Help:User rights

User rights are specific access and ability permissions that can be assigned to customizable groups, which can then be assigned to (or removed from) users through the Special:Userrights interface. For example, the default bureaucrat group enables the use of the User rights interface.

This feature was introduced in MediaWiki 1.5; see setting user rights in MediaWiki on the Meta-wiki for earlier methods.

Managing groups
A default MediaWiki installation assigns certain rights to default groups (see below). You can change the default rights by declaring the in  with the syntax " ". To change permissions for all groups, use "*" as the group. For example, to disable editing for all users, add " ".

In addition to the default groups, you can arbitrarily create new groups using the same array. For example:

Rights and groups
The following user rights are available in the latest version of MediaWiki. If you are using an older version then some of these may not be implemented.

The following groups are available in the latest version of MediaWiki. If you are using an older version then some of these may not be implemented.

Note that the 'developer' group is obsolete and should no longer be used.

Default rights
The default rights are defined in DefaultSettings.php. MediaWiki 1.12alpha defines the following (for older versions see $wgGroupPermissions).

Anonymous users cannot view pages
This example will disable viewing of all pages not listed in, then re-enable for registered users only.

Anonymous users cannot edit
This example will disable editing of all pages, then re-enable for registered users only.