[Discuss] Opinions needed: wiki software

[jabr at blu.org (John Abreau)]

Does mediawiki keep everything in mysql? I've used TWiki in the past, and
one of
the things I really liked about it was that the wiki pages were all stored
as regular
text files, under RCS version control.



On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 5:48 PM, Bill Horne <bill at horne.net> wrote:

> On 3/11/2013 10:06 AM, Peter Jalajas wrote:
>
>> ------------------------------**------------------------------**
>>> ----------
>>> Message: 1
>>> Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2013 13:10:04 -0400
>>> From: Bill Horne
>>> To: discuss at blu.org
>>> Subject: [Discuss] Opinions needed: wiki software
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>> Hi Bill,
>>
>> Can you give us a sense of the scale and complexity of their needs?
>>
>
> I guess some more info won't hurt: the site is http://www.big-8.org/ . It
> is hosted on a server
> owned by the late Alexander Bartolich, who was the Chairman of the Big-8
> Board, of which
> I'm a member. The site has remained online through the kindness of his
> heirs, but of
> course that can't continue forever, and updating the software or deleting
> users or
> doing other things that require root access will necessitate moving it to
> another server
> at some point.
>
> The mysqldump output from the existing db is about 22MB in size, so this
> isn't a very large
> site. I want to be sure that I make the best choice for its replacement,
> and that's why
> I'm posting these questions to the BLU. This is, of course, the classic
> "point of pain"
> debate: do I introduce a new paradigm and re-educate the users, or try to
> make the
> old one fit?
>
> So the first question is "How much effort will it take to move the
> existing wiki"?
> I installed Mediawiki 1.20 on a test machine with no problems. If we're
> going to keep
> using Mediawiki, I need to move the data.
>
>  * Is there a way to transfer the content when the old site is on v
>    1.18 of
>    Mediawiki and the current version is 1.20? I tried to do it via an SQL
>    dump, but that didn't work, so I'm looking for a way to "roll" the db
>    into the new release.  I don't want to backport the new install to v1.18
>    unless that's the only option.
>
>  * Can I use the "export" and "import" options of Mediawiki to move
>    all the pages over? I tried /that/, and had mixed success: the "splash"
>    page didn't change, although it looks like the documents were moved.
>
> Next up on the list is the question "If not Mediawiki, then what"?
>
>  * Can other wiki packages import the XML-formatted data that I
>    exported from the old server? Which ones?
>  * Are there more appropriate systems, wiki or other, that would
>    be a better fit for a small volunteer organization with a limited
>    number of technical members?
>
>
> I will, of course, research the wiki and other options that Peter and
> other BLU members
> have suggested, but the most important question at this point in the
> process is
> not of /which/ wiki to use, but whether a wiki is the best option: the
> biggest cost
> I need to consider is the time of the volunteers, and thus of whether a new
> package is justified. I've only spent about five hours of time, but now
> I'm at the
> "did I really want to do /that/?" phase of this project, so I appreciate
> your help:
> I think it's worth doing, but I want to do it right.
>
> Bill
>
> --
> Bill Horne
> 339-364-8487
>
>
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John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
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