Rails Models: Can one belong and yet have many?

Question

Say I have two tables in a database: a user and and an article. A user creates the article, but the article can also be saved to a different user's list (these are just examples, don't ask me why they'd do that). How would this relationship be represented in a database since a set has a one-to-one created with relationship with a user, but at the same time it could also have many users if they added it to their items? Is something like the following possible (I am writing this in Rails)?

class User

  #something

end

class Article

  belongs_to :user
  has_many :users

end

Or would you need to add an additional list Table?

class User

  has_many :lists
  has_many :articles, through: :lists

end

class Article

  has_many :lists
  has_many :users, through: :lists

end

class List

  belongs_to :user
  belongs_to :article

end

Answer 1

The second approach is indeed how you would do it. You could, in addition, have a separate belongs_to :user relationship from Article to User to indicate authorship, as you had in the first approach.