Help:uniKB for Managers

Overview

Managers will have additional administrative authority to the wiki, as well as additional responsibilities regarding the management of content.

Topics

Categories

Disclaimer: The concept of Mediawiki categories is best learned (and appreciated) by doing. No amount of theoretical explanation can convey the value or the ideal way of using categories (Trust us, we've  tried. Many times). Just keep in mind that using Mediawiki categories vastly enriches the experience, despite any initial frustrations you may experience. That being said, what follows is a summary of  categories. Again, it will likely only make sense once you've already started using categories, and figured it out through your own use.

The concept of "tagging" and how categories work in Mediawiki

• Think of categories as tags or labels that you would apply to something. For example, alprazolam is a "controlled narcotic". It is also a "generic drug". The terms "generic drugs" and "controlled narcotics" are not mutually exclusive, nor is one strictly inclusive of the other i.e. not all generic drugs are controlled narcotics and not all narcotics are generic drugs. Avoid getting caught up in the mutual exclusivity of your categories, and rather think in a nebulous mindset when drumming up categories.

• Categories can be as broad-sounding as you want, or they can be as descriptive as you want. In the end, they're just tags to an article. An article on benzocaine could be categorized as "Topical Anaesthetic Drugs", or just "Drugs", or "Drugs affecting the central nervous system". Or it could be categorized as all 3. Deciding on the descriptive depth of your categories is an evolving process, but generally it is better to start broader, as in Mediawiki there exists some concept of subcategorization (more on this later).

• Creating a category generates a category page that dynamically displays all the pages that have been tagged to that category. This effectively groups your articles according to a certain topic, or "tag".

• Further to the previous point, the value of categories (and their category pages) is therefore to present some navigability to your department's articles, whether as visual cues (links users can click to drill down on a certain topic), or providing confines for a search (searching within a particular category). To the back-end, your department's articles exist as one giant pool of pages i.e. there is no functional (technical) value to using categories - they're simply used as a means to get to a page.

• The most confusing aspect of understanding Mediawiki categories is the fact that categories exist "at the same level". As stated previously, categories to an article are just tags or labels. Below is the footer of an article displaying the categories to which it has been tagged. Notice the absence of hierarchy. No one tag is a subset of another.

Guidelines for using categories

While the previous section explains the concept of Mediawiki categories and how they work, perhaps the only way to truly understand categories is by starting to use them. This section is written with the intent that if you follow these general guidelines when categorizing your articles, you will begin to see and appreciate how categories work.

• You will have few categories (or perhaps none) in the beginning, so develop broad categories where you think your content (articles) can begin to fit under. Create them as links on your department page to get you going, using the following syntax as an example:

[[:Category:Accounts Payable]]

• This creates a link to the category page for Accounts Payable. It will appear in red as the page has not yet been created. Establish the category by clicking the link to create the category page.
• Upon creating a category, immediately categorize it under (tag it to) your department. This prevents you from losing track of newly created categories, while also displaying all the categories on your department page to provide clues as to which area to further write into.
• Keep in mind that through the early stages, the focus should be to create pages in your area (namespace) and categorize all pages that you create, creating new categories on the fly as necessary.
• Avoid categorizing pages under your department category. There is no need for this as your pages already exist in a lower-level container called a namespace (the prefix to all your articles). The exception is during the beginning when you can use your department category as a temporary dump for miscellaneous documents when you are unsure of how to categorize them.
• Categorize categories. This is the process of subcategorization. Ensure that pages belong to at least one category and that categories belong to at least one category. This is your hierarchy.
• Experiment with having categories exist at more than one "level". If there is a category that was initially thought of as a subcategory but also merits top-level visibility, then try tagging it to your department. This multi-level categorization also applies to pages. You will see the value of doing this soon after attempting it. Example:

 Category: Accounting/Finance --> Category: Accounts Payable --> Category: Payroll Processes
 Category: Accounting/Finance --> Category: Payroll Processes

• Cross-categorize to provide more points of access to a page. Example:

 Category: Accounting/Finance --> Category: Accounts Payable --> Article: Generating cheques in Chequemaster
 Category: Accounting/Finance --> Category: Store Rebates --> Article: Generating cheques in Chequemaster
 Category: Accounting/Finance --> Category: Periodic Accounting Processes --> Article: Generating cheques in Chequemaster

• Use descriptive page titles. Perusing categories will be more valuable if the list of pages each category hosts are descriptively titled.

Security

Locking down pages with ACLs

At the top of every page exists an "ACL" tab (ACL stands for Access Control List). This controls the security of the page. The interface is not the most intuitive, but here you can set read, edit and other permissions for an article. Some tips regarding ACLs:

• Keep in mind that the point of this wiki is the sharing of knowledge. Locking down (i.e. establishing an ACL for) many or most of your pages is not a recommended practice, and quickly becomes an administrative hassle.
• Renaming a page in the wiki actually equates to moving the page to a new one with the renamed title. When a page is moved, the ACL remains with the old page (which is either now a redirect page or deleted altogether, depending on what you set during the move), and a new one will need to be created for the new page.
• ACLs don't exist by default for new pages - you have to create them. This has a very important consequence:

When you establish an ACL for a page, the permissions automatically come with an "implicit deny", which in layman's terms translates to the following: "From now on, noone is allowed to do anything with this page unless specified by one of the rules in this ACL".