Question

I am trying to create a system which allows local network users to collaborate content together.

Requirements: The user should be able to:

1. create content,
2. edit content (content created by anyone),
3. records should be kept on who edited what and when,
4. should easily be able to go back and forth between edits,
5. add comments to pages,
6. should be able to assign rights to created/edited pages (i.e. who can view them)

I am trying to come up with some database structures, but need some help. Could someone please help me create a good structure for such requirements?

EDIT:

This is what I have so far:

page table -
page_id
title
content
date
inactive (0,1)
author

rights table -
page_id
user_id
view (0,1)
edit (0,1)
delete (0,1)

history table -
page_id
title
content
date
inactive (0,1)
author

How could this be improved?

Answer 1

I think most of what you had is fine. I’m just showing additions or changes in the design, quick but rough estimate:

user
----
user_id
network_username ("Or Active Directory Name or whatever, you get the idea.
    Using user_id as a foreign key in other tables instead of the network
    name makes it easier if account names change.")

role
----
role_id
name

user_role
---------
user_role_id
role_id
user_id

page
----
page_id
author_user_id

page_comment
------------
page_comment_id
parent_page_comment_id ("Self reference to allow for nested comments")
page_id ("Even though you could conceivably look up page_id via
    parent_page_comment_id if you're dealing with a nested comment, that
    would involve N nested queries... so it's probably good to require this
    field be populated for every single record")
user_id


permission
----------
permission_id
page_id
role_id ("To simplify, I'd stick solely to role-based access.")

history
-------
history_id ("If you have high-volume edits, you may need to use date AND this
    to establish the order changes were made in.  Probably safest to use both
    right from the start.")
page_id
user_id ("caveat:  you won't know what role the user was in when a change was
    made.")
old_title ("I'd prefix "old_" to all the fields just to make it intuitively
    clear.")