Nick Jenkins wrote:
Don't know. I was assuming historical reasons, but
$wgGroupPermissions came first:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:%24wgGroupPermissions (version >= 1.5)
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:%24wgEmailConfirmToEdit (version >= 1.6)
Maybe 'emailconfirmed' wasn't added to $wgGroupPermissions until after 1.6?
The "emailconfirmed" group was indeed added later.