Cube Wiki, revisited

by Aardappel_ on 07/13/2006 02:18, 39 messages, last message: 08/18/2006 23:33, 9003 views, last view: 04/15/2024 02:56

Many of you know that we had a Wiki, which I hosted on strlen.com, which got attacked by link farm bots to the point that it was unusable. I killed the wiki, preserving most of its content.

But the recent talk about documentation made me realize that we NEED a wiki. There is a lot of knowledge floating around between community members, and we are repeating ourselves. And updating the docs to cover everything from every angle is impossible... besides, a wiki is fun!

But not like last time. I don't want to host it myself anymore, so we don't have administration/security issues. Also, I don't want an FFA wiki, I want to give only known community members write access.

So in this thread, give your suggestions. First of all the question is which "hosted wiki" to go with. I have the following requirements:

1. must allow me to give write access to specific users only
2. must allow me to easily export the entire wiki as a set of static HTML pages (such that it can be included in the distribution as documentation).
3. the host must be a company that is reasonably "well established", i.e. doesn't give us the trouble that in a year it suddenly goes under etc.
4. It must be free
5. If any ads, preferably only google ads.

Some ones that may be good:

http://www.jot.com/ - has tons of cool features
http://www.wikispaces.com/ - nice and streamlined
http://wikia.com/ - very nice, but doesn't seem to support requirement 1 :(

I haven't been able to find out if any of these support requirement 2...

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#1: HTML copy

by rancor on 07/13/2006 06:18

As far as 2., if the wiki in question has a listing of pages, spidering the entire thing would be a feasible way to get an html copy.

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#2: Some research

by MeatROme on 07/13/2006 16:08

For starters - anyone wanting to help hunt down the perfect wiki for us :
http://www.wikimatrix.org/wizard.php

:)

I took a look at your three but all fell short on one or more aspects if I'm not mistaken.

_wikia.com_ for example does have AUTH, but discourages it (they call it temporary lock) but it might be worth more scrutiny, to check "how much" they'd mind a wiki locking itself in.

_jot.com_ doesn't appear to be hosted for free.

_wikispaces.com_ has ads of unknown origin and visitors can edit freely.

Well the WikiMatrix showed me some more candidates that (with at least some perusal) seemed to fulfill 1-5:
http://www.wikimatrix.org/wizard.php?d%5Bbranding%5D=&d%5Bdomain%5D=&d%5Bflag%5D=2&d%5Bwysiwyg%5D=&d%5Bhistory%5D=&d%5Bgo%5D=1

of those I would say my Top 3 are :

1) http://www.stikipad.com/features/
2) http://www.nexdo.com/Pricing.jsp
3) http://www.centraldesktop.com/pricing

...not fantastic, yeah; but maybe usable...

But I can't resist to mention the host-it-yourself bracket is a lot bigger.

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#3: Security

by Greywhind on 07/13/2006 18:18

In terms of security - I check a wiki that was attacked constantly by bots a few weeks back, and finally they found a solution - they made a script so that at the bottom of each edit page is a random, simple math problem. Like 7 + 6 = ?. If that is correctly filled in, the edit goes through. Otherwise, it fails. It worked perfectly - there hasn't been a single successful attack since.

To see what I'm talking about, go to www.robowiki.net

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#4: Re: Security

by eihrul on 07/13/2006 20:23, refers to #3

Not good enough. You need to protect against clueless people posting to the wiki too.

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#5: ..

by _Fanatic on 07/13/2006 20:45

I'd be happy to host something on my server, either custom written or an open source app.

I have Cold Fusion and MS SQL 2000. Ad free of course.

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#6: Re: ..

by shadow,516 on 07/13/2006 20:59, refers to #5

Did anyone tell you recently that you kick ass?

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#7: A biased opinion...

by isaacgarcia on 07/13/2006 21:42

But, Central Desktop *does* allow you to export all of your files, documents and wiki-pages as html pages.
(Requirement #2 from the list above).

We have a Free Version...but its a limited version that I don't think will meet your needs (we are running a business over here :>). That being said, we've around for more than 15 months and have a cash-flow positive business...and we are *not* beholden to any VCs.

We don't do ads either.

And you can set user-specific permissions.

Isaac Garcia
http://www.centraldesktop.com

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#8: ..

by Passa on 07/13/2006 23:56

Simple, choose a wiki that can limit access to user accounts of your choosing. And like eihrul said, alot of clueless people will try to update it. There are many members here (myself included) who would love to help out with the wiki.

My servers there if you need it.

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#9: Re: Some research

by Aardappel_ on 07/14/2006 01:35, refers to #2

indeed, jotspot's free version is too limited, and wikia doesn't allow access permissions really, so both are out.

You say wikispaces doesn't allow access control, but from all info I see it does, so it is still an option. The ad thing is debatable, main thing is that its not obnoxious.

The 3 options you mention all seem to be rather restrictive for the free options.

I'd be ok with someone like Fanatic hosting it. It's not that I can't host it myself either... just it requires quite a bit of time investment to make sure you know everything about a particular wiki software, install it correctly, admin it etc. I'd rather not burden anyone with it if we can find decent hosted wiki.

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#10: so, try this:

by Aardappel_ on 07/14/2006 01:54

I made a sample wiki here:

http://cube.wikispaces.com/

it feels nice and simple... it is set up that only members which I add can edit. So those of you visiting should not be able to edit. I added eihrul as a member, give me an email address if you want me to add you too.

Also, export to html is painless and generates clean pages with no extra crap.

There seem to be no ads yet.

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#11: There are ads.

by Greywhind on 07/14/2006 02:53

I see ads - they're on the right side, google ads.

Not at all bad though.

I like the style of the wiki - a lot like newer Mac Aqua apps.

Overall, I give it a thumbs up!

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#12: Re: so, try this:

by Passa on 07/14/2006 05:51, refers to #10

I don't mind it at all, its quite decent. Only bitch would be the Google ads, but Google ads are pretty low profile anyway, and theres no popups or anything.

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#13: Good idea.

by drian@job001 on 07/14/2006 17:13

Heh, I though the same a week ago when I talked with makkE about wikis. I then installed MediaWiki in the work over lunchtime. I thought about providing the community the possilibity to build a cube/sauer/eisenstern information platform because its definately worth it.

http://wiki.cubers.net
(fresh installation)

It's the wiki that's used for wikipedia. Im not sure about 2., I read about a html-exporter but didn't test it. So if you don't find a good wiki-provider I can give you full wiki/mysql/ftp access to that subdomain.

drian

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#14: Re: Good idea.

by Aardappel_ on 07/14/2006 23:33, refers to #13

that is an option too... that domain is yours, and you'll be supporting it?

I suppose mediawiki can easily be configured to be modifiable only by certain people?

Can the license be changed to something not GNU related?

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#15: Re: Good idea.

by Passa on 07/14/2006 23:57, refers to #13

I like that wiki.. alot. And its used by wikipedia, hence most people will find it easy to use and familiar.

If drian is home hosting, get others who can host to mirror the wiki, in case drian's goes down.

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#16: Re: Good idea.

by >driAn<. on 07/15/2006 14:48, refers to #14

Yes, the cubers.net domain is mine and I can support it. The server is from the shared-hosting provider hostony.com.

> I suppose mediawiki can easily be configured to be modifiable only by certain people?

Sure.

> Can the license be changed to something not GNU related?

That's only the default setting, it can be changed to any other license.

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#17: lets get going...

by Aardappel_ on 07/28/2006 01:58

Ok, after some more experimenting with options, I have decided to go with wikispaces.com. It is really nice and easy to use, yet fits all our requirements perfectly. It allows easy exporting of the data to both HTML and wiki-markup, so we are guaranteed that our work will be usuable either as documentation or with mediawiki, if we ever want to.

Sofar I have added myself, eihrul, and MeatROme as authors. This wiki can only be edited by known members, not by the public at large. If you would like to help, the only requirement is that I know you, i.e. you are a known quantity on this forum. Email me, or mention your email address in this forum, and I will add you to the wiki.

again, the url is: http://cube.wikispaces.com/

In terms of content, we will at first focus on any text that is complementary to the main documentation, but if all goes well, we might eventually transfer the main documentation into the wiki so it can more easily be extended.

In terms of structure, try to apply common sense. One of the cool things about the wiki is of course that the documentation can easily be restructured.

Like last time, if contributors want to scan the forums for useful faqs and such, that be helpful.

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#18: Re: lets get going...

by Aardappel_ on 07/28/2006 02:00, refers to #17

oh and... from now on every release will contain a local copy of the wiki as add-on documentation... eventually it may replace it.

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#19: Re: lets get going...

by shadow,516 on 07/28/2006 07:41, refers to #18

Love to help

My email addy is correct btw.

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#20: Re: lets get going...

by >driAn<. on 07/28/2006 21:40, refers to #17

:)

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