[Discuss] Opinions needed: wiki software

[david at thekramers.net (David Kramer)]

On 03/10/2013 01:10 PM, Bill Horne wrote:
> I've been asked to help improve a wiki site that is currently using
> Mediawiki, and I'm seeking
> information about alternative wiki packages which might be a better
> match for the uses
> that are needed.
>
> Here are the bullet points:
>
>  * A combination of public and private info, with about 99% of it being
>    "public".
>  * The group needs to be able to restrict access to the private
>    material, with
>    a reasonable level of security.
>  * The group installed a wiki to make it easier for individual group
>    members to edit
>    both shared and personal pages, and switched to Mediawiki because of
>    some
>    undefined security concern with a different wiki package.
>  * The content of the wiki changes very slowly.
>  * The Mediawiki documentation specifically warns against trying to use
>    it for
>    both public and private pages: it's used for Wikipedia, and isn't
>    geared for
>    a mixed public/private site.
>
> All suggestions welcome. Thanks for your help.
>
> Bill
>
Very strongly recommend http://www.foswiki.org.  I'm using it for
several different projects, and I absolutely love it.

- For starters, it has an excellent security model, which is missing
from many wikis that are still stuck in the "Information wants to be
free, all information should be out there for everyone to read and edit"
meme that wikis started out with before they were used for business. 
MediaWiki is like that.  I tried using it for a project and found it
nearly impossible to secure from spammers putting porn links on my page.

In foswiki, you have separate control of read/write/rename, at the
site/wiki/subwiki/page level, using both users and groups.  If you were
able to put the private stuff in a subwiki with the right permissions,
then everything in that subwiki would automatically be protected.  If
you create that subwiki with access using groups, then you just need to
add/remove people from that group as needed.

- It's under very active development, and that includes unit tests.

- The developers are usually accessible on IRC (freenode) and willing to
answer questions and solve problems live.

- It has several different authentication (I'm talk authentication here,
not authorization) mechanisms, and ties into others.

- Foswiki has several different editors.  I personally hate WYWIWYG
editors, but there's is pretty good.

- Foswiki has a plugin system with over 150 plugins for all sorts of
crazy stuff.

By the way, a document repository is a very different user experience
than a wiki.  You definitely want a wiki for what you're doing.