[Discuss] Opinions needed: wiki software

[bill at horne.net (Bill Horne)]

On 3/11/2013 10:06 AM, Peter Jalajas wrote:
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2013 13:10:04 -0400
>> From: Bill Horne
>> To: discuss at blu.org
>> Subject: [Discuss] Opinions needed: wiki software
>>
>> I've been asked to help improve a wiki site that is currently using
>> Mediawiki, and I'm seeking
>> information about alternative wiki packages which might be a better
>> match for the uses
>> that are needed.
> Hi Bill,
>
> Can you give us a sense of the scale and complexity of their needs?

I guess some more info won't hurt: the site is http://www.big-8.org/ . 
It is hosted on a server
owned by the late Alexander Bartolich, who was the Chairman of the Big-8 
Board, of which
I'm a member. The site has remained online through the kindness of his 
heirs, but of
course that can't continue forever, and updating the software or 
deleting users or
doing other things that require root access will necessitate moving it 
to another server
at some point.

The mysqldump output from the existing db is about 22MB in size, so this 
isn't a very large
site. I want to be sure that I make the best choice for its replacement, 
and that's why
I'm posting these questions to the BLU. This is, of course, the classic 
"point of pain"
debate: do I introduce a new paradigm and re-educate the users, or try 
to make the
old one fit?

So the first question is "How much effort will it take to move the 
existing wiki"?
I installed Mediawiki 1.20 on a test machine with no problems. If we're 
going to keep
using Mediawiki, I need to move the data.

  * Is there a way to transfer the content when the old site is on v
    1.18 of
    Mediawiki and the current version is 1.20? I tried to do it via an SQL
    dump, but that didn't work, so I'm looking for a way to "roll" the db
    into the new release.  I don't want to backport the new install to v1.18
    unless that's the only option.

  * Can I use the "export" and "import" options of Mediawiki to move
    all the pages over? I tried /that/, and had mixed success: the "splash"
    page didn't change, although it looks like the documents were moved.

Next up on the list is the question "If not Mediawiki, then what"?

  * Can other wiki packages import the XML-formatted data that I
    exported from the old server? Which ones?
  * Are there more appropriate systems, wiki or other, that would
    be a better fit for a small volunteer organization with a limited
    number of technical members?


I will, of course, research the wiki and other options that Peter and 
other BLU members
have suggested, but the most important question at this point in the 
process is
not of /which/ wiki to use, but whether a wiki is the best option: the 
biggest cost
I need to consider is the time of the volunteers, and thus of whether a new
package is justified. I've only spent about five hours of time, but now 
I'm at the
"did I really want to do /that/?" phase of this project, so I appreciate 
your help:
I think it's worth doing, but I want to do it right.

Bill

-- 
Bill Horne
339-364-8487