I see the mediawiki has an automatic contents page after all, here:
It would be good if this link were added to the list of links on the left I think.
Having looked at an example docuwiki, and compared docu with media at wikimatrix, I'm not seing any advantage in docuwiki. Looks like we've got what we need already really.
NT
Hmm, I think that could be a whole lot better - there's no nesting of categories for a start.
Bear with me a little while. I meant to get the docuwiki install all done yesterday, but have been pretty busy. I'll try to get it done today. It does have some neat features.
Ok, as promised, the DokuWiki installation is up and running, you can access it here:
To avoid cluttering uk.d-i-y with wiki related discussion that may or may not be of interest to people, may I suggest we keep the wiki discussion on the discussion tab of the main page?
Look forward to seeing what everyone thinks.
Tbh I think we've got what we need already. From what I've read doku seemed a less developed and slightly less user friendly wiki, but maybe you could give us some clues on whats better about it.
NT
Well, I think from a technical POV, from a data organisation perspective, they both suck hugely. I find it hard to understand why information is being stored and organised in this semi-random fashion.
Having said that, I will explain why I think DW is better than MW, at least for the purposes of an FAQ or similar.
The first reason is categorisation - DW uses 'namespaces', which are effectively article categories. These are more intuitive and easier to create than the 'categories' you can create in MW.
Second, navigation. There are quite a few plugins available for DW which deal with navigation. I've installed one, in two different formats, which displays the entire content as a tree - you can see this in the left hand menu and the contents section of the main page.
Third, access control. It provides a greater level of access control, which is easier to admin than MW. By this I mean who has what edit rights over which articles/sections.
They are both up there, and I will leave them both there until everyone who is interested has had a look and commented. At the end of this period, I'll remove one and stick with one.
Its worth saying there are downsides to doku too. One is the way it handles what are questionably described as edit collisions (or something similar). Having played with mediawiki, several timss it thought one edit had temporally wrapped round another, when in fact it just wasnt keeping track of editing well enough. Doku's response to this is to lock any further editing. So if we had doku, many of the pages there now would have been stopped in their tracks due simply to poor edit tracking.
If people look at ikimatrix and compare media with doku, side by side, medi has almost all the plus points. If wikimatrix is anything to go by, the doku mostly has plugins for functions mediawiki has built in already.
I can see the plus points in a contents with tree, but I can see issues with it too. Mediawiki is able to provide category listings too, as well as a list all pages function, and a plus is that afaic see one can structure the article tree after writing, and structure it pretty well any way you want, move articles from one category to another, have them in multiple categories and so on, IOW its both eaiser and more flexible.
FWLIW I also found doku less intuitive and more difficult to use. This will put some off contributing imho.
At the end of that day tho, I'm sure either will work and do the job.
NT
I'm not sure that the wikimatrix is all that useful. For instance, take categories. According to the matrix, MW has them already built in, while DW has them as an option/plugin. While this is true, the end result is that the categorisation in DW is far superior to that in MW.
Slightly concerned at the lack of opinion on the matter - we seem to be the only two discussing it!
I guess others arent worried, which is ok.
I'll vote for the flexibility and easier use of the mediawiki, but either works!
NT
think it needs raising here in the group, and that's ownership of articles and copyright. I think ownership of articles by individuals defeats the object of a wiki. By all means let's have a new and different version of the DIY FAQ with articles individually owned if that's what authors of articles in the current FAQ want, but if we're going to have a wiki please can we agree that articles in the wiki are communally authored and owned under some sort of license such as Creative Commons.
IANAL so I don't know the pros and cons of CC versus other licenses: what I'm trying to say is best summed up by the boilerplate on the DIY wiki edit pages "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then don't submit it here."
I think it follows that we should obtain permission of authors of articles in the current FAQ to copy their articles into a wiki, in the same way we should obtain permission to use any other material that's not already copyrighted in a CC-type way.
[Sorry: I edited the Subject: line again Phil :-)]
Chaps,
This is a worthwhile project and thanks for the effort in persuing this idea this far. I'm keen on the mediawiki implementation - the collapsing tree thing in docuwiki is a step backwards from the idea of wiki navigation which is historically done thorough the linked keywords. We can have a top level page of 'categories', and successive pages can be linked (and crosslinked for relevant overlap) where necessary.
You can't handle crosslinks in a treeview, the programming of the thing is client dependant (think mobile phone), and for usability - the search metaphor works better.
Apple and Microsoft on their new operating systems are coming around to that now.
e.g. Want information on a 'tap washer', type 'washer' - Don't have the user do 'plumbing' (click) 'sinks' (click) 'accessories' (click) 'Taps' (click) 'washers' - also a nightmare for someone to keep this structure in check!
I would suggest that the FAQ should stay where it is, users posts stay where they can be accessed (on google) and NOT copied to the wiki, and the wiki used to refer to these sources via links.
In time items entered on the wiki can be voted for inclusion to the frozen html FAQ and then placed there by the FAQ webmaster.
The content and editing on the Wiki should be open to all, like Wikipedia. Users will clean up stuff that abUsers place there, or the stuff can be rolled back for serious vandalisms.
-- Adrian C
I guess we need a copyright policy. Would there be a problem with 'by submitting writing to ukdiywiki you agree it may be edited and/or copied'?
NT
|John Stumbles wrote: | |> I'm following up on a comment in the docuwiki talk pages but I |> think it needs raising here in the group, and that's ownership of |> articles and copyright. I think ownership of articles by individuals |> defeats the object of a wiki. By all means let's have a new and different |> version of the DIY FAQ with articles individually owned if that's what |> authors of articles in the current FAQ want, but if we're going to have a |> wiki please can we agree that articles in the wiki are communally authored |> and owned under some sort of license such as Creative Commons. |>
|> IANAL so I don't know the pros and cons of CC versus other licenses: |> what I'm trying to say is best summed up by the boilerplate on the DIY |> wiki edit pages "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly, |> then don't submit it here." |>
|> I think it follows that we should obtain permission of authors of articles |> in the current FAQ to copy their articles into a wiki, in the same way |> we should obtain permission to use any other material that's not already |> copyrighted in a CC-type way. |>
|> [Sorry: I edited the Subject: line again Phil :-)] | |I guess we need a copyright policy. Would there be a problem with 'by |submitting writing to ukdiywiki you agree it may be edited and/or |copied'?
Also IMO these things are best placed in the Public Domain. The downside is that anybody can use the information anywhere.
This is a horribly complex area which we would never get right if we try inventing it ourselves, with the potential for Grunff and others to be sued when it goes wrong. Fortunately, several others (e.g. Wikipedia) have already thought through these issues, so the easiest and safest approach is probably to adopt one of their schemes lock stock and barrel. (That doesn't completely remove the chance of being sued though, as it's impossible to check that all the material submitted is not subject to an incompatible copyright.)
Another reason I was less keen on an open wiki :-)
If we do decide to stick with a wiki (and for me this is still a big IF), one requirement will be for several wiki admins. These people would get copied any emails received as complaints regarding copyright issues, and would have the responsibility of removing any offending material immediately, and ensuring that any complaints are dealt with promptly.
This isnt how it normally works in practice. Suing costs a lot of money, with little chance of recovering any significant damages in our case. Hence copyright owners normally send a warning out requiring removal of material, and only even consider followup if this isn't done.
If you're really worried you can put a couple of phrases from each new post into google and see if anything comes up. Normally wiki/forum/etc owners have a stock notice about copyright violations saying they're only too glad to remove any offending material if its ever pointed out.
And fwiw it may be a good idea to remove any such material. There is or was some already on there, and while some individuals may not be concerned about any possible comeback, wiki administration imho would be wise to stick to the policy and make this clear by removing any and all such material from the get go. I never post copyright material. If you want to refer to it, one can just link to it.
NT
Ok, since no one seems to like Dokuwiki, and it appears that someone's pasted in some content which has broken it, I will remove it.
I will leave MediaWiki up for now, since it seems most people are in favour. Just to remind those interested, it can be accessed here:
It weren't me, but that does sound as though testing has highlighted some shortcomings in the resilience of dokuwiki.
I suppose with wikipedia using mediawiki it will have a fairly comprehensive ongoing support.
Owain
Exactly - doesn't really matter who it was or what they did - it just shouldn't be possible to break it by editing articles. I could spend time investigating what broke and why, but tbh I just can't be bothered, especially since more people seem to favour MediaWiki.
Yes, there is that.
I wasn't hiding, I actually shouted about it on the main talk page
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