sortof OT: wiki software

[Mike Schwartz]

On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 11:21 AM, Chris Gehlker <canyonrat at mac.com> wrote:

>
> On Jun 15, 2009, at 9:15 AM, Jason Hayes wrote:
>
> > I know that this  may be a Chevy vs. Ford, or which distro is the
> > best distro
> > kind of question, but I need to find a solid, easy to use wiki setup
> > for people
> > who may or may not be terribly tech-savvy.
> >
> > I will set it up (so that doesn't need to be part of the weighting),
> > but I
> > need to figure out which software will suit a group who is trying to
> > set up a
> > site with information that will help vest and educate new hires in our
> > industry.
> >
> > Our budget is $0 (so I have to use OSS) and I am most comfortable
> > working in a
> > PHP/mySQL environment, so I have tentatively settled on two,
> > MediaWiki and
> > Moin Moin wiki
> >
> > http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki
> >
> > http://moinmo.in/MoinMoinWiki
> >
> > Anyone out there have any experience with one or both of these.
> > Anyone have
> > another suggestion?
>
> I had good luck with Instiki but I'm pretty comfortable with ruby.
> <http://www.instiki.org/show/HomePage>
> There are several editors to  choose from including WYSIWYG ones.
> Good luck!
> --
> Vegetarians eat Vegetables, Humanitarians frighten me---------------------------------------------------
> PLUG-discuss mailing list - [...]
>

I understand the concerns raised by joefleming, but I think to some extent
the issue of user training, or acceptance, & "getting started"
using it, might well be *helped* by using Mediawiki,
( http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki )
since it is used on wikipedia,

and hence, any experience of editing on wikipedia, that a given user
might already have, would be transferable and might serve to get over
the "writer's block" or "first time" [to use a certain wiki]
procrastination / hesitation.

ALSO, do not underestimate ! the extent to which a user's willingness
to learn
(( how to use the "wiki markup" language for MediaWiki ))
might be helped by the fact that, any knowledge that is gained, will be
useful "also" for [participating in] editing on wikipedia.

Ryan Rix (in his first comment) already mentioned the fact that
<< MediaWiki >>
is very widely used -- and hence I guess that is a good argument for
assuming that the maintenance of the software will probably continue
to occur, even if you yourself do not take the time and effort to report
and document the bugs, "if any" --
and, *never mind* the issue of whether you take the time and effort
[or are even qualified] to FIX the bugs!

However, the fact that MediaWiki is widely used by THOUSANDS of
people who make changes (edits) on wikipedia
(anything from a big re-write, to a minor tweak),
means that the user interface is well suited to being learned by newbies,
-- and, it is probably well suited to being *partially* learned, at first,
and you can then accomplish some simple edit
(like a Y/N reply to someone's idea/suggestion),
and then LATER, you can add to your knowledge, "gradually",
as time permits, and as the need arises.

Also, in R. Rix's second chime in on this, he said

> OO Writer can export mediawiki text ;)

which might also be interpreted as one of the "side effects" of that
data format being widely used.  That is what happens when it is
widely used, and well known, AND it is defined by some kind of
clear published standard (like, I think the "reference implementation"
is also FLOSS), with no patents or trademarks etc., interfering with
the ability of software vendors (floss or otherwise) being able to provide
tools that support it / are compatible with it.

I have OOo on my computer, and I use it sometimes, but so far I have
not even thought about using it to do edits on wikipedia - or any wiki
that uses "mediawiki" wiki-text.

However, if an issue should arise, say, of trying to take some report (or
some extracted data) from a SQL database e.g., or something like that,
then it could prove to be quite useful to have the option of using
OO Writer to do some of the editing --
and then commanding that software to export some mediawiki text.
Then you could then put that in to the wiki, and everyone could
"have at it" with the usual way, of just using a browser (such as Firefox)
to make "everyday" common or garden variety (easy) changes.

Among the other things I think are cool about mediawiki, at least the
way it is set up on wikipedia, is that,
it automatically keeps track of a bunch of statistical info about every
change that is made -- so, one can

[1]  do a diff, and see what changed, for a given "edit";
[2]  see the date and time, when that edit occurred;
[3]  see who made that edit;
and
[4]  see the comments ("if any") that were entered on that
      date at that time [2], by that person [3],
      to try to "explain" the change [1], in English.

and, in some cases, there are other statistical slices of the same data,
e.g. you can go look at all of the contributions from a certain user.

Do all wiki's do the above?  [1] through [4]? "I know noth ing"...
[quote thanks to the character "Schultz" on the old tv show 'Hogan's
Heroes']
[including pronouncing "noth ing" = 0 = {} as 2 words]

Finally, and this last point is an advantage of ANY web site
(set of web pages), wiki or not:

Even without having any of your own database tools to crawl through
and index your data, it is already possible to do searches through your
own data, (e.g.) by doing a google.com search, and making use of
the "site:" option.

That feature (the "site:" option) is so powerful that its name is a
misleading under-statement!
It "sounds" like you can just specify a certain domain name
(web site), and focus attention on that.
That is true, but it is not all.

((It slices! it dices! the original ad for the Ginsu knife
  seems like an amateur...))

You can include *any URL substring* for hits you are interested in:

For example* you can do searches like
 comma + site:http://docs.python.org/tutorial/
What possibilities!
*as I think I mentioned once (summer 2007?) to Alan Dayley.
-- 
Mike Schwartz
Glendale  AZ
schwartz at acm.org
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