Wiki Watching...

I installed MediaWiki for myself a few days ago. I do not like it very much but there are some nice plugins for it. You can create a book with the wiki articles and print it out haha.

I saw some other wiki software such as dokuwiki and Twiki which looks nice. Other people who have experience with the wiki softwares?
 
I hope momentum does continue. I'm very busy the next entire month but after that should have time, first to finish my participation in the merging my version of exim.conf with the official DirectAdmin version, and then to work on the Wiki.

I figure as long as we're going to be wiki watching, we might as well have some mermaids :D.

Is media wiki the best choice? Or should we be considering some of the other choices available? I want to set up the infrastructure soon so someone can volunteer to do some graphics :).

I'm thinking of using the same domain name for the wiki as we use for the DirectAdmin annuncements mailing list.

Jeff
 
The other alternatives would be dokuwiki and tikiwiki.
Mediawiki seems to be more powerfull while dokuwiki seems to be more compact.

Anyway, i didn't used either. :)
 
I've installed mediawiki once, http://wiki.amservers.nl/Mod_ruid2

What I like about it is that I'm used to the layout/navigation because of wikipedia.

But I've taken a look at the other wiki's mentioned, dokuwiki also looks fine.

It doesn't really matter I think, we should make a choice soon so we can move on to the topic of what we're going to place on it; rewrites/links to help.directadmin/features?; I don't have a full picture of the wiki idea just yet.
 
Actually we need to start with the structure/categories and so on ...
I don't think the solution (wiki software) affect our intention.

If we find a list of "must-have plugins" for our wiki, we can move on to the next step.
 
In my opinion it matters because the wiki is only going to be professional looking and work well if we can reach concensus. And if we can't reach consensus on the wiki software to use, I don't think that bodes well for cooperation in everything else.

I already know which one I like.

Let's try to keep the discussion towards an agreement on one, and not just on 'they're all good' or 'we can change later'.

What we're looking for is a spirt of cooperation.

Also, in addition to the wiki softwre, which software should we use for the forum we contributors will use in the background to communicate between each other? Any suggestions? Note it must be able to limit posts so only members can read. I think they all forum software can do that but I'm not sure.

Jeff
 
I think we should create a forum (forum.wikidomain.com) for the people who edit the wiki. Only those people will get access to the forum (manually accept?). If possible we could get a subforum on this DirectAdmin forum assigned for us only too.

As wiki software we should use MediaWiki, I think. MediaWiki exists since 2005 and is open source. It is a common wiki software and many people know the interface.
 
As for forum software I have some 14-15 years experiene with several kinds. I'm not looking to paid software in this matter, but to easy to handle free sofware with a good name. Then PhpBB, PhpFusion and SMF remain. But if we would need a forum, the best option to use is PhpBB imho.
 
I've installed/used many phpBB's over the past years as well. Brings back some memories :)

MediaWiki + phpBB sounds good to me.
 
I've also used several forum softwares ...
If we are going to use both forum and wiki then we need to find a "connected solution". So mediawiki with phpbb bridge would be better.
 
I doubt they really need to be connected, but I also tend towards phpbb and mediawiki.

Do we have enoough of a concensus that I should set something up?

@Petertjuh360:

I could probably set up a subforum just for us, but I see the wiki (and the forum we use for administrative conversation) to be entirely community driven, so I lean in the direction of having our own.

I'm waiting for a few approvals and will then set it up.

Jeff
 
fwiw smf used to have a wiki addon so one software did it all and handled the logins too. I don't know its status now but thought it worth mentioning.
I went to paid invisionpower so have not looked at smf for a bit but I was always able to handle load better with smf vs phpbb.
 
I may have a spare vBulletin paid license I can use; if everyone thinks that's the best, I'll check my accounts. I like it for anti-spam control.

But remember this is going to be a private forum with a likely small membership. And I don't think I' use smf strictly becaquse it has a built-in wiki; I don't think it could be as good as Media Wiki.

More comments please, especially on whether vBulletin is important for our small private forum.

Thanks.

Jeff
 
I may have a spare vBulletin paid license I can use; if everyone thinks that's the best, I'll check my accounts. I like it for anti-spam control.

But remember this is going to be a private forum with a likely small membership. And I don't think I' use smf strictly becaquse it has a built-in wiki; I don't think it could be as good as Media Wiki.

More comments please, especially on whether vBulletin is important for our small private forum.

Thanks.

Jeff
forgot to look but I thought the smf setup WAS mediawiki, a login and permissions bridge.

honestly I would not use a vb license for this when its expected to be so small, if it were expected (the forums) to be larger and need professional support then a licensed board is good idea. but I don't think, from reading the thread, it would really ever get to that point. and since its going to be controlled you're nto going to (I would imagine) allow open registration anyways so vb spam service I would think would not be needed.
also iirc smf/phpbb and a few others all now have ability to query the stop forum spam database to block if you did allow open registrations.
just a thought or two :)
 
SMF has no wiki build in whatsoever. If there is a wiki then it's an addon. I didn't see a permissions bridge in my SMF. It's nice forum software but I don't like the default "new posts" indicators which don't work as well as phpBB or vbulletin, due to the fact that it's a "new post since last visit" and not just a "not yet read" indicator. So you easily can miss new posts.

About vBulletin, I used that for lots of years, but I stopped after the take over due to the new license policy and the fact that (even specialist say that) vb4 is badly coded and 5 even worse. All good coders (like f.e. Kier) left the company after the take over. Only a few stayed. Kier started the payware Xenforo forum.
Next to that I would use a good free forum (phpBB) for the kind of little private forum we need.

So I personally still opt for the original thought of phpBB and MediaWiki.
 
So we're (almost) decided on phpBB and MediaWiki?

(Remember I've got lots of experience with vB (because of here). But I suppose I can set up phpBB as well :))

Are we ready to go?

Should anyone have any reason why this (marriage) should not take place, let them speak now, or forever hold their peace :)

Jeff
 
vBulletin may be better but I agree that it feels a bit of a waste for just a small closed group.

However I was thinking of how people can apply for helping; I'm sure there will be people in the future who would like to join when the wiki is up and running. An open section (and registration) on the forum for applications?
 
The wiki will of course include information on how to become a contributor :).

That should be enough, shouldn't it?

Jeff
 
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