Permissions available in SharePoint 2007 - To The 'Point - Site Home

There's a few ways of specify what users can and cannot do within SharePoint. The most blatent one is whether a user can actually access a site or not. Beyond that there are some very specific ways that Architects can control what users are allowed to do and ways that Administrators can manage the user base.

The most granular way is through using permissions. These are broken down into three groups:

List Permissions
Site Permissions
Personal Permissions

But what are these pemissions? Well here's a list:

List Permissions	Description
Manage Lists	Create and delete lists, add or remove columns in a list, and add or remove public views of a list.
Override Check Out	Discard or check in a document which is checked out to another user.
Add Items	Add items to lists, add documents to document libraries, and add Web discussion comments.
Edit Items	Edit items in lists, edit documents in document libraries, edit Web discussion comments in documents, and customize Web Part Pages in document libraries.
Delete Items	Delete items from a list, documents from a document library, and Web discussion comments in documents.
View Items	View items in lists, documents in document libraries, and view Web discussion comments.
Approve Items	Approve a minor version of a list item or document.
Open Items	View the source of documents with server-side file handlers.
View Versions	View past versions of a list item or document.
Delete Versions	Delete past versions of a list item or document.
Create Alerts	Create e-mail alerts.
View Application Pages	View forms, views, and application pages. Enumerate lists.

Site Permissions	Description
Manage Permissions	Create and change permission levels on the Web site and assign permissions to users and groups.
View Usage Data	View reports on Web site usage.
Create Subsites	Create subsites such as team sites, Meeting Workspace sites, and Document Workspace sites.
Manage Web Site	Grants the ability to perform all administration tasks for the Web site as well as manage content.
Add and Customize Pages	Add, change, or delete HTML pages or Web Part Pages, and edit the Web site using a Windows SharePoint Services-compatible editor.
Apply Themes and Borders	Apply a theme or borders to the entire Web site.
Apply Style Sheets	Apply a style sheet (.CSS file) to the Web site.
Create Groups	Create a group of users that can be used anywhere within the site collection.
Browse Directories	Enumerate files and folders in a Web site using SharePoint Designer and Web DAV interfaces.
Use Self-Service Site Creation	Create a Web site using Self-Service Site Creation.
View Pages	View pages in a Web site.
Enumerate Permissions	Enumerate permissions on the Web site, list, folder, document, or list item.
Browse User Information	View information about users of the Web site.
Manage Alerts	Manage alerts for all users of the Web site.
Use Remote Interfaces	Use SOAP, Web DAV, or SharePoint Designer interfaces to access the Web site.
Use Client Integration Features	Use features which launch client applications. Without this permission, users will have to work on documents locally and upload their changes.
Open	Allows users to open a Web site, list, or folder in order to access items inside that container.
Edit Personal User Information	Allows a user to change his or her own user information, such as adding a picture.

Personal Permissions	Description
Manage Personal Views	Create, change, and delete personal views of lists.
Add/Remove Personal Web Parts	Add or remove personal Web Parts on a Web Part Page.
Update Personal Web Parts	Update Web Parts to display personalized information.

Some of these permissions rely on others to correctly work. Mark Arand provides a very useful spreadsheet which outlines these permissions as well as which ones are required to achieve specific roles and functions. His blog entry can be found here.