I have an enterprise GIS environment running MS SQL and not the typical SDE environment. I have several people who have edit rights to a handful of datasets within the enterprise database, but I'd like to prevent them from added feature classes to the datasets. Is this possible through ArcGIS or do I need to figure out a way to do it in the MS SQL permissions?
Feature datasets were never intended as a method if organization as they are too often used. There are a number of threads on this forum that discuss the topic. That said, you may want to consider individual enterprise data bases as an alternative to feature datasets as a method of organization. Another alternative is to replicate from the enterprise gdb to a file gdb that allows read only. When replicating features within a feature dataset you will first replicate the entire dataset, and then move those features out of the dataset as stand alone features on an as needed basis.