:: This is 100% restriction group that holds dormant accounts

Does anyone see any problems with a method like this?

[ergophobe]

I would say that once the editor has published the content, the content providers should lose access to that page (i.e. they can only change pages up to the point of editorial review, but not after). Otherwise if they don't like changes the editors make, they can go in after and change it.

[nigassma]

Hmm, interesting point. I'll look to see if we can set that up, otherwise I'll ask for the CMS company to develop something like that.

[ergophobe]

I guess as a general principle I would ask the question: "Have I given this person enough power to mess up the site?"

If the answer is yes, the next question is: "Do I trust this person to not screw up the site?"

I think that pretty much defines how groups need to be set up.

Also, it's probably easier (I mean politically, not necessarily technically) to offer expanded privileges for people who demonstrate a need than it is to revoke privs from folks who got them but don't really need them.

So in an early stage, I would err on the side of over-restriction. If a few people need more privs, you bump them up to the next group. If everyone in a group has problems, you need to change the privs for the group, but people will take it as a slap if you find that you need to take away privs.