On the user creation page in the console you can view a rights matrix to see which rights are extended to which users.

The highlighted dots represent rights that are given to a specific role.

Changing user rights

User rights are orchestrated in the globals.php file and can be extended by plugins. The preferred method to changing user roles is by plugin as any changes to the globals.php are overwritten with each update.

$reactor->user                          = new \stdClass();
$reactor->user->roles                   = array(-1=>'Banned',0=>'New',1=>'Administrator',2=>'Guest',3=>'User',4=>'Contributor',5=>'Moderator',6=>'Editor');
$reactor->user->rights['console']       = array(1,5,6); // grant access to console.
$reactor->user->rights['commenting']    = array(1,2,3,4,5,6); // allow user to comment.
$reactor->user->rights['following']     = array(1,3,4,5,6); // allow user to follow.
$reactor->user->rights['messaging']     = array(1,3,4,5,6); // allow user to message.
$reactor->user->rights['converting']    = array(1,4,5,6); // allow user to convert objects.
$reactor->user->rights['posting']       = array(1,4,5,6); // allow user to post articles.
$reactor->user->rights['grouping']      = array(1,4,5,6); // allow user to create groups.
$reactor->user->rights['uploading']     = array(1,4,5,6); // allow user to upload files.
$reactor->user->rights['importing']     = array(1,4,5,6); // allow user to import from web.
$reactor->user->rights['tasking']       = array(1,4,5,6); // allow user to queue tasks.
$reactor->user->rights['moderating']    = array(1,5,6); // allow user to moderate.
$reactor->user->rights['paging']        = array(1,4,5,6); // allow user to create pages.
$reactor->user->rights['wysiwyg']       = array(1,3,4,5,6); // allow user to use wysiwyg editor.

You can extend or alter the array using PHP functions.