View Only. What's the fastest way to arrange things so a user called readonly (or similar) can only view (& not edit) everything we setup in multiple Confluence spaces? I.e. Everything we create by default is can only be viewed by a certain user.

[Jonathan Simonoff]

Don't give confluence-users (that is the default group that all users belong to) editing rights in any space – use space permissions to only give viewing rights. 

Create a second group (confluence-editors, for example) and give that group editing rights in each space.  Add the users to that group as they earn the rights.

I think that is as easy as it is going to get.

[Hugh Bathurst]

Thanks, we've really tried these approaches. We were hoping for an easy & quick way so all new users were default view only (earning right to edit sort of thinking).

[JeffP]

See the space permission documentation at https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Assigning+Space+Permissions.  Then configure your readonly user in the Individual User area to only have view permissions for the desirable spaces.

Cheers!

[Jonathan Simonoff]

The easiest way would be to have everyone who can edit in one group, and only give editing rights to that group.