Read permission with Discussion Lists?

Question

I'm developing our first Sharepoint site, and have a specific question in regards to the read permission in conjunction with a discussion list.

Well, to begin, I am setting up a sort of knowledge base. There are 15 categories (which are separated into 15 web pages); each category/page has a discussion list in it for a total of 15 discussion lists/boards. I like the discussion board setup because it is easy for a select few individuals (through the contributor permission) to add/tightly control new pieces of information in each discussion list. The regular users come along, see something they want to read more about, and can open it in a new page format.

Here's the kicker, though: NOW it turns out "they" don't want to give the users the ability to reply to the posted information... a discussion list without discussion (don't ask). I've experimented around with announcment lists instead, but don't care much for how they open in a popup. Basically, we want to have all of the regular intranet users only able to read what has been posted by the select few who will maintain the discussion lists (i.e., not post anything to or reply to the discussions we control). Similarly, we will have a discussion list where they will be able to add their own questions and reply to each other. Does the read/restricted reader permissions make it so that they can only read, but not reply? I've searched tons of places but find no specifics on how it applies to discussions.

Answer 1

To answer your question, if users are set to restricted read on the discussion list, they will not be able to reply to the discussions. They would need an elevated priviledge, like a custom permission based off of Read that allows them to Add list items in order to reply. This then makes it so they can't edit anything or delete anything.

Rob's suggestion of wiki pages would be better, you basically are pushing out content to people to read. You could give them read access to the whole site except for a separate discussion board where they could have higher permissions to discuss information on the wiki pages in the site.

Answer 2

That sounds like a Wiki to me. Just create 15 Wiki pages and set the folks you want to contribute and the folks you want to read.