Extension:GroupsSidebar

If you have usergroups and would like to add sidebar elements just for certain usergroup, you can use this extension.

Installation & Usage
Download the extension from SVN and place it in MediaWiki's extensions folder. You have to edit your LocalSettings.php. Add at the end of the file the following text:

The resulting message names are "MediaWiki:Sidebar-groupname" whereas groupname is something like "sysop" or "user". For example, the message name could be MediaWiki:Sidebar-sysop. You can edit it the same way you edit the normal sidebar.

Note: You have to set $wgEnableSidebarCache to false in case you enabled it for performance reasons.