So, this is kind of a sideways suggestion, but... we just moved
Wikitravel to a Web hosting service (
xlinternet.com). It's working
pretty much great, right out of the box.
Considering that MediaWiki runs on some pretty standard software (PHP,
mySQL), I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to leave most of the
yucky sysadmining problems up to folks who make it their business. I'm
sure that a project as big as Wikimedia could get some special
treatment.
I don't know what kind of bandwidth and storage requirements Wikimedia
has, but I doubt that they'd be insurmountable with any given Web
hosting service.
Just a suggestion to consider.
~ESP
--
Evan Prodromou <evan(a)wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel -
http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide