What's liked more? Flagging or Ranking

[Grok]

Back on PLATO (the original multiuser networked gaming environment), we had available to programmers a tool called an Access Block.  It was a front end for some storage of groups, users, and rights, and sets of rights.  It handled the creation and storage of everything, so that from code we called its interface and the proper bits were checked in storage back on the mainframe.  The value returned was what we'd now call the effective rights, which we could evaluate through the tool's functions.

Access Block GrokNotes
User / Group    Set Rights
grok / p        Owner
Other /pso      Moderator
Other / p       Moderator
Other / Other   Author
Other / student Read
Other / newbie  None
bauer / s       Write-Only

Thus "grok of group p" had the set of rights attributed to 'Owner', while "Other of group p" was a had the rights of a moderator.

"bauer of group s" was assigned explicit permissions of write-only .. which actually meant he could submit to, but not read, the contents of the file.  This was a nice feature for bug reports on the system.  We could get reports from people into a group notes that all us programmers could read, but not the general population.

[WolfSage]

I'd have to go with flags all the way. When I see .setuser WolfSage 100, that confuses me compared .user WolfSage +MSB.
With flags, you can guess what most of the commands mean. Not only that, but you can explicitly control what everone can do. And if you get sick of having to add the same flags to people, then you can have groups (Like Moderators for instance.) It makes a lot more sense, I don't see how a mix would make anything easier.

[ILurker]

Flags are byfar the best