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Why not use MediaWiki for the wiki4d site?
Dec 06, 2005
Hasan Aljudy
Dec 06, 2005
J C Calvarese
Dec 06, 2005
Lars Ivar Igesund
Jan 20, 2006
Hasan Aljudy
Feb 10, 2006
Helmut Leitner
Feb 11, 2006
nick
Feb 11, 2006
Lars Ivar Igesund
Feb 11, 2006
Helmut Leitner
Feb 11, 2006
nick
Feb 11, 2006
J C Calvarese
Feb 12, 2006
nick
Feb 12, 2006
nick
Feb 12, 2006
J C Calvarese
Feb 13, 2006
nick
Feb 13, 2006
Helmut Leitner
Mar 04, 2006
Helmut Leitner
Feb 13, 2006
Helmut Leitner
Feb 13, 2006
Helmut Leitner
Feb 11, 2006
Derek Parnell
Feb 11, 2006
nick
Feb 12, 2006
Hasan Aljudy
December 06, 2005
It's cool having a wiki for D, but many many of its pages are quite outdated *, and IMO the wiki doesn't look very good, and I think that's a reason for why so many pages are outdated.

* (look at the faq/roadmap for example http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?FaqRoadmap)

The wiki needs alot of repolishing IMO, the best palce to start with is to use the MediaWiki package.
Almost all dead wiki's I've seen use something other than MediaWiki, and almost all successful wiki's I've seen use the MediaWiki. Maybe I'm just being delusional, but I think using a good wiki package plays a big role in the success of the wiki .. after all, it's all psychological, if it looks nice and organized, then it'll attract users, if not, then not!
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki


For those who happen to not know what I'm talking about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki_software
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
December 06, 2005
In article <dn315a$2t3h$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Hasan Aljudy says...
>
>It's cool having a wiki for D, but many many of its pages are quite outdated *, and IMO the wiki doesn't look very good, and I think that's a reason for why so many pages are outdated.
>
>* (look at the faq/roadmap for example http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?FaqRoadmap)
>
>The wiki needs alot of repolishing IMO, the best palce to start with is to use the MediaWiki package.

I don't see how changing to another wiki system is going to improve the content. People edit wikis, not software.

The bandwidth and setup effort has been generously donated by Helmut Leitner. He has a wiki company. It's been the semi-official D wiki for quite a while now. It's always been very reliable, and I think it's pretty easy to edit. If the content is out-of-date, it might be because it's more fun to add content than to edit content. If you see something that's out-of-date, please be our guest and update it.

Also, Brad is adding Trac wikis to all of the dsource projects. But since Trac isn't a MediaWiki either, I guess your problem remains resolved. ;)

(An earlier wiki was setup at http://dlanguage.netunify.com, but its bandwidth was unreliable, and eventually it disappeared. I guess whoever owned the address stopped paying for it.)

jcc7
December 06, 2005
J C Calvarese wrote:

> In article <dn315a$2t3h$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Hasan Aljudy says...
>>
>>It's cool having a wiki for D, but many many of its pages are quite outdated *, and IMO the wiki doesn't look very good, and I think that's a reason for why so many pages are outdated.
>>
>>* (look at the faq/roadmap for example
>>http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?FaqRoadmap)
>>
>>The wiki needs alot of repolishing IMO, the best palce to start with is to use the MediaWiki package.
> 
> I don't see how changing to another wiki system is going to improve the content. People edit wikis, not software.
> 
> The bandwidth and setup effort has been generously donated by Helmut Leitner. He has a wiki company. It's been the semi-official D wiki for quite a while now. It's always been very reliable, and I think it's pretty easy to edit. If the content is out-of-date, it might be because it's more fun to add content than to edit content. If you see something that's out-of-date, please be our guest and update it.
> 
> Also, Brad is adding Trac wikis to all of the dsource projects. But since Trac isn't a MediaWiki either, I guess your problem remains resolved. ;)
> 
> (An earlier wiki was setup at http://dlanguage.netunify.com, but its bandwidth was unreliable, and eventually it disappeared. I guess whoever owned the address stopped paying for it.)
> 
> jcc7

I suppose this is a matter of taste, and for my part it is mostly related to the wiki syntax. I've used both the Trac wiki and MediaWiki extensively, and find the latter more powerful and with easier tagging, but then it is also more mature. I find the integration between the wiki and the tickets/changesets/etc very nifty, though. As for the Wiki4D, I've used it too little to comment.

Lars Ivar Igesund
January 20, 2006
J C Calvarese wrote:
> In article <dn315a$2t3h$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Hasan Aljudy says...
> 
>>It's cool having a wiki for D, but many many of its pages are quite outdated *, and IMO the wiki doesn't look very good, and I think that's a reason for why so many pages are outdated.
>>
>>* (look at the faq/roadmap for example http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?FaqRoadmap)
>>
>>The wiki needs alot of repolishing IMO, the best palce to start with is to use the MediaWiki package.
> 
> 
> I don't see how changing to another wiki system is going to improve the content.
> People edit wikis, not software.
> 
> The bandwidth and setup effort has been generously donated by Helmut Leitner. He
> has a wiki company. It's been the semi-official D wiki for quite a while now.
> It's always been very reliable, and I think it's pretty easy to edit. If the
> content is out-of-date, it might be because it's more fun to add content than to
> edit content. If you see something that's out-of-date, please be our guest and
> update it.
> 
> Also, Brad is adding Trac wikis to all of the dsource projects. But since Trac
> isn't a MediaWiki either, I guess your problem remains resolved. ;)
> 
> (An earlier wiki was setup at http://dlanguage.netunify.com, but its bandwidth
> was unreliable, and eventually it disappeared. I guess whoever owned the address
> stopped paying for it.)
> 
> jcc7

Actually, I think the look & feel of the website matter.
Yes, people edit wikis, but people use the software to edit wikis, and people use the software to read the wiki. The software imposes several things on the wiki, including the look & feel of the wiki, i.e. the way information is presented, and that matters, /alot/.

I'm not dissing anyone .. I appreciate the effort put forward by Helmut Leitner and all the people who contributed to the wiki.

I'm just suggesting something because I'm trying to help, and who knows,  maybe I'm wrong after all. But let's ask something here:
- How many people like the idea of wikis?
- How many people visit wikipedia or other wiki sites?
- How many of those people visit the D wiki?

or let's rephrase the last 2 questions:
- Do you find that you visit wikipedia (or other MediaWiki based wikis) more often than you visit the wiki4D?

If my guess is correct, and the number of people who like wikis and use wikipedia, exceeds the number of those who use the wiki4D site, then let's ask:
- Why don't you use the wiki4D as much?

But ofcourse if I'm wrong, then never mind!

Few days ago I found this:
http://www.editthis.info
A free wiki host that uses MediaWiki. Anyone interested in making one for D there?? I would start one there myself, but I'm not good at managing websites and the likes of it.
February 10, 2006
Sorry for no answering this posting earlier, but I'm reading this
newsgroup ony occasionally. Please (someone) drop me an e-mail
on issues that are connected with the wiki...

BTW if the Hasan's arguments would hold true, everyone here should
use Java or C#, because they are slicker and more mainstream.

Hasan Aljudy wrote:

> It's cool having a wiki for D, but many many of its pages are quite outdated *

Someone already commented on that. If you see it, please fix it.

> , and IMO the wiki doesn't look very good


It has a simple "content over form" layout.

But if there is a consensus that a slicker layout is desirable
there are options:

   - chose from available layouts
     WikiIndex lists 42 wikis based on the ProWiki engine
     <http://wikiindex.com/Category:ProWiki>

   - create a new layout from some other layout template
     or from scratch or clone the MediaWiki design

The current layout template is really simplistic:
========
<html>
<head>
<title>{WikiName} (the wiki for the D programming language):
{PageName}</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="creation-timestamp" content="{Insert:DateCreation}">
<meta name="keyword" content="{Insert:MetaKeywords;Wiki Community}" >
</head>
<body {BodyTags}>
<table border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 width=100% height=24>
<tr><td width=100% height=48 background="Wiki4D.gif">&nbsp;</td></tr>
</table>
<font size=3><br></font>
<font size=6><b>{PageTitle}</b></font><font
size=3><br><b>{PageTitleComment}</b></font>
<font size=3>&nbsp;<br></font>
{LinkBarTextHor}
<hr>
{PageText}
<hr>
{LinkBarTextHor}
{EditBar}
{SearchForm}
</body>
</html>
========
and it's not rocket science to adapt it to anything you like.

> , and I think that's a reason for why so many pages are outdated.

I can assure you that this is *NOT* the reason. I've put thousands
of work hours into building wiki communities and one thing is sure:
there is no strong relationsship between layout and success.

> * (look at the faq/roadmap for example http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?FaqRoadmap)
>
> The wiki needs alot of repolishing IMO, the best palce to start with is to use the MediaWiki package.

It is very simple: just do it.
The license allows it. The pages can be exported.

> Almost all dead wiki's I've seen use something other than MediaWiki, and almost all successful wiki's I've seen use the MediaWiki.

This is absolutely silly and untrue. Most wikis are at large wiki farms,
like wikicities and <1-2% of them are sucessful.

MediaWiki is a very good engine, but specialized for enzyklopedias.
If you want to deviate from that type of application, it's advantage
changes to a disadvantage. One could talk hours about details.

Also the uniform surface doesn't help to develop a feeling of
community and/or identity - which *IS* important.

> Maybe I'm just being delusional, but I think using a good wiki package plays a big role in the success of the wiki .. after all, it's all psychological, if it looks nice and organized, then it'll attract users, if not, then not!
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki
>
>
> For those who happen to not know what I'm talking about:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki_software
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

The facts are (based on WikiIndex):
   international market shares (1) MediaWiki 22%  (4) ProWiki 3%
   German home market shares (1) ProWiki 36% (2) MediaWiki 26%

These numbers are even more interesting because MediaWiki (and
most of the other 90 engines competing) are GPL while ProWiki
was available only as a paid service. In addition I only cared
for the German language market and did support English projects
only occasionally (out of interest - Wiki4D, or when asked).

===
BUT
===

=================================
ANNOUNCEMENT: PROWIKI OPEN SOURCE
=================================

ProWiki will change it's direction. In March 2000 (planned 15th)
it will go OpenSource and make the software freely available.

Given our experience in supporting individual community needs
combined with additional energy from outside, this will make
ProWiki a major competitor in all markets.

=============================================
ANNOUNCEMENT: D AS PART OF PROWIKI STRATEGIES
=============================================

D is an important option for the future development of ProWiki:

  - short term as an language to program efficient plugins
    extending wiki on the server side (e. g. diagramming => SVG)
    or bulding navigation options like TheBrain (they use Java)

  - long term to translate the current Perl script into D to
    get the efficiency advantage of D as a compiled language
    to get a max-of-millions wiki pages served per year
    (WikiPedia currently used 100+ physical servers, so this
    counts for anyone seriously in wiki business)

Maybe these D applications could act as a kind of door-opener
applications to the larger programming community.

The only problem is timing. I believe in the potential of D
and in the genius of Walter Bright. But the last two time spans
I followed the discussions here and laid my own hands on D,
it simply wasn't ready for production use.

---

Is D ready now? What is the current status of D?


February 11, 2006
Helmut Leitner wrote:
> Sorry for no answering this posting earlier, but I'm reading this newsgroup ony occasionally. Please (someone) drop me an e-mail
> 
> <SNIP>
> 
> 

We really should set up a new Wiki; probably MediaWiki.

Walter, will you bless this idea?
February 11, 2006
nick wrote:

> Helmut Leitner wrote:
>> Sorry for no answering this posting earlier, but I'm reading this newsgroup ony occasionally. Please (someone) drop me an e-mail
>> 
>> <SNIP>
>> 
>> 
> 
> We really should set up a new Wiki; probably MediaWiki.
> 
> Walter, will you bless this idea?

Did you read Helmut's post at all?
February 11, 2006
nick wrote:
> Helmut Leitner wrote:
> 
>>Sorry for no answering this posting earlier, but I'm reading this
>>newsgroup ony occasionally. Please (someone) drop me an e-mail 
>>
>><SNIP>
>>
>>
> 
> We really should set up a new Wiki; probably MediaWiki.
> 
> Walter, will you bless this idea?

nick <whoever>, I don't know who you are but your manners are
doubtful and offending. I hope you are young to explain your
insensitiveness and silliness.

Wiki4D was initiated by me because there was an earlier wiki
that had very bad response times and quality and I didn't want
that the reputation of wiki was spoiled in the D community.
I did little more, just add some structure, gave server space.

The content was built since March 2003, during almost 3 years
by its contributors, 22 of which cared to identify:
  <http://www.wikiservice.at/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?FolderContributors>
and who own it in a moral sense.

Walter tolerated Wiki4D but never blessed it. He did AFAIK not
substancially contribute to it. I didn't follow the process in
detail, but it seems that he sometimes took from its notes
on documentation to improve the D website. So he got more from
it than he gave to it. He is not in charge of Wiki4D.

So if you are at all a thinking human, you should primarily
address the Wiki4D community or individual contributors, how
they feel about it. Otherwise you can just create an unnessary
fork or split that divides energies that should be focused.

Helmut

February 11, 2006
On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 15:00:15 +1100, nick <nick.atamas@gmail.com> wrote:

> Helmut Leitner wrote:
>> Sorry for no answering this posting earlier, but I'm reading this
>> newsgroup ony occasionally. Please (someone) drop me an e-mail
>>
>> <SNIP>
>>
>>
>
> We really should set up a new Wiki; probably MediaWiki.

Why? The current one is workable and usable. You can contribute anytime to it.

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
February 11, 2006
Helmut Leitner wrote:
> nick wrote:
>> Helmut Leitner wrote:
>>
>>> Sorry for no answering this posting earlier, but I'm reading this newsgroup ony occasionally. Please (someone) drop me an e-mail <SNIP>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> We really should set up a new Wiki; probably MediaWiki.
>>
>> Walter, will you bless this idea?
> 
> nick <whoever>, I don't know who you are but your manners are
> <SNIP>
> fork or split that divides energies that should be focused.
> 
> Helmut
> 

My apologies. I really didn't mean to offend you. The existing wiki has helped me out quite a bit.

I just don't like anything about the current wiki other than the content. Please don't take that as a personal attack (as you have clearly done).
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