Thread:Project:Support desk/How to give user right in medwiki 1.17.4/reply

Note: This hasn't changed in a while, so answer is the same on latest mediawiki, as well as many earlier releases.

Basically, you can't give individual rights, you have to create a group (possibly that has only one right) and put users in the group. See help:User rights. User's can be assigned to groups using the page Special:UserRights on your wiki.