Private wikis

A private wiki is a wiki that cannot be readable by all users. By default, only users in the local  and   user group can see and/or edit private wikis. (Certain in select global user groups (Stewards, Trust and Safety, and SRE) also have access to private wikis, to respond to local wikis' requests that they can't otherwise effect themselves, enforce global policies, or resolve technical issues with wikis, respectively.) The Main Page (as defined in your wiki's MediaWiki:Mainpage page; by default "Main Page") on these wikis, and a few other pages (for technical reasons), are whitelisted (so they can be read by everyone).

If a bureaucrat wants to make their public wiki private (or vice versa), they may do so at Special:ManageWiki (on their wiki) and check/uncheck the "private" box.

When requesting a wiki, you can tick the "Private wiki" to request it be private. If you later want to make it private (or public), follow the steps above.

Add users to private wiki
To add a user to your private wiki so that they can edit and read, please do the following:


 * 1) Make sure the user visited your wiki first.
 * 2) Go to Special:UserRights on your wiki.
 * 3) Enter the users' username.
 * 4) Add them to the   group.

== Hiding the Main Page from view ==

As the Main Page (by default but can be whatever as defined in your  ) is not private, you may find it an inconvenience to have such an important page world readable. A workaround of this is to create a new page (for example, Home), then place a redirect from the Main Page to Home; this can be done by writing as the complete contents of the page.

By doing so, MediaWiki will redirect to another page and then prompt users to login before seeing the page.

Whitelisting pages
To allow some pages to be read without requiring login, you'll need to whitelist them. To do so, go to Special:ManageWiki/settings -> Permissions on your wiki and set the pages you want to be whitelisted in the  section. Once you do that, anyone can read the pages you've whitelisted without needing special rights or to login.

== Links ==


 * A list of all wikis (those which have "Private" as their visibility)