Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
Dmitriy Sintsov wrote: When one looks for educational / academic content, rich and colorful interface only distracts the reader. The following site is not mediawiki / monobook based, yet the visual design is simple: http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html There is nothing wrong with it. Actually, there is real beauty in simpicity. Dmitriy The visual design is fine here, but information architecture is seriously lacking here. Of course, it's hard to design a navigation interface for a heterogeneous collection of concepts as you see here, but the alphabetical index doesn't play as well online as it does in print. The eye and hand can scan alphabetically much faster in a book than you can do online. There are the really obvious problems that show up in alphabetical listings: for instance, many people forget to fold The when they do queries against online library catalog systems; more modern systems ought to do the folding for you automatically, but there's really no incentive for libraries to improve the services they offer their patrons. Similarly, today it's pretty reasonable for a system to accomodate people who are looking for Adorno, Theodore or Theodore Adorno. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
Hi! A lot of the replies were helpful, in particular Ryan Lane and Yaron's replies. Also made a quick reply to Domas. Replies are good! Overall it's awesome no doubt (otherwise I wouldn't have used it in the first place), but a few of the practices (i.e. editing localsettings file through shell or ftp) and gui/aesthetics should definitely be more 'modern.' Priorities, priorities. Do note, no GUI will be able to scale to configuration needs most easily explained by pointing at http://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/ In case you haven't heard, it's 2010 lol. A lot has changed since then. Damn, you just shattered my illusion that I'm still young! The average person who wants to start a wik is gonna have no idea how to do that, much less even understand what svn up means. While I don't expect to be dumbed down a huge degree, a little bit more simplicity wouldn't hurt would it? Average person who doesn't know how to do that can always try out service providers, and service providers can provide more skins and configuration interface, value added! Maybe we could have a shell script that does upgrade, but 'one click upgrade' from the web interface is quite insecure method. Maybe a good enough method would be having a simple shell script that does all that.. Feel free to develop it that way. Easier said than done. Exactly ;-) It is huge engineering effort that may not be entirely aligned with WMF mission. I have done quite a few changes to MediaWiki ages ago to better support my small company wiki needs (e.g. no hassle single sign on) - and somehow those changes got in (probably because, ehem, we didn't have formalized code review back then :-) Wikia is heavily modified to give the gui a much more modern feel. Again i'm mostly focusing on the aesthetics. Unfortunately I don't think wikia distributes their skins. https://svn.wikia-code.com/wikia/trunk/skins/ Personally I'd like to see more stuff from Wikia to be poached into Wikimedia deployment (we're giving too much time for Wikia to learn from their mistakes, before we learn from theirs :) It's not just not my needs. It's about user friendliness for anyone who is using wikimedia to work on their wiki project. While the developers have no obligation to do it, it would be nice if they realized who their users are other than wikimedia. Everyone realizes that there're users other than Wikimedia. It is one of reasons why mediawiki has plethora of features that are not needed on Wikimedia sites (and that introduces code complexity). It is also one of reasons why 'mediawiki' is 'mediawiki' and not 'wikimedia software' Of course, Wikimedia use quite often stands in the way of development (as features have to be secure, scale nicely and maintainable in medium-large sized operations environments) - and unfortunately for feature development, fortunately for everyone who runs large mediawiki instances, those needs have to be in the core of project. These types of replies are hilarious. It's like Iphone user: Dear Apple, if your iphone had the following features it would be great (A) (B) (C) ... If you missed, iphone also has 3rd party application community. (a), (b), (c) features have been developed by third parties already, or there's a niche for those third parties. Of course iphone economy is much fancier than mediawiki economy, so probably niches aren't filled here as fast. You know, Microsoft didn't write every application for Windows, Apple doesn't own everything what runs on iStuff, lots of platforms have primary goals, and secondary goals can be filled by developer community. Absolutely same here, you have full powers to do whatever you want to do. Apple: Oh if you want those features, go ahead and develop them on your own. If I knew how to I would have done it already. What kind of advice is that? Seriously lol Seriously lol you can evangelize your needs, try to do project-management like activities, sketches, etc - and try involving other volunteer developers. Instead of being an 'entrepreneur', what would be of benefit to everyone, you end up being a whiner. If you really want to introduce lots of bad analogies, I should try to come up with my own. As I don't drive, I need government pay for my personal driver, as they have roads out there! I hope the analogy was bad enough! :) Once you approach developer community, there's huge difference between: Hello folks, are there any projects in improving manageability/look/etc for third-party users? from I've gone through a lot of frustrations., mediawiki and it's limitations, why can't the money be put into making a modern product instead of in pockets of the people who run it, etc I am amazed and I glorify the way how kindly some members of mailing list manage to take that, and try to put some sense into your head. Domas ___ Wikitech-l mailing list
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
2010/3/5 Chris Lewis yecheondigi...@yahoo.com: I agree 100%, especially the part I bolded. Also god bless the developers and extension writers for doing this out of their own free time, I guess I misunderstood the process and thought wikimedia had a code team that was paid. Some developers are paid employees/contractors, some are not. Obviously the paid developers do what WMF wants them to do (which generally means doing stuff that benefits WMF primarily, not 3rd party users per se) and volunteer developers do whatever the hell they want (and in Chad's case that means overhauling the installer specifically for 3rd party users, Also I saw on a news site: The foundation has snared an $890,000 grant from the Stanton Foundation for the project and plans to assemble a five-person team to identify what exactly is turning some users off. $890,000 for only a 5 man team? It would be great if this money went into some of the common changes people need. As you quoted, it's a grant, so it's money with strings attached: WMF either gets $890k that they have to spend on what Stanton wants them to do (the usability project), or they don't get the money at all. Also, while $890k sounds like a lot of money, software developers in the San Francisco Bay Area cost a lot of money (cost of living is high there, and there's plenty of big for-profit companies around trying to hire the same people), and there's more costs than just those 5 people's salaries. They were not back in 2005 =) In case you haven't heard, it's 2010 lol. A lot has changed since then. We have heard. It's just that no one has cared since 2005 apart from the aforementioned Stanton-funded usability team, which developed the Vector skin. Like I said before, if WMF can't or won't dedicate one of their few developers' time to something and no one in the volunteer community cares, it doesn't happen. Roan Kattouw (Catrope) ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 11:15 AM, Roan Kattouw roan.katt...@gmail.com wrote: 2010/3/5 Chris Lewis yecheondigi...@yahoo.com: They were not back in 2005 =) In case you haven't heard, it's 2010 lol. A lot has changed since then. We have heard. It's just that no one has cared since 2005 apart from the aforementioned Stanton-funded usability team, which developed the Vector skin. Like I said before, if WMF can't or won't dedicate one of their few developers' time to something and no one in the volunteer community cares, it doesn't happen. On the bright side, it could still look like this: http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/HomePage Magnus ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
* Roan Kattouw roan.katt...@gmail.com [Fri, 5 Mar 2010 12:15:46 +0100]: 2010/3/5 Chris Lewis yecheondigi...@yahoo.com: They were not back in 2005 =) In case you haven't heard, it's 2010 lol. A lot has changed since then. We have heard. It's just that no one has cared since 2005 apart from the aforementioned Stanton-funded usability team, which developed the Vector skin. Like I said before, if WMF can't or won't dedicate one of their few developers' time to something and no one in the volunteer community cares, it doesn't happen. Roan Kattouw (Catrope) When one looks for educational / academic content, rich and colorful interface only distracts the reader. The following site is not mediawiki / monobook based, yet the visual design is simple: http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html There is nothing wrong with it. Actually, there is real beauty in simpicity. Dmitriy ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 6:48 AM, Dmitriy Sintsov ques...@rambler.ru wrote: * Roan Kattouw roan.katt...@gmail.com [Fri, 5 Mar 2010 12:15:46 +0100]: 2010/3/5 Chris Lewis yecheondigi...@yahoo.com: They were not back in 2005 =) In case you haven't heard, it's 2010 lol. A lot has changed since then. We have heard. It's just that no one has cared since 2005 apart from the aforementioned Stanton-funded usability team, which developed the Vector skin. Like I said before, if WMF can't or won't dedicate one of their few developers' time to something and no one in the volunteer community cares, it doesn't happen. Roan Kattouw (Catrope) When one looks for educational / academic content, rich and colorful interface only distracts the reader. The following site is not mediawiki / monobook based, yet the visual design is simple: http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html There is nothing wrong with it. Actually, there is real beauty in simpicity. Dmitriy ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l Agree wholeheartedly. Sleek graphics and spinny Ajax loaders do not inherently make a good design. It's about pleasing the eye and being as intuitive as possible. We've got a general bug open[1] for cleaning up the UI and drafting some standards for future UI work. I really like where [[Manual:Coding conventions]] has gone in terms of defining what we expect from our programmers. Something similar (Manual:UI Conventions?) would help in setting a standard to expect when creating our user interfaces. On a semi-related note: I'm going to plug The Smashing Book[2] as a good read for MediaWiki developers. It's got a lot of really good information on Usability, UI, optimization techniques, color usages, etc and makes for a well-rounded read for people working on web apps. I know Andrew and Guillaume both have copies as well and (as far as I know) have enjoyed it. -Chad [1] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/13747 [2] http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/12/03/smashing-book-its-out-now/ ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
Aryeh Gregor Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com writes: 2) Some people really want to see the software succeed for non-financial reasons, so they're willing to put in extra effort to make it easier to use even if it doesn't directly benefit them. ... (2) hasn't happened because most of us care mainly about Wikipedia or the wikis we administer, and aren't overly concerned with third parties who aren't savvy enough to use a command line. Which is too bad; it would be very useful for Wikimedia's mission if MediaWiki was more widespread and more people would be more comfortable using it. It would be especially useful if it would be widespread in educational and academic circles (though it already seems to be the wiki engine of choice there) as those are key target demographics for Wikipedia; the foundation could spend some effort to analyze what are the greatest shortcomings of MediaWiki in that area. (One-click install and reorganizable widgets probably wouldn't get on that list, though.) ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 8:39 AM, Tisza Gergő gti...@gmail.com wrote: Aryeh Gregor Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com writes: 2) Some people really want to see the software succeed for non-financial reasons, so they're willing to put in extra effort to make it easier to use even if it doesn't directly benefit them. ... (2) hasn't happened because most of us care mainly about Wikipedia or the wikis we administer, and aren't overly concerned with third parties who aren't savvy enough to use a command line. Which is too bad; it would be very useful for Wikimedia's mission if MediaWiki was more widespread and more people would be more comfortable using it. It would be especially useful if it would be widespread in educational and academic circles (though it already seems to be the wiki engine of choice there) as those are key target demographics for Wikipedia; the foundation could spend some effort to analyze what are the greatest shortcomings of MediaWiki in that area. (One-click install and reorganizable widgets probably wouldn't get on that list, though.) ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l Seeing the recurring complaints about the installation/upgrade process, I think people must've missed my e-mail earlier in the thread. The installation and upgrade processes are being redone and is targeted for the 1.17 release. -Chad ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
A lot of the replies were helpful, in particular Ryan Lane and Yaron's replies. Also made a quick reply to Domas. First to Ryan: This is likely the right list. Are you aware of the Wikipedia usability initiative? Have you seen the new skin they are creating (Vector), or the awesome new features they are adding? If not, please see the usability wiki: http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page While vector is a step in the right direction, it's still pretty dry and plain. As a default skin it is perfectly fine, but i'd be nice to get some fancier skins out the box and be able to change the default skin for ALL users through the admin's preferences rather than editing a file. The skin system is also likely to have a major update in a very future version of MediaWiki. Look through this list's archives, the discussion was fairly recent. Great news! -A major pain to update! Wordpress upgrades are so simple. I don't really find updates to be terribly difficult. You mostly just check out (or download) the newest version, and run update.php. This is probably more difficult without shell access. I have shell access, but it's not something I or a lot of people like doing. Most people don't want to do command lines except very technical people. Not everyone who runs a wiki is technical. Shouldn't the user of the software be kept in mind? I mean I know it's technically for wikimedia sites, but they can't pretend to be unaware that thousands of people are using it for their own personal wiki projects. I don't demand change, but isn't acknowledging your users a basic programing practice? I don't want to go to my ftp to download my local settings file, add a few lines then reupload it. This is caveman-like behavior for the modern internet. Get a host that supports SSH. Use VI, Emacs, nano, pico, etc. I do have SSH, again, it's not the way I want to do it. Old school style. On the modern internet, it'd be nice to have a more modern way to editing my local settings. But it's good to hear someone is developing this. You are more than welcome to submit patches, and/or help develop the features you want. I maintain a number of extensions, and have worked with the MediaWiki code base for a number of years. I've found the Wikimedia foundation, and the core developers to be very welcoming of improvements to the software. I wish I could! I have experience in java and c++, but not php except modifying a few basic changes of an already written php file. Also just jumping into a project without knowing the structure and how to write an extension is also no easy task and would take a long time. If time is money, i'd rather pay a developer to develop it, but chances are the features i would need would be useful to other folks and those features would be nice if it came in the package by default. Thanks again for your reply, it was really helpful and insightful Ryan. From: Yaron Koren yaro...@gmail.com Finally, on the more general subject of Wikimedia's relationship to MediaWiki: I do think it would be nice if Wikimedia, and outside MediaWiki developers, were more aware of, and more positive about, MediaWiki's popularity in the outside world. It's used very heavily as an enterprise wiki around the world, and I think for good reason: it's robust, stable, very feature-rich, heavily translated, and when used with the set of extensions around Semantic MediaWiki I think it's in a class of its own. I just think a better answer when people ask about problems with MediaWiki is to say I don't know, or I think someone's working on that, rather than MediaWiki is intended for use by Wikimedia projects, and if you have a problem using it, you should switch to another wiki application. First, for many uses there is no better wiki software, especially not for the cost; and second, there are a lot of people, especially among extension developers but also in general, who are trying to improve MediaWiki as a corporate/organizational application. I just think it would be nice if more people celebrated MediaWiki's popularity, instead of ignoring or trying to discourage it. :) -Yaron I agree 100%, especially the part I bolded. Also god bless the developers and extension writers for doing this out of their own free time, I guess I misunderstood the process and thought wikimedia had a code team that was paid. Also I saw on a news site: The foundation has snared an $890,000 grant from the Stanton Foundation for the project and plans to assemble a five-person team to identify what exactly is turning some users off. $890,000 for only a 5 man team? It would be great if this money went into some of the common changes people need. Full View ___ MediaWiki is very modern product, just not on the visible side (though maybe usability initiative will change that). It has lots of fascinating modern things
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 9:42 PM, Chris Lewis yecheondigi...@yahoo.com wrote: -Being able to manage extensions like wordpress does. Feel free to develop it :) These types of replies are hilarious. It's like Iphone user: Dear Apple, if your iphone had the following features it would be great (A) (B) (C) ... Apple: Oh if you want those features, go ahead and develop them on your own. If I knew how to I would have done it already. What kind of advice is that? Seriously lol ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l The difference being that MediaWiki is largely written by volunteers who each have their own reasons for contributing which may or may not align with what you'd like to do. If you have things you'd like to see done, you have to drive that change--either by contributing it yourself, or finding someone who's willing to work on it. When you're proposing changes that require a substantial amount of work to implement, don't be surprised when you don't have people lining up to work on it. -Chad ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
* Chris Lewis yecheondigi...@yahoo.com [Tue, 2 Mar 2010 20:30:20 -0800 (PST)]: I hope I am emailing this to the right group. My concern was about mediawiki and it's limitations, as well as it's outdated methods. As someone wo runs a wiki, I've gone through a lot of frustrations. If Wordpress is like Windows 7, then Mediawiki is Windows 2000. Very outdated GUI, outdated ways of doing things,for example using ftp to edit the settings of the wiki instead of having a direct interface like Wordpress. MediaWiki is not like Windows; it is more like Linux. I can type formatted wikitext with links, lists, headers and tables faster than by using MS Office GUI. MindTouch Deku has backend and frontend written in different languages - so, it is harder to install and probably is not suitable to cheap sharing hosting. it also stores data in xml format, which is not the best for manual typing. With all recent dramatical improvement of PHP by Facebook (I've impressed with the translator and the xhp), PHP may move from toy-like language (as I've heard from local .net developers) to a very serious platform. In fact, these improvements probably are even more important than a long-awaiting PHP 6.0.. http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/xhp-a-new-way-to-write-php/294003943919 although a mapping of XML to wikitext can be a problem (though the parser uses DOM already).. Maybe a replacement to wgOut, though. Dmitriy ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
Excellent data point. Thanks, David. On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 11:42 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 3 March 2010 05:26, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: If you have better stats, I'm all ears. I am not in any way a Confluence opponent, and a couple of people I respect a lot like it, but I've never found an actual user out there. All of the BBC. It's their intranet wiki. Runs on four large Dell 2950s, serving ~26k users. (I was one of the sysadmins for it for a while.) -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
Hi! The Wikimedia Foundation makes millions more than Wordpress, but the Foundation is running a top 5 website. wordpress.com is in top20 too :) Domas ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On 3 March 2010 11:05, Domas Mituzas midom.li...@gmail.com wrote: ... , why can't the money be put into making a modern product instead of in pockets of the people who run it? I know Wordpress and Mediawiki serve two different purposes, but that's not the point. The point is, one is modern and user friendly (Wordpress), and the other (Mediawiki) is not. Other complaints: MediaWiki is very modern product, just not on the visible side (though maybe usability initiative will change that). It has lots of fascinating modern things internally :) Though of course, by in pockets of people who run it, you're definitely trolling here. :-( I have read this very thread in a different context. Quake engines. Most quake engines fall short in the usability side, because are evolved by tecnical people, and some of the users ask for more ... tecnical features. You have (on the quake scene) sysadmins that want sysadmins stuff, and are more than happy to edit text files and access the server with ssh, and QuakeWorld veterans that ask some competitive fairness and features that smooth the engine, but don't exactly make the game look better, only cleaner... and would greet any new console command :-) (quake has a console to change settings). There (on Quake engine) usability is always a nice thing to have, but seems the priorities lie elsewhere, and anything else gets into the engines before usability.The distance of usability from Quake to any 2010 game is giganteous. Is something I would love to fix.. but I have tons of other ideas. I feel It takes a enormeous effort to move a proyect managed by programmers and sysadmins for programmers and sysadmins to be palatable by mere desktop users. The good news is that sysadmins and programmers are desktop users too, so will love a sexier interface, and more usability. -- -- ℱin del ℳensaje. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On 3 March 2010 08:45, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: Excellent data point. Thanks, David. It's hard to get sensible estimations of the spread of proprietary server software - it doesn't generate the same amount of publicity, press, forums etc. that open source does. (This leads to notability problems when trying to document it on en:wp, for example.) The data is largely regarded as confidential corporate information by the developing company. - d. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On 3 March 2010 10:19, Tei oscar.vi...@gmail.com wrote: I feel It takes a enormeous effort to move a proyect managed by programmers and sysadmins for programmers and sysadmins to be palatable by mere desktop users. The good news is that sysadmins and programmers are desktop users too, so will love a sexier interface, and more usability. MediaWiki is server software and its audience is sysadmins. That said, for anyone with a reasonably recent Linux distro who is OK with the command line, it's incredibly easy to install. (Even on CentOS 4, if you put in some more recent packages of stuff.) I have no idea if there's a nice Windows package friendly enough for the low-to-medium-tier NT admins (those who watch progress bars for a living), but that would be nice. They're not going to get away from the command line and text configuration files, though. (GUIfying LocalSettings.php is a bad, bad idea. There's enough bad GUIs where someone just turned every possible text option into two hundred radio-button options. A good GUI beats a command line ... a command line beats a bad GUI.) I would also dispute using WordPress as the gold standard example of command-line-free administration ... I run WordPress happily on my own blogs, and the one-click upgrade is very easy and slick, but I just wouldn't be able to do what I want to do with it without considerable command-line fiddling and PHP code hacking. WordPress lets you do anything you want, much as MediaWiki does, but it similarly does not restrain you from shooting yourself in the foot (as I have done frequently). - d. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 11:30 PM, Chris Lewis yecheondigi...@yahoo.com wrote: I hope I am emailing this to the right group. My concern was about mediawiki and it's limitations, as well as it's outdated methods. As someone wo runs a wiki, I've gone through a lot of frustrations. If Wordpress is like Windows 7, then Mediawiki is Windows 2000. Very outdated GUI, There are many, many, many skins available. outdated ways of doing things, for example using ftp to edit the settings of the wiki instead of having a FTP ??!? No. It's just a file. Configuration files are considered pretty reasonable and reliable by a lot of people. ::shrugs:: In any case… It's Free Software, submit patches. Cheers. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
Chad innocentkiller at gmail.com writes: I have no idea if there's a nice Windows package friendly enough for the low-to-medium-tier NT admins (those who watch progress bars for a living), but that would be nice. They're not going to get away from the command line and text configuration files, though. XAMPP. It takes a whopping 5 minutes to download and install. Gives you Apache/mySQL/PHP all ready to go at C:\xampp. It really cannot get any easier than this. If you can't install this, I wouldn't even trust you to run my WordPress. There is also a single-file installer for MediaWiki + AMP stack ( http://bitnami.org/stack/mediawiki ) for people who really can't do anything more difficult than clicking OK buttons. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
Ryan Lane rlane32 at gmail.com writes: I'd like to mention that from a security perspective, I like the fact that by default MediaWiki does not allow Wordpress style upgrades and code modifications. MediaWiki exploits may lead to vandalism, but Wordpress exploits generally lead to shell or root access, and compromise of all of your other applications. While this is certainly true for updates and PHP-enabled skin files, a web-based configuration panel is actually much more secure than editing a PHP-based settings file through FTP. There is a multitude of malware out there which can steal FTP passwords by infecting your computer, or your router, or any nearby computer if you use unsecured wifi access. (Sure, you could use SFTP or something equivalent, but how many people actually do? And how many webhosts provide it?) The most common stuff such as allowing uploads or enabling extensions should be accessible through a GUI for both usability and security reasons. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
Chris Lewis wrote: I hope I am emailing this to the right group. It is. My concern was about mediawiki and it's limitations, as well as it's outdated methods. As someone wo runs a wiki, I've gone through a lot of frustrations. Maybe you should list your frustrations? It maybe a problem on interfaces/documentation rather than mediawiki itself being difficult. If Wordpress is like Windows 7, then Mediawiki is Windows 2000. Very outdated GUI, outdated ways of doing things, for example using ftp to edit the settings of the wiki instead of having a direct interface like Wordpress. There's the experimental http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Configurator Mediawiki makes millions more than Wordpress does too, why can't the money be put into making a modern product instead of in pockets of the people who run it? I know Wordpress and Mediawiki serve two different purposes, but that's not the point. In short, it's time to spend some money from those millions of dollars from donations to make this software more modern. The Wikimedia Foundation gets money to run its sites. That's mostly salaries, servers and bandwidth, not mediawiki software. You can view http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports The point is, one is modern and user friendly (Wordpress), and the other (Mediawiki) is not. Other complaints: -Default skins are boring Feel free to offer skins to add by default (the skin design will change soon). -Very limited in being able to make the wiki look nice like you could with a normal webpage. Sorry?? It allows admins to style the site however they want. Have you seen www.csszengarden.com? It's all CSS. -Better customization so people can get a wiki the way they want. It should be more like the wikis on wikia, except without me having to learn css and php to make those types of customizations. Give me some option, some places to put widgets. Not every wiki is going to be as formal as the ones on wikimedia sites. Many of those customizations are CSS in the lower layer. As a user you can completely change the way you see almost everything, without having to bug the sysadmins. Also note that using Extension:Gadgets you can install the widgets / appearance designed from other users with a checkbox in your preferences. How are normal webpages easier to make look nice? And don't the people at Wikimedia commons get tired of always having to make changes so it actually suits their site? If they had some of the options from the get go, i'm sure they'd appreciate it too. Please document that change you want done. Wikimedia Commons has many javascript customizations, but it's also because it's easier to fix problems with a javascript than developing a php fix and waiting for it to go live. -A major pain to update! Wordpress upgrades are so simple. Updating mediawii isn't hard. And Wordpress have also had more (and worse) vulnerabilities. -I don't want to go to my ftp to download my local settings file, add a few lines then reupload it. This is caveman-like behavior for the modern internet. -Being able to manage extensions like wordpress does. You should still use ftp to copy the extension there, it's not a big problem to configure it at the same time. Being stubborn in modernizing it will only make this software less relevant in the future if other wiki software companies are willing to do things the people at Wikimedia aren't. Thank you ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
Chris Lewis wrote: I hope I am emailing this to the right group. My concern was about mediawiki and it's limitations, as well as it's outdated methods. As someone wo runs a wiki, I've gone through a lot of frustrations. For one thing, I'd say that mediawiki aims for a particular market position. Mediawiki is designed to support very large wikis, i.e. 3M pages on one of the most trafficked web sites on Earth. For a large-scale site, there's going to be a lot of administration work to be done, so it doesn't matter if the system is difficult to set up and configure. Wordpress, on the other hand, set out with the mission of being the 'cheap and cheerful' program that would dominate the market for blogging software. Everything about Wordpress is designed to make it easy to set up a Wordpress site quickly and configure it easily. Wordpress does scale OK to fairly large blogs and high traffic if you SuperCache it. If you want a wiki that's easier to set up and administer, I'd consider forking or starting out from scratch. (In the latter case you get complete control of configuration management, which is key) ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On 3 March 2010 15:06, Paul Houle p...@ontology2.com wrote: For a large-scale site, there's going to be a lot of administration work to be done, so it doesn't matter if the system is difficult to set up and configure. As it turns out, MediaWiki isn't really hard at all :-) Wordpress, on the other hand, set out with the mission of being the 'cheap and cheerful' program that would dominate the market for blogging software. Everything about Wordpress is designed to make it easy to set up a Wordpress site quickly and configure it easily. Wordpress does scale OK to fairly large blogs and high traffic if you SuperCache it. Multi-user WordPress is a bit arsier. Comparable faff to MediaWiki setup. - d. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
pockets of the people who run it? I know Wordpress and Mediawiki serve two different purposes, but that's not the point. The point is, one is modern and user friendly (Wordpress), and the other (Mediawiki) is not. Other complaints: There is a great difference in business models there. Wordpress and confluence make their money out of third-party applications, WMF makes it money out of donations to keep the Wikipedia going. It would be at best irresponsible to use this money for sole purpose of making the software more useful for 3d parties.. If the 3rd parties are willing to pay a developer or donate money to make MediaWiki more user friendly (like has happened with the usability initiative) that is fine, but do not ask core developers or even volunteers to put any work into this. Cheers, r. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 11:30 PM, Chris Lewis yecheondigi...@yahoo.com wrote: If Wordpress is like Windows 7, then Mediawiki is Windows 2000. Very outdated GUI, outdated ways of doing things,for example using ftp to edit the settings of the wiki instead of having a direct interface like Wordpress. Mediawiki makes millions more than Wordpress does too, why can't the money be put into making a modern product instead of in pockets of the people who run it? Wordpress is funded by a for-profit corporation, while MediaWiki is funded by a not-for-profit charity, so I think you have that backwards. :) In short, it's time to spend some money from those millions of dollars from donations to make this software more modern. Being stubborn in modernizing it will only make this software less relevant in the future if other wiki software companies are willing to do things the people at Wikimedia aren't. That's fine. MediaWiki is designed for use by Wikimedia, and is an excellent tool for that task. Wikimedia doesn't need most of the features you asked for, so MediaWiki doesn't have them. It's great that other people use our software -- that's why we release it -- but if they can find some other package that's better suited to their needs, good for them. Of course, if you or anyone else would be interested in becoming a MediaWiki developer for the purpose of improving its admin experience for small users, that would be great. No one much has stepped forward to do that, though, so it hasn't gotten done. Wikimedia is not a wiki software company, by the way. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 4:30 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 3 March 2010 15:06, Paul Houle p...@ontology2.com wrote: For a large-scale site, there's going to be a lot of administration work to be done, so it doesn't matter if the system is difficult to set up and configure. As it turns out, MediaWiki isn't really hard at all :-) Wordpress, on the other hand, set out with the mission of being the 'cheap and cheerful' program that would dominate the market for blogging software. Everything about Wordpress is designed to make it easy to set up a Wordpress site quickly and configure it easily. Wordpress does scale OK to fairly large blogs and high traffic if you SuperCache it. Multi-user WordPress is a bit arsier. Comparable faff to MediaWiki setup. apt-get install wordpress, and let dpkg handle the rest. it's really easy. marco -- VMSoft GbR Nabburger Str. 15 81737 München Geschäftsführer: Marco Schuster, Volker Hemmert http://vmsoft-gbr.de ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
Chiming in on this a little late, but, basically: Yeah, mediawiki isn't that easy to administer. Unfortunately, people administering MediaWiki installs are only one type of user that we have to worry about and resources (as always) are limited. Right now, we're focusing a concentrated effort on making things easier for editors (users generating content), BUT I think administrators are an important group because I hear stories all the time about how administrators for intranet wikis get requests from people in their company for a better way to do X or Y, and they have to write it themselves. I'd love it if there were some easy way to get these administrators who have had to come up with hacks to share what their issues were, what their solutions were, and maybe even push their changes back upstream =) Do people here generally feel this would be a good resource to have? And, more importantly, that it would be used? On 3/2/10 8:30 PM, Chris Lewis wrote: I hope I am emailing this to the right group. My concern was about mediawiki and it's limitations, as well as it's outdated methods. As someone wo runs a wiki, I've gone through a lot of frustrations. If Wordpress is like Windows 7, then Mediawiki is Windows 2000. Very outdated GUI, outdated ways of doing things,for example using ftp to edit the settings of the wiki instead of having a direct interface like Wordpress. Mediawiki makes millions more than Wordpress does too, why can't the money be put into making a modern product instead of in pockets of the people who run it? I know Wordpress and Mediawiki serve two different purposes, but that's not the point. The point is, one is modern and user friendly (Wordpress), and the other (Mediawiki) is not. Other complaints: -Default skins are boring -Very limited in being able to make the wiki look nice like you could with a normal webpage. -A major pain to update! Wordpress upgrades are so simple. -Better customization so people can get a wiki the way they want. It should be more like the wikis on wikia, except without me having to learn css and php to make those types of customizations. Give me some option, some places to put widgets. Not every wiki is going to be as formal as the ones on wikimedia sites. And don't the people at Wikimedia commons get tired of always having to make changes so it actually suits their site? If they had some of the options from the get go, i'm sure they'd appreciate it too. -I don't want to go to my ftp to download my local settings file, add a few lines then reupload it. This is caveman-like behavior for the modern internet. -Being able to manage extensions like wordpress does. In short, it's time to spend some money from those millions of dollars from donations to make this software more modern. Being stubborn in modernizing it will only make this software less relevant in the future if other wiki software companies are willing to do things the people at Wikimedia aren't. Thank you ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 1:59 PM, Dmitriy Sintsov ques...@rambler.ru wrote: WordPress wasn't the gemstone of code about 2 years ago I've checked it. MediaWiki was a clear winner, don't know about current WordPress code, though. Please, let's not start attacking other projects here. There's no call for such unconstructive denigration. On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 2:39 PM, Nimish Gautam ngau...@wikimedia.org wrote: I'd love it if there were some easy way to get these administrators who have had to come up with hacks to share what their issues were, what their solutions were, and maybe even push their changes back upstream =) Do people here generally feel this would be a good resource to have? And, more importantly, that it would be used? I feel that the issue here is pretty simple. Anyone who can write a patch for MediaWiki is probably pretty comfortable with having to use SSH all the time to administer their wiki, so no one is going to add this kind of feature because they personally want it. Projects that have easy-to-use admin interfaces tend to get them for one of two reasons: 1) Someone is making money off the software's use by average people, and is willing to pay developers to make the software easier to use because it will turn a profit for them. 2) Some people really want to see the software succeed for non-financial reasons, so they're willing to put in extra effort to make it easier to use even if it doesn't directly benefit them. (1) is unlikely to happen for us (I'd imagine it's the reason WordPress is easy to use, though). (2) hasn't happened because most of us care mainly about Wikipedia or the wikis we administer, and aren't overly concerned with third parties who aren't savvy enough to use a command line. It does happen for some other free software whose raison d'etre is widespread use. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
* David Gerard dger...@gmail.com [Wed, 3 Mar 2010 19:24:15 +]: It's by far the least-worst blogging engine. It does REALLY REALLY HELP to know your way around a command line, even though you don't need it a *lot*. Mostly a basic things will be enough, not really a bash guru. The WordPress 'Sploit Of The Week gets a bit tiresome, too. What's the point of using WordPress, can't you blog in MediaWiki? I don't see much difference, except that MediaWiki code was better structured back then. Dmitriy ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
* David Gerard dger...@gmail.com [Wed, 3 Mar 2010 20:02:29 +]: You can blog using a text editor and an FTP client too, but WordPress does lots of little things that save work for you :-) Semantic MediaWiki also easily builds various lists depending on properties of article, RSS feeds and so on. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
Marco Schuster wrote: On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 4:30 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 3 March 2010 15:06, Paul Houle p...@ontology2.com wrote: For a large-scale site, there's going to be a lot of administration work to be done, so it doesn't matter if the system is difficult to set up and configure. As it turns out, MediaWiki isn't really hard at all :-) I dunno. Maybe I'm a total dolt, but the easiest way I've found to change the template in mediawiki is to write a wrapper that gets to spit it's output into an outputbuffer, extracts the content from the default template, then inserts it in a new template. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On Wed, 3 Mar 2010 10:31 pm, Platonides wrote: fl wrote: I would disagree. The Wikimedia software has been released under an open source license: While the WMF certainly has no obligation to improve the software, they most definately have an obligation to release the source code to third-parties. Wrong. They do it, and it's consistent with their mission, but they have no obligation to do that. They could even have MediaWiki be closed source software. No, they can't. As far as I am aware, MediaWiki is released under the GNU General Public License[1], which stipulates, among other things, the requirement to release a program's source code to the public and to release any derived changes under the same license[2]. If the WMF were to try and convert MediaWiki to a closed source project, they would be liable to legal actions against them. [1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Version [2] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html -- fl ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
I'd like to chime into the discussion and point out that there is a huge community around extensions and features that are not used by Wikimedia foundation - Semantic MediaWiki co and OpenID to name a few. These extensions are maintained by 3rd party developers and many of them, including myself don't have Wikimedia interests as their primary goal. I run quite a few wikis based on MediaWiki and even though I personally don't need Wordpress easiness and comfortable with creating build environments using SVN externals and stuff like that, I'm always working toward general ease of use and Widgets extension I wrote, OpenID picker contributions as well as some SMW changes I made were always targeted at users outside of Wikimedia. So I'd like Wikimedia crowd to acknowledge outside community and their needs. Don't get me wrong - you guys built a great product and some aspects of it like internationalization wiki or extensibility or APIs are quite unique, but Open Source requires open mind with things. At the same time, I'd like to say that Domas and others are exactly right about different interests with different parties - if you need something, go ahead and build it. I spent quite a lot of time coding away things that were needed for my business and for my personal projects and it's fair. Nobody in Open Source world is obligated to code for you! Not in Wordpress world either - they, for that matter had quite lousy software for quite a while until they did more work on fixing it and it only happened because they have a commercial enterprise that has different interests then Wikimedia foundation. All that being said, I think there is a great opportunity for MW to get even larger piece of corporate knowledge management market and if you or somebody else wants to go there and make your money on it, go ahead - companies like Yaron's WikiWorks, for example will be happy to work with you on it - they live and breath Mediawikis. Just don't expect that somebody will do work for you for free only because Wikimedia foundation is non-for-profit and their projects don't charge money. We all need to eat and software developers are expansive, especially good ones, especially those who can do both complex and user friendly software. Don't insult people by saying that they didn't make something you need, they already spend time that they could've spent on their families. Thank you, Sergey -- Sergey Chernyshev http://www.sergeychernyshev.com/ On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 5:34 PM, fl foxyloxy.wikime...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, 3 Mar 2010 10:31 pm, Platonides wrote: fl wrote: I would disagree. The Wikimedia software has been released under an open source license: While the WMF certainly has no obligation to improve the software, they most definately have an obligation to release the source code to third-parties. Wrong. They do it, and it's consistent with their mission, but they have no obligation to do that. They could even have MediaWiki be closed source software. No, they can't. As far as I am aware, MediaWiki is released under the GNU General Public License[1], which stipulates, among other things, the requirement to release a program's source code to the public and to release any derived changes under the same license[2]. If the WMF were to try and convert MediaWiki to a closed source project, they would be liable to legal actions against them. [1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Version [2] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html -- fl ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
fl wrote: No, they can't. As far as I am aware, MediaWiki is released under the GNU General Public License[1], which stipulates, among other things, the requirement to release a program's source code to the public and to release any derived changes under the same license[2]. If the WMF were to try and convert MediaWiki to a closed source project, they would be liable to legal actions against them. That requirement is only valid if they distribute the changed version (and only for people which get that version). They could improve mediawiki and keep the changes to themselves. There are many reasons that would be a really bad idea. But from a strictly legal POV, they can do it. For a license which requires releasing the code to people browsing the site, see the Affero GPL. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
I'm in somewhat of a unique position to comment on this, since I both do MediaWiki extension development, and run a MediaWiki consulting company (shameless plug: wikiworks.com) - so I personally have a financial interest in making MediaWiki more popular and more easy-to-use. I also tend to hear a lot about the specific frustrations people have with MediaWiki, which has led to my development of certain extensions, like Admin Links, which defines a page meant to serve as a control panel for administrators: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Admin_Links Troll-like as the original email was, :) it brought up some fairly common complaints. The basic answer to these is that they are, in fact, being addressed: as a few people noted, the usability initiative has already created a much nicer skin, Vector; and a planned project for the upcoming Google Summer of Code is to provide a way to install and manage extensions via the web browser, the way WordPress does it. A few extensions, like Configure, also allow for a web-based substitute for editing LocalSettings.php, though they could stand some improvement. Finally, on the more general subject of Wikimedia's relationship to MediaWiki: I do think it would be nice if Wikimedia, and outside MediaWiki developers, were more aware of, and more positive about, MediaWiki's popularity in the outside world. It's used very heavily as an enterprise wiki around the world, and I think for good reason: it's robust, stable, very feature-rich, heavily translated, and when used with the set of extensions around Semantic MediaWiki I think it's in a class of its own. I just think a better answer when people ask about problems with MediaWiki is to say I don't know, or I think someone's working on that, rather than MediaWiki is intended for use by Wikimedia projects, and if you have a problem using it, you should switch to another wiki application. First, for many uses there is no better wiki software, especially not for the cost; and second, there are a lot of people, especially among extension developers but also in general, who are trying to improve MediaWiki as a corporate/organizational application. I just think it would be nice if more people celebrated MediaWiki's popularity, instead of ignoring or trying to discourage it. :) -Yaron ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
[Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
I hope I am emailing this to the right group. My concern was about mediawiki and it's limitations, as well as it's outdated methods. As someone wo runs a wiki, I've gone through a lot of frustrations. If Wordpress is like Windows 7, then Mediawiki is Windows 2000. Very outdated GUI, outdated ways of doing things,for example using ftp to edit the settings of the wiki instead of having a direct interface like Wordpress. Mediawiki makes millions more than Wordpress does too, why can't the money be put into making a modern product instead of in pockets of the people who run it? I know Wordpress and Mediawiki serve two different purposes, but that's not the point. The point is, one is modern and user friendly (Wordpress), and the other (Mediawiki) is not. Other complaints: -Default skins are boring -Very limited in being able to make the wiki look nice like you could with a normal webpage. -A major pain to update! Wordpress upgrades are so simple. -Better customization so people can get a wiki the way they want. It should be more like the wikis on wikia, except without me having to learn css and php to make those types of customizations. Give me some option, some places to put widgets. Not every wiki is going to be as formal as the ones on wikimedia sites. And don't the people at Wikimedia commons get tired of always having to make changes so it actually suits their site? If they had some of the options from the get go, i'm sure they'd appreciate it too. -I don't want to go to my ftp to download my local settings file, add a few lines then reupload it. This is caveman-like behavior for the modern internet. -Being able to manage extensions like wordpress does. In short, it's time to spend some money from those millions of dollars from donations to make this software more modern. Being stubborn in modernizing it will only make this software less relevant in the future if other wiki software companies are willing to do things the people at Wikimedia aren't. Thank you ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
I hope I am emailing this to the right group. My concern was about mediawiki and it's limitations, as well as it's outdated methods. As someone wo runs a wiki, I've gone through a lot of frustrations. This is likely the right list. If Wordpress is like Windows 7, then Mediawiki is Windows 2000. Very outdated GUI, outdated ways of doing things,for example using ftp to edit the settings of the wiki instead of having a direct interface like Wordpress. Mediawiki makes millions more than Wordpress does too, why can't the money be put into making a modern product instead of in pockets of the people who run it? I know Wordpress and Mediawiki serve two different purposes, but that's not the point. The point is, one is modern and user friendly (Wordpress), and the other (Mediawiki) is not. Other complaints: -Default skins are boring Are you aware of the Wikipedia usability initiative? Have you seen the new skin they are creating (Vector), or the awesome new features they are adding? If not, please see the usability wiki: http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page The skin system is also likely to have a major update in a very future version of MediaWiki. Look through this list's archives, the discussion was fairly recent. -Very limited in being able to make the wiki look nice like you could with a normal webpage. Minus making new skins (which is fairly difficuly), I think this is a matter of opinion and skill. -A major pain to update! Wordpress upgrades are so simple. I don't really find updates to be terribly difficult. You mostly just check out (or download) the newest version, and run update.php. This is probably more difficult without shell access. I'd like to mention that from a security perspective, I like the fact that by default MediaWiki does not allow Wordpress style upgrades and code modifications. MediaWiki exploits may lead to vandalism, but Wordpress exploits generally lead to shell or root access, and compromise of all of your other applications. -Better customization so people can get a wiki the way they want. It should be more like the wikis on wikia, except without me having to learn css and php to make those types of customizations. Give me some option, some places to put widgets. Not every wiki is going to be as formal as the ones on wikimedia sites. And don't the people at Wikimedia commons get tired of always having to make changes so it actually suits their site? If they had some of the options from the get go, i'm sure they'd appreciate it too. -I don't want to go to my ftp to download my local settings file, add a few lines then reupload it. This is caveman-like behavior for the modern internet. Get a host that supports SSH. Use VI, Emacs, nano, pico, etc. -Being able to manage extensions like wordpress does. It looks like someone may try to tackle this as a summer of code project: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Jeroen_De_Dauw/GSoC2010 In short, it's time to spend some money from those millions of dollars from donations to make this software more modern. Being stubborn in modernizing it will only make this software less relevant in the future if other wiki software companies are willing to do things the people at Wikimedia aren't. MediaWiki is written primarily for use for Wikimedia foundation sites. They generously make the software usable for third party sites, but they have no obligation to do so. If the users of Wikimedia foundation sites are happy with the software, and end-users are happy with the Wikimedia foundation sites (and I'd say thats a resounding yes), then the millions going to the Wikimedia foundation are well spent. You are more than welcome to submit patches, and/or help develop the features you want. I maintain a number of extensions, and have worked with the MediaWiki code base for a number of years. I've found the Wikimedia foundation, and the core developers to be very welcoming of improvements to the software. Respectfully, Ryan Lane ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 8:30 PM, Chris Lewis yecheondigi...@yahoo.com wrote: I hope I am emailing this to the right group. My concern was about mediawiki and it's limitations, as well as it's outdated methods. As someone wo runs a wiki, I've gone through a lot of frustrations. If Wordpress is like Windows 7, then Mediawiki is Windows 2000. Very outdated GUI, outdated ways of doing things,for example using ftp to edit the settings of the wiki instead of having a direct interface like Wordpress. Mediawiki makes millions more than Wordpress does too, why can't the money be put into making a modern product instead of in pockets of the people who run it? I know Wordpress and Mediawiki serve two different purposes, but that's not the point. The point is, one is modern and user friendly (Wordpress), and the other (Mediawiki) is not. Other complaints: -Default skins are boring -Very limited in being able to make the wiki look nice like you could with a normal webpage. -A major pain to update! Wordpress upgrades are so simple. -Better customization so people can get a wiki the way they want. It should be more like the wikis on wikia, except without me having to learn css and php to make those types of customizations. Give me some option, some places to put widgets. Not every wiki is going to be as formal as the ones on wikimedia sites. And don't the people at Wikimedia commons get tired of always having to make changes so it actually suits their site? If they had some of the options from the get go, i'm sure they'd appreciate it too. -I don't want to go to my ftp to download my local settings file, add a few lines then reupload it. This is caveman-like behavior for the modern internet. -Being able to manage extensions like wordpress does. In short, it's time to spend some money from those millions of dollars from donations to make this software more modern. Being stubborn in modernizing it will only make this software less relevant in the future if other wiki software companies are willing to do things the people at Wikimedia aren't. Thank you This is not a wrong list for this, though there's no perfect one. All of this in my humble opinion - and please keep in mind that I'm not a core developer of the MW code, though I do PHP and other programming and web apps design on and off... There have been for several years at least on and off extensive discussions about the software platform, a next-generation MediaWiki concept, etc. In general, such discussions have ended when backwards compatibility problems poke up. The existing software set is extremely complicated and featureful - and, regrettably, most of that complexity and features set is in active use within the Wikipedia and related sites environments. A clean-sheet design which could throw out compatibility would undoubtedly be easier and cleaner and could be done with reasonable chances of project success. However, converting Wikipedia and related sites to a non-backwards-compatible environment seems ruinously impractical at the moment. The reality of the situation is that MediaWiki isn't the Wikimedia Foundation's product; the information content in Wikipedia and the other projects is the WMF's product, and the MediaWiki software is a spinoff. To the degree that MediaWiki is useful to people, that's great. To the degree that changes to the software would negatively affect the information in Wikipedia and other projects, though, the software is very much a secondary concern. In this sense, the software is very user driven, but it's not driven by the median installation (many thousands of small MW wikis out there), but by the one huge one (Wikipedia and related projects). Donations to the Foundation are nearly entirely focused on the information content and delivery - with some acknowledgement that software development has to happen to support that - but not donations intended to improve the software itself. Adding in a backwards compatibility mode to a new clean-sheet project seems to more or less require grafting a full MediaWiki installation on the side as a plugin module, as currently understood, which more or less renders the point of a new clean-sheet project moot. One could possibly design a new wiki system as a pass-through layer, with MW as a back end and with functionality being migrated forwards into the new system over time as people got used to it. I think there's an opportunity either for a reconceptualized enterprise oriented MW like system, but done in a clean sheet project and partly or entirely outside the Wikimedia Foundation, or for such a project as a passthrough layer intended to eventually replace MW and done within the Foundation. Whether either of these will ever happen I don't know. The most common Wikis seem to be MediaWiki (with all its warts), Twiki (with all its lack of functionality and administrative warts), and SharePoint (*cough*gack* - though I use it,
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
One could possibly design a new wiki system as a pass-through layer, with MW as a back end and with functionality being migrated forwards into the new system over time as people got used to it. I think there's an opportunity either for a reconceptualized enterprise oriented MW like system, but done in a clean sheet project and partly or entirely outside the Wikimedia Foundation, or for such a project as a passthrough layer intended to eventually replace MW and done within the Foundation. Whether either of these will ever happen I don't know. The most common Wikis seem to be MediaWiki (with all its warts), Twiki (with all its lack of functionality and administrative warts), and SharePoint (*cough*gack* - though I use it, too). None of these is optimal for the typical wiki environment, users or administrators. We seem to be muddling through. Isn't this what Mindtouch Deki did? Deki is/was a fork of MediaWiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindTouch_Deki Confluence is also a fairly heavily used enterprise wiki. Respectfully, Ryan Lane ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 9:06 PM, Ryan Lane rlan...@gmail.com wrote: One could possibly design a new wiki system as a pass-through layer, with MW as a back end and with functionality being migrated forwards into the new system over time as people got used to it. I think there's an opportunity either for a reconceptualized enterprise oriented MW like system, but done in a clean sheet project and partly or entirely outside the Wikimedia Foundation, or for such a project as a passthrough layer intended to eventually replace MW and done within the Foundation. Whether either of these will ever happen I don't know. The most common Wikis seem to be MediaWiki (with all its warts), Twiki (with all its lack of functionality and administrative warts), and SharePoint (*cough*gack* - though I use it, too). None of these is optimal for the typical wiki environment, users or administrators. We seem to be muddling through. Isn't this what Mindtouch Deki did? Deki is/was a fork of MediaWiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindTouch_Deki Ah, learn something new every day. Confluence is also a fairly heavily used enterprise wiki. I have never met a Confluence environment in the wild; overall user statistics I am aware of, and my personal experience, are that MW, Twiki, and Sharepoint dominate actual usage. If you have better stats, I'm all ears. I am not in any way a Confluence opponent, and a couple of people I respect a lot like it, but I've never found an actual user out there. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On 2 March 2010 20:30, Chris Lewis yecheondigi...@yahoo.com wrote: Mediawiki makes millions more than Wordpress does too, why can't the money be put into making a modern product instead of in pockets of the people who run it? The Wikimedia Foundation makes millions more than Wordpress, but the Foundation is running a top 5 website. That they are able to do that on just a few million is amazing. The other top 5 sites are things like Google than spend billions. Maintaining and improving Mediawiki is just one of the things the Foundation does with its relatively small budget. The only money going into the pockets of the people that run the Foundation is their very reasonable salaries. The board get nothing (except their actual expenses, and some don't even claim those) and there are no shareholders getting profits (the WMF is a charity). ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 5:57 AM, Ryan Lane rlan...@gmail.com wrote: I don't really find updates to be terribly difficult. You mostly just check out (or download) the newest version, and run update.php. This is probably more difficult without shell access. With Wordpress upgrades it's even easier: two clicks and you're done (okay, except if you run multi-user WP setups). Same for extension updates. It even *notifies* you for updates, especially for security-critical - if you don't follow the -announce lists and subsequently never update, your wiki can and will be open to any security issue coming up. -I don't want to go to my ftp to download my local settings file, add a few lines then reupload it. This is caveman-like behavior for the modern internet. Get a host that supports SSH. Use VI, Emacs, nano, pico, etc. HAHAHA, sorry but this way of thinking is stone-age. Who are we to require our users to get more expensive hosting AND knowledge of VI/Emacs (a newbie most likely won't have HEARD of ssh, vi and emacs!) just for being able to modify the core settings of a wiki without having the FTP extra work? Come on, it's so easy to make a web-based settings editor. Mighta even be lots easier to just move all settings stuff except MySQL data into the DB. Marco -- VMSoft GbR Nabburger Str. 15 81737 München Geschäftsführer: Marco Schuster, Volker Hemmert http://vmsoft-gbr.de ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 3/3/2010 12:36 AM, Marco Schuster wrote: With Wordpress upgrades it's even easier: two clicks and you're done (okay, except if you run multi-user WP setups). Same for extension updates. It even *notifies* you for updates, especially for security-critical - if you don't follow the -announce lists and subsequently never update, your wiki can and will be open to any security issue coming up. I think that's more of a personal choice. Some users (like you) might like their software downloading random data and writing it to your disks and phoning home unknown data whenever it feels like, when others don't think software should do that. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJLjgT4AAoJEL+AqFCTAyc22J4H/0Um0VMeAPLRqrTskR7lh19y rlDUVDV5ClCoxhP7Liq95Sh+OBJrdGctpPYzMi0moMJElvc3UjZVFodO26bEOZ+H nTAtMTWItL4ejTT3ZuJmIRPyILLocYpyqhmQRLIIDD+7KiP5JyZExZupdkUPYr0A ItxDJWC4IIV7rmt8Bzz/UbH18XKcy/2RpopSMjYZfGhdqlVO85ApDaSR8R9FUeO9 NIe7fRcnwFGyDVX2hVnlGqhHJfiekofmvulxZQlTZzVvnnmMYQW3K8kQt3gXmgfE j4yGIgnXhVfnmrHKRvEU/sxrsnMcXtFk+DY2UhTNMuPGMQCdfoH+CAXzur019Oo= =wsde -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On Wed, 3 Mar 2010 12:57 pm, Ryan Lane wrote: [snip] MediaWiki is written primarily for use for Wikimedia foundation sites. They generously make the software usable for third party sites, but they have no obligation to do so. [snip] I would disagree. The Wikimedia software has been released under an open source license: While the WMF certainly has no obligation to improve the software, they most definately have an obligation to release the source code to third-parties. -- fl ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] modernizing mediawiki
On 3 March 2010 05:26, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: If you have better stats, I'm all ears. I am not in any way a Confluence opponent, and a couple of people I respect a lot like it, but I've never found an actual user out there. All of the BBC. It's their intranet wiki. Runs on four large Dell 2950s, serving ~26k users. (I was one of the sysadmins for it for a while.) - d. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
